The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1893-12-23
THE FIRE EALARM SYSTEM
Underwriters Want a Central
Office Established Den
mead's Opinion.

Superintendent Brown of the Fire Depart
ment this morning received communication
from the Hudson County Fire Underwriters
Association requesting him to prepare. a list
of the false alarms which have been sent in
from various street boxes during the past
year. The Underwriters Association is
making an active fight for new alarm sys-
TEN in this city and has interested the Board
of Finance in the matter At the meeting of
the Board of Finance on Wednesday evening
a committee from the Underwriters Associ-
alton will be present and explain the adj
vantages of the Central system and will
show how the losses at fires have been in
creased by the system now in use.
The letter speaks of the big fire at Essex
and Green streets last January, where $10,-
600 went up in smoke. The underwriters
say that had not the firemen been confused
by the false alarm the loss would not have
amounted to more than few hun dred dol
lars. During the past few weeks there have
been a number of queer alarms, and the
underwriters will quote these to prove that
the system is not to be relied upon.
DENEiEAD'S OPINION.
Superintendent Brown, however, says that
the fault is with the wires and not the sys-
TEN, and Chief Engineer Denmead, who has
had as much experience as any man in the
department is of the same opinion. Mr..
Denmead says that if the wires were prop
arly insulated there would be no trouble.
THE present system" says he, ''is as good
as any that could be secured. A central
system would cost at least $25,
0OO, and to maintain it three
experienced operators would have to be
kept in constant service To prove that the
trouble can be avoided by properly insulated
wires, the underwriters should inspect the
WI wi hn of T,0r f,S
factory and the large lumber yards in that
vicinity with headquarters The firms in
this vicinity recognized the advantages of the
insulated wire and put it up at their own
expense. The result is that we never
have trouble with boxes in that
section. On Wednesday night an alarm
came in from box No. IA, which is located at
Gregory and Montgomery streets. The wire
of this box was crossed by heavily charged
trolley wire, and the magnets were burned
OF course this box could not be used until it
was repaired.
ANOTHER ILLUSTRATION.
another case which illustrates how mis-
night There was slight fire in the vicinity
of box No. q on Erie stree A boy
secured box key and sent in an alarm. He
imagined that to send in an alarm from
the box it must be pulled twenty
times He pulled the hook and when twenty
four blows were struck at headquarters he
started in to pull the other twenty-six, of
course everything was turned topsey turvey.
l went to Box No. "A and found no fire
Fortunately, however, Superintendent of
Telegraph Speicher was in the battery room
at the time and noticed that something was
wrong. He located the box and sent out the
right alarm. Now, was this fault of the
system? But such people as the Under
writers Immediately jump to the conclusion
that the system is at fault without first in
vestigating the particulars"