HAMBURG: GENERAL IMPRESSIONS 63 



ered very important, though it generally means a loss of 

 one or two houses, notwithstanding the excellent working 

 of the local fire department, and the fact that there is 

 an abundance of water everywhere in the numberless 

 channels which are winding their often crooked way 

 through the thoroughfares of the Hansatown. As for 

 the relief work of the fire department, it is done most con- 

 scientiously. I counted no less than twenty-two hose 

 services, supplied by as many pumps, which were well 

 handled by strong men and not as at home, by half-grown 

 hoys. Taking all that into consideration, the cause for 

 the rapid spread of the fire can only be found in the mis- 

 erable construction of the tenements themselves, which 

 are mostly so crooked, so high, and in the meantime so 

 given to decay, that the term "fire-traps" would never 

 be more appropriately applied.* A real fire alarm, such 

 as causes the whole population of Konigsberg to turn out 

 at the burning of a barn, is unknown here. The first 

 alarm signal in this city is given by more or less shots 

 from an artillery cannon on the Dammthorwall gate; the 

 number of shots fired indicates the degree of seriousness. 

 The immediate neighborhood in which a fire occurs re- 

 ceives warning from the permanent tower guard of the 

 church in the vicinity or parish, in which it happens. 

 These guards reside in the church steeples, two or three 

 hundred feet from the ground. During the conflagration 

 of May 5, 6, 7 and 8, 1S42, there occurred a remarkable 

 incident: The large church of St. Nicholas (Nicolai- 

 kii'che), one of the five gigantic Lutheran edifices, had 

 taken fire and no possible aid could prevent its doom. 

 While the flames were approaching the magnificent 



*The translator remembers having seen tenement houses in 

 that very district, which harbored one hundred and twenty to one 

 hundred and fifty families each, on a lot of about 45 by 125 feet. 

 Jacob A. Liis in his world-famous books "The Making of an 

 American," "Giildren of Tenements," and "Battle with the 

 Slum," as well as, "1 low the < Hher Half Lives," has not exagger- 

 ated the deplorable state of affairs, which originated in Europe 

 and of which rich old Hamburg has unfortunatelv her share. 



