376 PREPARE TO BID ADIEU TO ST LOUIS. 



box, always kept locked, the key in the care of a respon 

 sible person in the immediate neighbourhood. On opening 

 one of these boxes there is to be seen a " crank," which 

 being turned instantly sounds the alarm at the main 

 station, whence the intelligence is transmitted to each 

 district in the city by ringing simultaneously the alarm 

 bells. When a fire breaks out at any point, the nearest 

 box is unlocked, and the " crank" turned fifteen or twenty 

 times round. This occasions a clicking in the main 

 station and puts the telegraph apparatus there in motion. 

 The operator on guard then examines a strip of paper 

 reeled off by the movement, and learns by an impression 

 on it in which district and near which station the fire is. 

 He then sounds the alarm bells in the city, in such guise 

 as to inform the members of the fire department where 

 their presence is needed. If the alarm bell strikes four 

 time ssuccessively, the fire is in the fourth district, if twice, 

 in the second, and so on. The firemen being thus apprised 

 of the locality of the fire, put to their horses, ever kept in 

 readiness, to the steam fire-engines, light the fires under 

 the boilers, and hasten to the scene of action. The intel 

 ligent and most capable superintendent of the telegraph, 

 Mr James M. Gardiner, has a salary, I believe, of a 

 thousand dollars. The alarm bell for the first district is 

 at the St Louis engine-house, that for the second and third 

 districts is the cathedral bell, that for the fourth district 

 is the bell of St Francis Xavier, and for the fifth district 

 the bell of the Mound engine-house. There are, if I re 

 member rightly, about fifty station boxes in the city 

 capable of giving alarms. 



The time at last came for me to leave the city of St 

 Louis, wherein I had made so many agreeable acquaint 

 ances, and wherein I had so much reason to admire the 



