Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-05-17
Thinks Pittsburg's Large River Front
age Should Have Much Bet
ter Protection.
PEOPLE WHO MAKE CLERKS TIRED.
Too Many Frills Slung Around Signatures
on Hotel Registers by Some
Cranks Who Travel.
BOTS CRAZE FOR BASEBALL SHOES.
Mr. Mutre PrOclaims His Faith in the Honesty Of the
Umpire.

Walter A Eytinge is New Yorker who
has spent the last five or six days in the
city. He had not been here for ten years
and was much surprised at the growth and
extension of the city. He thinks the transit
facilities are second to none il the country.
Mr.. Eytinge was at one time on the New
York Fire Department and claims sire
fighting" as one of his hobbies. When a
DISPATCH reporter met him at the Du-
quesne Hotel yesterday he had been read
ing an argument in which it was claimed
that either a fre-boa5 or water-tower would
be perfectly useless in city like Pittsburg;
the former because it could only play within
q very limited distance from the river and
the latter because the engines used by the
city have not power sufficient to drive water
through it.
Mr.. Eytings was very wroth over these
statements 'The man who wrote that, he
said, chad not the least knowledge of what
he was talking about. He says that fire.
boat would take long time to get to the
scene of fire, and that messenger would
have to be sent to it to notify it of the fire.
He also says that number of high class
freboat would cost, and that these engines
would throw water as high as water tower
would
Pittsburg Well Located for Fireboat.
'All this is the sheerest nonsense, and
show his complete ignorance of the subject.
In the first place, if any city is most admir-
ably situated for the purposes of freboat
it is Pittsburg. You have about Is miles of
river frontage, and the shallow water makes
it necessary that your boats are driven by
side wheels or end wheels, the fastest
method of propulsion known to marine
construction. The necessity for employing
side wheels would enable your tireboats to
travel with as much speed as your engines
do, and would beat the New York
boats, which use propellers. Regarding
notifying the boat of fire; how is it done
In New York? BY message? Well, no!
The boats have regular stations connected
by telegraph with the Central station, and
are notified in the same way the houses are.
When the alarm comes the man on watch
disconnects the wires the pilot signals the
engineer, the cable is slipped automatically
and the boat moves off to the fire under
full head of steam. A fire boat needs no
more men than an engine company; that is,
two officers and ten men, as in the New
York department, and in the event of pro-
tracted fire occurring, necessirating two or
three days work-and such a fire may oc-
cur-the engines can all be released, and
the fire boat, resting easily at the wharf,
can continue discharging volumes Of water
equal to the joint capacity of several en-
gines. How? Very easily. The reason
why the capacity of the fire engine is linn
tied is because TO make it any stronger, and
consequently more powerful, would necessi-
tate vast increase in weight and make it
difficult to haul, whereas the fire boat pumps
can be made of unlimited capacity, and by
means of Siamese connections can distribute
eight or nine streams to any distance and
under heavy pressure.
Pressing Need of Fire Boat.
ffThese are not simply assertions They
are facts, which have been demonstrated in
New York, which has three ireboats, Bos-
ton two and Chicago one. This city needs
q freboat. The fire on the river the other
night would have been extinguished in 20
minutes by New York boat, which would
open fire from its 'blunderbuss' of ten
streams and choke it by mere force of
pressure.
SIN city where high buildings are the
rule, water tower is absolutely essential
The claim that the Pittsburg engines have
not power enough to lift water through
tower is absurd, and is made be-
cause the author knows nothing about
the apparatus. He forgets, or does not
know, that the combined force of one,
two, three or more engines if necessary can
be centered in the tower, and volume of
water shot through it under a pressure
which will deluge the biggest building in
the city on very short order. 1 have travelled
through the country from Maine to the
slope and have visited every department be-
tween these points, and therefore can claim
10 know a little about fire matters and 1
feel that don't exaggerate when I say that
this city only lacks a freboat and water
tower to be as well equipped in ire-fghting
facilities as any city in the country, for the
engines are of a class that cannot be ex-
ce1ed and the men seem to know their bust
Ill