1831.] Affairs in General. 659 



The consequences of fire are so terrible, that we cannot be surprised 

 at finding models of fire-escapes perpetually offered to the public. A 

 few nights ago, one of those machines, on a new construction, was exhi- 

 bited in the London Mechanics' Institution. In point of time it sur- 

 passes all others, as it seems possible to convey it up the front of a house 

 to a third story, and for a person to descend by it within two minutes, 

 and for four other persons to descend in the third minute. Were such 

 machines placed in the hands of the police, and at short distances, it 

 would be doubtful whether a life would ever be lost. 



And all this is very well, where there is time to erect the machine, where 

 the people about it are expert enough, and where the machine itself is in 

 order, which nothing of the kind ever has been within our memory. At 

 the moment of use, cords, wheels, and hinges, are jumbled into a state of 

 confusion, and the wisest thing to be done is to take the machine away. 



The truth is, that there is no machine equal to a good long ladder, of 

 which a couple should be kept under the care of the policeman in every 

 street, with a rope or two to lower furniture, &c. In fires, the great 

 thing that is wanted is time ; and while the fine invention is bringing to 

 the spot, and there piecing and putting together, the house and its 

 dwellers are a cinder. In private houses fires are extremely rare, and as 

 they seldom contain any peculiarly combustible matter, the first object of 

 the family should be to make their way down to the hall door. But in 

 shops, where almost everything is furiously combustible, from milliners' 

 boxes to gunpowder barrels ; where varnish, tar, hemp, brandy, and a 

 hundred other of the fiercest materials of fire are in the way ; the first 

 step should be to the roof, where a few minutes would place a whole 

 household in safety, while the attempt to make their way down stairs 

 is almost always fatal. But let Mr. Wivell, or any one else, exert his 

 ingenuity on this subject. It cannot be better employed. His alarm 

 bells, however, appear to us to be mere trifling. They are thus de- 

 scribed in the Scientific Magazine : Mr. Wivell proposes fire alarm bells, 

 that are well adapted to give notice in case of fire, and which may be 

 put up at a small expense. One bell is placed on a spring, in the lower 

 part of the house, and another at the upper part, with a communication 

 by means of threads over pullies. It is supposed that it would not be 

 possible for the stairs to take fire before those threads are burnt, in 

 which case the bells would ring and give every person opportunity to 

 escape." 



This is all folly. How long would this string-upon-string affair be 

 kept in order ? Not a month, in any house dwelt in by anything more 

 living than an old woman and her cat. The complacent progress of the 

 fire ringing its well-bred way upstairs, would be admirable in a lord of 

 the bedchamber, but Vulcan was always an unpolished fellow, and he 

 feels no hesitation in breaking into boudoirs and bedchambers without 

 being announced in any form whatever. 



This is the age of early genius. We are now beginning to discover 

 the use of " big boys," a race which we have hitherto thought the most 

 troublesome incumbrances of a house ; neither boy nor man, with the 

 frowardness of the one, and the self-will and stubbornness of the other. 

 But the " Honourable House" rectifies our notion, and shews that it can 

 endure them, if no other house can. 



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