64 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



hooks and ladders, 15 hose carts, manned by 736 firemen, including 1 

 chief, 8 assistant chiefs and 57 foremen, and the appropriation for the 

 whole bureau amounted to $979,501.20: in 1800 the city was dependent 

 on volunteer fire companies of limited usefulness. In 1899 the sum of 

 $1,118,017.78 was appropriated for electric lighting and $279,930.00 

 for gasoline lighting, and 19,417 gas lamps were lighted by the gas 

 company; in 1800, $18,000 sufficed for 'watching and lighting" the 

 city. 



It is when we come to consider the activities of a bureau like the 

 Electrical Bureau of Philadelphia, however, that we find the most 

 amazing developments. I was about to say changes and advances, but 

 there was nothing corresponding to it a century ago. Chief Walker, of 

 the Electrical Bureau, in a recent report to the Director of Public 

 Safety, summed up the situation in these words: 



"Among the many bureaus in the department over which you so 

 ably exercise the directorship, there is none, perhaps, whose duties 

 are so varied and which embraces a system so diversified in its branches 

 and which is required to be so persistently active, as the Electrical 

 Bureau. Correspondents from other cities frequently ask what duties 

 are concentrated in, and what knowledge is necessary to an effectual 

 supervision of the affairs of the Electrical Bureau. An enumeration 

 of the various duties assigned includes, among others, the Police Tele- 

 graph, the artery through which the orders and wishes of the officials 

 of the executive branches of the municipality are transmitted, and the 

 medium of communication for all municipal affairs requiring immediate 

 attention; the Fire Signal System, over whose wires the signals are sent 

 from localities threatened with the dangers of a conflagration; the Fire 

 Alarm System, by means of which the signals received over the Fire 

 Signal System are transmitted to those skilled and trained in the 

 handling of the magnificent apparatus provided for the suppression of 

 fire; the Fire Signal and Telephone System, a very efficient auxiliary to 

 the Bureau of Fire, by means of which verbal communication is pos- 

 sible between the Chief of the Bureau and his aids, and which at the 

 same time serves as an additional means of transmitting alarms to the 

 Bureau of Fire; the Police Signal and Telephone System, by means of 

 which the officials of the Bureau of Police are in almost constant touch 

 with the patrolmen while on their respective beats, and which has 

 proved its value many times over; the Trunk Line, between the local and 

 long distance telephone exchanges entering the City Hall, which are of 

 necessity under control of this office, centering at a switchboard in the 

 operating room, where the necessary connections are made by employees 

 of this bureau; the Telephone Service between the police stations and 

 their sub-stations, by means of which the officers in charge of the district 

 are in constant communication with their subordinates. The armories 

 of the National Guards and the officers of the various hospitals are in 

 direct communication with and the services connecting them are super- 

 vised and maintained by this bureau. 



What might be termed the general municipal telephone system, 

 embracing the system of inter-communication in City Hall and con- 



