Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-08-25
LONDON IS ISOLATED
Fire Cuts Off Geographic
Communication With World.
CENTRAL OFFICE IN FLAMES
Thousand Employees, Majority Of
Them Women, Escape.
LOSS HEAVY: NO CASUALTIES
Will Take Dsy5 to Repair Damage.
Thousands of Messages
Accommodating.
CENTRAL OFFICE IN FLAMES
LOSS HEAVY: NO CASUALTIES

LON DON. August g4.-ILOndon tonight
is entirely cut off from Geographic COM
| munication with the rest of the country
and with the continent. and for time
connection with America was severed. as
the result of a fierce fire this evening in
the general post Office, in which building
the central telegraph Office is situated
and where all wires of the service are
concentrated.
Whlle the fire was extremely fierce, no
lives We're lost and the damage was con-
fined to the inside of the building.
\ thousand employees. majority of them
women. got out of the structure promptly
and without panic. Geographic service
will be crippled for several days.
Losses to Furniture Heavy.
The fire started at o'clock this even
ing and was caused by the fusing Of
wire in a test box on the fourth floor.
The building sustained no structural dam
age. but the losses to cables and instru-
ments and furniture Were very heavy, the
furniture suffering from the tons of wa
ter poured in. which streamed through
the whole building.
Ten minutes after the fire started Sir
Alexander King. the head of the post
office. ordered all employees out of the
building. They left by the stairways in
good order, taking their hats and coats,
building.
The thick smoke made the firemen's
work difficult. The floor on which the
fire started was laid in six-foot sections
and 1t was necessary to tear these up sep
arately to get at the wire. The firemen
first tried to smother the flames with
sand, but found that method Intellectual
O.
After Q O'Clock all the employees mus
tered at the central hall for temporary
duties and for salvage work during the
rest of the night. 1t was explained to
them that all instruments had been care
fully covered up.
The general post Office is the center for
the telegraph service of the entire king
dom. All the main cables from provincial
towns and the wires connecting with for
eign cables concentrate there, hence tie
complete paralysis of the system. Be
side the Paris telephone intermittent
telephone communication with the cable
offices at Liverpool and Bristol was OBJ
tainable. but these wires were greatly
OverwOrked.
British Phone Service Primitive.
English telephone service is remarkably
primitive compared to that of most civ
ilized countries. and it now is the subject
OF violent newspaper agitation. In the
presence of tonight's emergency it went
entirely to pieces. Fewer operators We're
on duty Saturday than usual and no ar
rangements were made for dealing with
exceptional conditions.
The greatest sufferers are the provincial
papers. which depend upon special wires
for their London and continental service.
They found the telephone wires impos-
sible for long messages. The post office
officials say it will be week before nor
NAL service is possible.
The entire fire brigade Of the east end
of London was on the scene with big
salvage corps. BY o'clock the fire was
over. TIE lighting apparatus was out Of
commission. however. and a strange
scene was presen, ed as the salvage men
CROPPED about the huge structure with
lanterns and candles.
Firemen Menaced by Wires.
Thousands of wires underneath the
floors had fused and the firemen were
forced to tear up part Of the floors to
get at the flames. the work being ex-
ceedingy dangerous.
Getting the employees out without
panic was an achievement on which the
| officials congratulate themselves. Sat
urday night the telegraph staff is consid-
erably smaller than usual as the volume
of business handled is less. As soon as
the fire was discovered all the women
| were ordered to quit the building i'm
mediately. They were thoroughly ia
miliar with the fire drill and marched
into the street without the slightest dis
order
The male employees attacked the flames
| with sand. pending the arrival of the fire
brigade.
Thousands of Messages Held Up.
Temporary repairs were started imme-
| diately after fire had died out, to restore
emergency communication with the prin-
cipal English cities. America and the
| continent. but the damage to the instru-
ments and wires was SO great that some
days will elapse before work on normal
scale can be resumed.
Branch offices about the town have