NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
MANCHESTER, MASS., FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 1909. 
RANDOM THOUGHTS. 
BY D. F. LAMSON. 
No. XXXVI. 
When Spring comes tip-toeing over 
the hills, and the air is full of the melody 
of birds, the heart may well be jocund 
and gay; we do not think of winter's 
frosts and storms, except as they enhance 
by contrast Spring’s freshness and sun- 
shine. Neither, if we are wise, shall we 
allow the recollection of past griefs to 
cloud today’s brightness; the happiness 
of the present should not be marred by 
brooding over the sorrows of vesterday. 
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4 Good old Bishop Hall said wisely, 
there are some sorrows which, because 
they are lingering guests, I will entertain 
but moderately, knowing that the more 
they are made of the longer they will 
stay.”’ 
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It would be a graceful compliment to 
Great Britain to send Pres. Eliot as am- 
bassador to the court of St. James, now 
that England has sent us James Bryce. 
But the question is, can Pres. Eliot be 
spared here at home? We have few 
men of such ripe and well-balanced wis- 
dom, so broad minded and sane in their 
views of all public questions. He has, 
however, recently given it as his opinion 
that foot-ball is a ‘“ demoralizing’’ spec- 
tacle; this will be sure to lower him in 
the estimation of some. 
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Eating has sometimes been treated as 
a science, and is now being treated in 
some quarters as a fad. Whata pity it 
is that many things good in themselves 
are so pushed to extremes often, that 
they become matters of sport and _ ridi- 
cule. There is more or less truth in 
most of the isms that perplex and afHict 
mankind, but it is often mixed with so 
much of foolishness that it usually loses 
most of its value. 
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When a man is offered as a manager 
of a League club a larger salary than any 
member of the Cabinet receives, it indi- 
cates at least a queer state of things; it 
shows, for one thing, how large a _ price 
the American people are willing to pay 
for their amusements. 
And so long as people will spend so 
much on races, ball-games and rowing- 
matches, is it any wonder that so many 
people are poor and that business is dull? 
In the decadent days of Rome, the cry 
was for “bread and circuses.”’ 
When men learn to put first things 
first we may hope for a permanent re- 
MODERN INVENTION DRIVES HISTORIC OLD FIRE 
ENGINE FROM HOME IN MANCHESTER FIRE STATION. 
THE ‘‘TORRENT,’’ BUILT IN MANCHESTER IN 1832. 
We present above a picture of the old 
* Torrent,’’ Manchester’s first fire en- 
gine, built in 1832, and kept in active 
service for 53 years, a most remarkable 
record. 
Interest centers in the old engine just 
at present from the fact that it has re- 
cently been taken from its home of the 
past few years in the basement of the en- 
gine house and is to be removed to the 
town property at the Stone Crusher, on 
Pleasant street, for storage. 
Considerable of history centers around 
the ‘‘ Torrent’ aside from its age, 
merely. ‘To begin with it is one of the 
oldest fre engines inthecountry. Then 
again it was manufactured in Manches- 
ter, a fact which few people of today 
can realize,-—that Manchester was one 
time the home of the manufactory of 
fire engines. 
According to Lamson’s History of 
Manchester Col. Eben Tappan began 
building fire engines in 1826 ‘* without a 
previous knowledge of foundry work or 
special instruction in mechanics.’’ In 
1832 he built the ‘‘ Torrent’’ a suction 
engine, which was used in the great fire 
of 1836, and was afterward bought by 
the town. ‘‘ This engine did good ser- 
vice until laid up in 1885, a period of 53 
years, a most remarkable record.’’ The 
Salem Daily Telegraph of June 6, 1888, 
in commenting on this subject said: 
‘“The plans were entirely his own 
models and patterns. ‘The village black- 
smith did the iron work under Mr. Tap- 
turn of prosperity, and not before. 
vo ow ww 
A turning to the land is always a hope- 
ful indication; a turning to farming, in 
other words, and to farming for profit 
and not for amusement. Gentlemen 
pan’s immediate supervision. The 
brasswork came to Mr. Tappan from a 
Boston foundry inthe rough, and Mr. 
Tappan’s own hand finished and fitted 
it. He also did all the work of the cop- 
persmith. In short, with the aid alone 
of the blacksmith, to whom reference is 
made above, the engines from Mr. Tap- 
pan’s hands were the result of his own 
unaided skill and industry.”’ 
The subject of the above picture is the 
identical engine referred to in the fore- 
going paragraph. 
The onward march of progress and 
up-to-date methods now make it nec- 
essary to move this relic of almost a cen- 
tury ago from its very appropriate home 
in the engine house to the dump, we 
might say. The installation of a com- 
pressed air fire alarm whistle makes it 
necessary for the room formerly occupied 
by this old time fire fighter to be utilized 
by the machinery used in connection 
with the whistle. 
We might suggest that the town ought 
to take some action toward providing a 
more suitable home for this old relic, 
than the stone crushing plant, that it 
might be preserved and handed down to 
future generations not only as a reminder 
of the old method of fighting fires, but 
as a sample of the manufactory product 
of the earlier days of the town. 
The hose reel shown on the left of the 
above picture is not as old as the fire en- 
gine, but it has long since been replaced 
by more up-to-date equipment. 
farmers are well enough in their way; 
there is something very attractive in the 
title, a country gentleman; but there is 
most need of farmers who farm it for a 
living. Inthe last analysis, agriculture 
Continued to page 16 
