The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-02-03
LONDON FIRE PERiLS.
a Portion of the Metropolis Ina6equately
Protected Against Fire.

Protected Against Fire.
| When the bulletins of the afternoon pa
| pers contained the alarming. though rather
vague, news of big fire in London, man
asked me if l thought the entire city was
| likely to be consumed. 1t did not seem
very probable to me that the immense col
| lection of cities, towns and villages, cover
ting perhaps $50 square miles, that is called
London, would meet the fate of Chicago.
| The fact that the Thames river divides
| London roughly into two parts makes such
! fiery doom for the whole metropolis well
nigh impossible. But there are other rea-
| sons, of course, in plenty. The absence of
| frame houses and of fimsy structures of
| brick that are little better than wood in
the face of a confagration Is a great OBJ
stacle to the spread of fire in London.
When the London of Charles lis time
was burned, in 1866, frame houses FREEDOM
mated, and the single bridge that SPAWNED
the Thames, London bridge, with its street
of wooden houses, was n train to carry the
fire to the south side of the river, although
in those days Southwark was but little
more than village II was singular how
the Carpenters company kept control Of
the building trade until the great fire set
people to thinking about the infammabil-
ity of wood.
Even as late as 1850 ten years before the
great fire, we find che Carpenters COM
pany-which may be compared in its gen
eral influence and control of the trade to
our trade unions memOrializing parlia
ment TO prohibit the use OF stone and brick
for buildings because, as they humorously
put it, ''the timber buildings are more
commodioUs for this city than brick" But
after the fire parliament made short work
of frame buildings, and the act which was
passed then forbidding the use of wood ex-
cept for floors, windows, doors and shop
fronts has been practically in existence
ever since The result has been that in
spite of narrow streets and a VIGOROUSLY
insufficient fire service, London has escaped
widespread fires; although the fire losses
have been far heavier than they ought to
be in a city of LoDdon's wealth and civil
ZatiOn.
A feature of a fire in Victoria street,
which the American correspondent noted
derisively, was the number of hand engines
which still cucumber the London fire
brigade. l see by report Of the London
fire department, published in 1897, that it
owned then forty-fve steam fire engines
and seventy-eight six inch manual fire en-
kiutN anu buiA y seven MANU- tilSfuSH Hiia4tA
six inch. There have been some improve
ments made in the department since Capt.
Shaw, its chief. visited America in 1887,
but the hand engines are still in the ma
jority no doubt.
Pittsburg has about twenty-five steam
fire engines, or half as many As London,
with, suppose, less than tenth of the
area to protect. II is singular that the
London fire insurance companies and the
merchants do not force the authorities TO
remodel the fire service on the American
plan. The only particular to which the
Londoners can point with pride Ia the per
sonnet OF the brigade. They are a very fine
set of men physically-picked men, invari-
ably, from the English navy it being the
rule Of the London department to recruit
their force with sailors solely.-Pittsburg
Chronicle