1807.] Means of efcaping from Hou ifes on Fire.—No Popery. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
E read fo frequently of perfons 
being burnt to death, or maim- 
ing themfelves by leaping out of win- 
dow whena houfe is on fire, for want of 
the means of efcape, that I feel it my 
duty to mention a fimple gontrivance 
which I have for many years adopted, 
and which enables me to fleep in fe- 
surity. 
I provide two or three of my cham- 
bers with a mcederately ftout rope, fuch 
as may be bought for a fhilling or eigh- 
teen-pence ; I tie knots in them, and 
fatten one end either to a bed- -polt, to a 
ftrong ftaple, or any other fuitable fix- 
ture. In cafe of fire, and of my inabi- 
lity to efcape from the lower part of the 
houfe, either of thefe ropes thrown out 
of a window, would enable me or my 
family to flip down it. The knots would 
afford us refting places for the hands and 
feet; and children and infirm perfons 
might be let down by means of a run- 
ning noofe, with which I always provide 
_ the lower end of the rope.- 
If from inattention, for I cannot fup- 
pofe the practicability of the means will 
be doubted, or the expence of the ropes 
be besrudged, houfes on fire are unpro- 
vided with this fimple means of efcape, 
it is the duty of all the neighbours, 
without delay or folicitation, to bring 
out and ftrew under the windows of the 
houfe on fire, all their feather beds and 
mattrefies, till the family are in fecu- 
rity. 
In communicating thefe precautions to 
the public, relative to the means of ef- 
cape from fire, I confider it very 1m- 
portant to make known to the w orld a 
means of efcaping fuffocation in a room 
filed with fmoke. It is practifed by the 
firemen in the metropolis, with a degree 
of fuccefs and addrefs which has en- 
titled them to the name of Salamanders. 
If a houfe were on fire, fo that no or- 
dinary perfor could venture ito any part 
of it without fuffering immediate fuffo- 
cation, and its owner wifhed to refcue 
from the flames any precious object, an 
experienced London fireman will ex- 
tricate it without hefitation or hazard. 
He effects this by means of a prin- 
ciple well known im the fcience of pneu- 
matics, but which the intellectual 
powers of man would never apply a 
priori to fuch a combination of circum- 
_itanees. The heat, fmoke, and unre- 
fpirable air, afeend to the upper parts 
of the room, and a ftream of pure air 
327 
occupies the {pace in immediate contact 
with the floor. The fireman crawls then 
into the houfe on his hands and knees, 
and keeps his face, wm his progrefs, as 
clofe to the floor as poffible; and in this 
manner he will go and return ‘to any 
part of the premifes not actually in 
flames. A knowledge of this practice 
cannot but be of extenfive ufe to the 
community, and I know no means of 
conveying it with fuch effect and autho-= 
rity as the Monthly Magazine. 
‘Common SENSE. 
London, March 28, 1807. 
ena 
For the Monthly Magazine., 
CONCERNING A WAR-WHOOP. 
HERE are not words in our. lan- 
guage which have fo often been - 
written in letters of blood, as No Po- 
ery 
Hen VIII. put to death Sir Thomas 
More, Fifher, the bifhop of Rochefter, 
and numberlets inferior victims, that we 
might have No Popery. 
Under Edward VI. Cardinal Beaton 
was affaffinated in Scotland; Tonftal, 
and other Englith bifhops, were impri- 
foned, perfecuted, plundered, and re-. 
Huced to mifery, that we might have No 
Popery. Leaft this barbaric zealotry 
fhould be called anti-religious ; Joan of 
Kent was burnt alive for denying the 
miraculous conception, and Vanparis 
for denying the divinity of Chrift. Net 
from antipathy againit intolerance had 
the cry been railed of No Popery, Bu- 
cer was the grand contriver of the doc- 
trine, the liturgy, and the difcipline of 
the church of England. He fired from a 
double battery at Papift and Unitarian, 
declaring from the pulpit, that Catho- 
licitm ought to be exterminated, and that 
Servetus “ought to have his bowels torn 
out. Yet thisman, whom our lawgivers 
employed to accommodate their ftatutes 
to No Popery, was boa. a Jew, and died 
a Jew. 
Queen Mey had the fpirit and the 
power to retaliate on the reformers, Af- 
ter the victory of her adverfaries, fhe 
acquired the epithet bloody, for rivalling 
Catharine dei Medici in cruelty of into- 
lerance. Her motto was No Buceri/m. ° 
Elizabeth was not bloody. She pre- 
ferred ftifling and {trangling to beheading 
and burning. She ftopped the breath of 
one hundred and feventy-five Catholic 
priefts, and of five Catholic women, 
whofe crime was no other than teaching 
their hereditary religion in England. 
AVES The 
