THE BEST PREVENTIVE OF FATAL FIRES.
COMMON as fires are, and common as even fatal fires are, there is something specially horrible about the fire on Wednesday morning in the Old Bailey. Opposite the door of the Central Criminal Court there stood till then a public-house, hemmed in on each side by higher buildings. The back of the house looked upon a small paved space called Prujean Square, from which there was an entrance into a lean-to kitchen. Here the fire began, and by the time that the land- lord, who was undressing, discovered what was going on, it had already gained considerable head. He rushed out of the house, shouting to three women who slept in the room above to follow him at once. Had they done so they would have been saved ; for though the landlord found the whole ground floor of the house in flames, he was able to get through un- hurt. It is supposed that the women stopped to hurry on some clothes ; but, short as the delay was, it was fatal. When they were ready to come away, they found that escape by the stair- case had become impossible. The lower part of it had caught fire, and the lean-to kitchen was in flames. They were thus imprisoned on the second floor, at the windows of which they appeared screaming for help. It was impossible to get a fire-escape into Prujean Square ; the fire spread to the upper part of the house so quickly that the women could not make their way to the windows looking into the Old Bailey ; the height of the houses on each side made it useless to get on to the roof ; and to jump from the back windows would have been useless, as below them was the blazing kitchen. There was nothing, cense-
, quently, to be done but to remain at the windows until they could hold on no longer to the burning wood, and then to fall back into the flames. A more terrible death can scarcely be conceived. There was none of the excitement which comes from hope, for rescue was impossible from the first. They had their solitary opportunity at the moment when the land- lord called to them, but when that had gone their last chance had gone with it.
Is there nothing to be done to make the recurrence of such accidents as this a matter, at all events, of rarer occurrence ? It is clear that no improvements in the way either of fire- engines or fire-escapes will be of any avail. In this case the fire only lasted an hour ; but it might have lasted only half that time and yet have been equally fatal to the three women. When a house is old, or when the materials stored in it are of a highly inflammable character, its destruction is often an affair of minutes ; and any one shut up in it would be past rescue before water could be thrown upon the flames, however near it might be stored, or however effective the machinery for applying it. No one who has not seen it can fully imagine what the upward rush of flame and of hot asphyxiating smoke in such a building really is. In the streets of old towns fire-escapes are sometimes useless. As in the Old Bailey, the approach from the back is too much blocked up to allow of their being brought to the windows on that side ; and it may be impossible for the inmates to cross the house so as to escape by the front. The only thing that can be done, therefore, is to give the inmates notice which it shall be less possible to disregard of what is going on in the house. In this case, it was earlier notice that the women wanted. The landlord, after he had called to them, had time to go down from the floor on which they were sleeping to the ground floor, and to go up again to the first floor in order to find the key of a door. If they had left their rooms at the first sound of danger, they would have been as safe as he ; but from their waiting to dress it may be assumed that they did not realise how imminent the risk was. They had not seen the flames, though the landlord had; and they did not realise that escape was in the most literal sense a matter of moments. What seems to be wanted in cases of fire is a signal which shall at once create adequate terror,—a signal which shall leave no doubt in the mind of any one that hears it that delay means death. We gather from the Scotsman that the Americans have really invented something of the kind. They make "electric detectors " which will ring a bell at any desired degree of heat. The machine is only a cubic inch in size, and consists of a spiral spring made of brass and steel, or brass and platinum. The metals expand at different rates under heat, and when the fixed point is reached the signal is given automatically. In New York they have been arranged to communicate with the fire stations ; so that in the houses to which they are fitted the news of the fire may be carried to the nearest fire station before the inmates of the house know anything about it. In one large warehouse a watchman who had seen no signs of fire at first refused entrance to the men in charge of a fire-engine. They insisted, how- ever, on examining the warehouse, and on the fourth storey they came upon a smouldering fire which might easily have got beyond control long before there were any visible signs of it in the streets below. It is found that where pro- perty is fitted with these detectors the losses which the In- surance Offices sustain by fire are little more than one-fifth of what they have to bear when the property insured is not fitted with them. It is not, however, from the point of view of the Insurance Offices that we wish to draw attention to this plan. There can be little doubt that if the public-house in the Old Bailey had been provided with a detector, three lives would have been saved. When the landlord's atten- tion was first called to the fire, the flames were already bursting out from the kitchen and making their way towards the stairs. Had there been an electric detector in the kitchen the first sign of flame would have caused it to give the signal. This would have contributed to the safety of the inmates, in one or other of three ways. First of all, by giving warning of the fire earlier, it would have brought the fire-engines to the house proportionately sooner. As it was, it was seen by some compositors going home from a neighbouring printing-office some time before the landlord had discovered it, and they and the policeman on duty vainly endeavoured to rouse the people sleeping in the house. Before the flames could have become visible to chance passers-by, they must already have made considerable progress ; an electric detector would have made them as good as visible when they were still in their infancy. Even if the fire-engines had not come soon enough to get the fire under, the women would have had a much longer time in which to make their escape. The bell would have rung long before the landlord shouted to them ; and by the time that, as it happened, he went downstairs they would have been dressed and ready to go downstairs with him. Nor is it only time that would have been gained. The fire-bell would have claimed the women's attention in a very different way from the landlord's voice. Very possibly he called to them every morning, and they had grown accustomed to the familiar sound, and were never well inclined to regard it. The fire-bell, never heard save in time of danger, and then infallibly betokening its presence, would have created imme- diate and genuine terror. In the old and awkwardly-built houses, of which in London and other towns there are so many, the adoption of fire detectors would give a new and well-founded sense of safety, and wherever inflammable sub- stances are stored, the Insurance Offices should refuse insurances unless they are employed.
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