TOPICS OF THE DAY.
LONDON FIRES IN IdDCLXVI AND MDCCCXLIII. SEVERAL circumstances about the fires of Saturday last have conspired to carry us back in imagination to the Great Fire of London in 1666. The season of the year is nearly the same ; for the Great Fire broke out on the 2d of September. The locality is nearly the same ; for one of the fires broke out at nine o'clock on Friday evening in Pudding Lane, where the Great Fire had its commencement, and Tooley Street is not very remote from the Monument. But the most striking parallelism is in the nearly simultaneous breaking out of fires in different parts of the city. The main argument of those who have maintained that the Great Fire was the work of design and incendiaries—and a writer who published no further back than 1829 adheres to this hypothesis— has been, the simultaneous appearance of fire in distant quarters of the city. " It could not be conceived," says Lord CLARENDON, " bow a house that was distant a mile from any part of the fire could suddenly be in a flame, without some particular malice; and this case fell out every hour. When a man at the furthest end of Bread Street had made a shift to get out of his house his best and most portable goods because the fire approached near them, he no sooner had secured them, as he thought, in some friend's house in Holborn, which was believed a safe distance, but he saw that very house and none else near it in a sudden flame."
Such incidents have been ostentatiously dwelt upon by those who maintain the veracity of the Monument, called in question by POPE with more of antithesis than politeness. It appears, however, that between six o'clock in the morning of the Friday and six o'clock in the morning of the Saturday of last week, no fewer than seven fires are known to have broken out in different parts of the city,—one at Stratford, one in Snow's Fields, one at Pudding Lane, one at Houndsditch, the great explosion and fire in Fetter Lane, the great fire in Tooley Street, and the episodical burning in High Street, Southwark. The coincidence of these fires in point of time gives rise to no remark, because they did not spread and unite into one general conflagration ; but they would have been deemed very suspicious had all the houses within the space they mark out been burned down. Now the Great Fire of London blazed on from the 2d to the 5th of September unchecked. The months of August and July had been preternaturally dry. It was therefore no improbable event that, with the great quantity of wood then used in building, a number of fires should break out at different parts of the city without any preconcert on the part of a gang of incendiaries; or that, after the walls of the houses had been heated by the intense glow from the huge mass of flame in the very centre of the Metro- polis, fire should be conveyed from one ignited building to another at a startling distance, when, without any such preparation, it was seen catching in the High Street of Southwark, on Saturday morn- ing, across an interval of some six hundred yards. We may there- fore fairly believe that POPE has said no more of the language of the Monument than it deserves, and that in the case of the Great Fire of London, as in many others, the Papists have been accused of much that they never were guilty of It is impossible to reflect on the events of Saturday morning without coming to the conclusion, that, notwithstanding our streets are so much wider and our houses so much more substantial, we now owe our safety, under Providence, to Mr. BEAIDWOOD with his Fire Brigade and the New Police. The accident in the High Street of Southwark shows how easily, without their herculean exertions, the flames might spread. And, with all deference to constituted au- thorities, Lord Mayors in 1666 and 1843 seem as like as two peas. " At last," says PEPYS, " met my Lord Mayor in Canning Street, [Cannon Street,] like a man spent, with a handkercher about his neck. To the King's message he cried, like a fainting woman, Lord ! what can I do ? I ant spent : the people will not obey me.
have been pulling down houses, but the fire overtakes us faster than we can do it ; that he ' needed no more soldiers ; and that he must go and refresh himself, having been up all night.' So he left me." The reporter of the Morning Chronicle says—" Shortly before tbree, the Lord Mayor arrived in his slippers and morning- gown, attended by several gentlemen, and evinced considerable un- easiness for the safety of Fenning's wharf (his Lordship's property)." These things are mentioned not in disparagement of Lord Mayors, whose education has not fitted them to be cool and enterprising amid unlooked-for emergencies of danger, but to point the moral that the different results of the fires of 1666 and 1843 are owing to the different classes of fire-extinguishers employed on the two oc- casions. What those of the latter year are, is known to all : let PEPYS describe those of the former. " I went with the men, and we did put it [a fire in Bishopsgate] out in a little time, so that that was well again. It was pretty to see how hard the women did work in the kennels, sweeping of water; but then they would scold for drink, and be as drunk as devils." Nevertheless, the arrangements for the extinction of fires in the Metropolis still require improvement. They are intrusted in part to the Fire-offices, and in part to the Churchwardens of the dif- ferent parishes. The Fire Brigade of the former is the only really efficient part of the service. Since 1833, most of the Fire-offices in London have subscribed towards the expense of this establishment, in a certain agreed proportion. It is superintended by a Committee of delegates from each of the associated offices. The force employed is distributed through five districts, two South and three North of the Thames ; and consists of a superintendent, five foremen, ten engineers, nine sub-engineers, thirty-five junior firemen, and six extra men. The number of engines kept in constant readiness is thirty-three; which are kept at twenty different stations in various parts of the Metropolis. Two of these are floating engines moored on the river. One-third of the men employed are constantly on duty, and the whole are liable to be called upon whenever a fire occurs: the Superintendent must repair to the spot, wherever it may be, when a fire breaks out ; and he has power to employ any additional men that may be wanted. The men are brigaded, clothed in uniform, provided with ropes, scaling-ladders, and other appa- ratus, and exercised at regular intervals in the use of them and of the engines. This is our standing army against the invasion of fire : and a gallant body they are, and efficient as far as their means permit. But it is clear that they are not of themselves sufficient for so huge a metropolis. Of the supplementary corps—the Land- siurm or arriire-ban—we cannot speak so favourably. By the act 14th Geo. III. c. 78, it is rendered incumbent upon Churchwardens to provide one or more fire-engines in every parish, to be in readi- ness on the shortert notice to extinguish fires; to have in readiness ladders to facilitate the escape of persons from burning houses ; to fix fire-plugs at convenient distances upon all the main water- pipes of the parish ; and to have keys to open the same, that the water may be made instantly available. No one needs to be told that the parish-engines, compared with those of the Fire Brigade, are in point of efficiency a standing joke ; and that in cases of fire the loss of life and property is almost uniformly occasioned by the impossibility of getting water in time, in sufficient quantities ; and that by no chance is either Churchwarden, key, or ladder, to be found when wanted. In the suppression of London fires, every thing is accomplished by the intrepidity and discipline of the Fire Brigade, and by the good sense, promptitude, and discipline of the Police, who preserve order and a free field for the Brigade to work in : the blunders and shortcomings umiformly occur in the depart- ment of the parish authorities.
The remedy is evident : relieve the parish authorities from any charge in cases of fire, and have the Fire Brigade organized on a scale adequate to the wants of the Metropolis. There is no neces- sary connexion between the office of Churchwardens and the ex- tinction of fires. The duty was imposed upon those officers simply because the legislators did not think of any others to whom it could better be intrusted. As might have been predicted from the habits and character of the class of citizens from which Churchwardens are selected, they have proved eminently un- qualified for the task. The extinguishing of fires in a large me- tropolis requires the services of professional men—of men who have the self-possession, caution, and fearlessness, which habit and discipline alone can bestow. The care of extinguishing fires is a duty of the Police: the services of the Fire Brigade ought to be ei tied to the whole of the community, and the expense of maintaining* ought to be borne by the whole community. Ad- mirably though it has been conducted under the auspices of the Fire-offices, and Substantial though their interest in its main- tenance is, it cannot be expected that they will be at the expense and trouble of maintaining-it on the footing that will be requisite if to it alone is to be intrusted the protection of London from fires. There ought to be one Metropolitan Fire Brigade, as there is one Metropolitan Police, maintained and directed by the public authorities. The Fire-offices might continue to contribute to its support in the proportions they now do, retaining a voice in the council of management. The parishes might be assessed for its support to the same amount that they ought to pay for their fire- establishments, and might be represented by delegates in the coun- cil of management. Or both parishes and Fire-offices might be relieved of the charge, the expense of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade defrayed by a general assessment, and the appointment of the Super- intendent and Foreman, and the checking of the accounts, vested in representatives chosen by the different Metropolitan districts. This would be an apparent gain to the Metropolitan Fire-offices, but only apparent. The expense of the Fire Brigade is at present taken into account in fixing the rates of insurance : the removal of that expense and the increased security from fire would enable them, and competition would oblige them, to lower their rates. The public would in every way be the real gainers. Recurring to the Great Fire of 1666, it appears that less pro- gress has been made in precautions for the prevention of fires than in arrangements for their extinction. " The coal and wood wharfs," says EVELYN in his Diary, " and magazines of oil and resin, &c. did infinite mischief; so as the invective, [his Fumifu- gium,] which a little before I had dedicated to his Majesty, and published, giving warning what might probably be the issue of suffering these shops to be in the City, was looked on as a pro- phecy." Nay, the evil has increased since his day ; for not only have the stores of inflammable matters required for the consump- tion of so large a city, or forming part of its merchants' stocks in trade, increased, but chemical preparations, unknown in his time, of strange and terrible qualities, of rapid ignition and explosive force, have come into habitual use among all classes. The fatal explosion in Fetter Lane on the morning of Saturday last, the explosion at Apothecaries Hall a few months ago, and repeated accidents of the same kind in the establishments of pyrotechnists, and manufacturers of different kinds of self-igniting matches, show the necessity of a police-regulation for the carrying on of such dangerous occupations only out of town, and even there in isolated buildings. In most towns there are police-regulations which forbid dealers to keep on their premises more than a certain quantity of gunpowder at once : the same restriction should be enforced in the case of all the pre- parations alluded to Timber-wharfs, turpentine and other stores, liable to accidental or spontaneous combustion, ought not to be allowed in the heart of the city. The plea of inconvenience from having them in the suburbs, now that the Metropolis has attained such an enormous size, is untenable. If the suburbs are further removed from the centre of the city than in former times, the me- chanical facilities for rapid and cheap transport of goods are also increased. We have canals and railways which may be viewed as entirely contained within the Metropolis, destined to convey goods and passengers from one part of it or another. The places of de- posit for goods liable to ignition, (or we may add, prejudicial in any way to health,)might be placed as the docks now are, at a distance from the city, and kept isolated. Railways or canals might be con- structed leading from them to a sufficient number of centrical situations ; and by this means, the transference of any quantity of those commodities required for immediate use rendered as cheap and expeditious from these distant depots as from the present stores. By such an arrangement, too, Smithfield and all the shambles might be removed to a healthy and safe distance from the city, and yet the meat-venders be enabled to bring their meat in prime condition and at little expense to market.
A good deal is at present doing to render the thoroughfares of the city more commodious and its buildings more pleasing to the eye. Without effective modes of availing ourselves of the mechan- ical inventions of the age to afford greater security from fire, and unwholesome accumulations, this is little better than making clean the outside of the platter—whitening the sepulchre externally. But the architectural and other street improvements indicate a growing disposition on the part of the citizens to look upon the Metropolis as one great organic whole, and to cooperate for its improvement in beauty and amenity. It is a long way, however, from the feeble rudiments of this spirit which have yet shown them- selves, to its gaining such strength and stature as would render possible such improvements as have now been hinted at. There are obstacles, too, in the way : for such improvements would re- quire a centralization of authority in the person of an Edile, or some analogous authority, which will be strenuously resisted by all the consequential members of Vestries, and most of all by that bloated Corporation, which was a municipal government when the Metropolis was confined within the city-walls, but which now reminds one only of a huge overgrown spider nestling amid the cobwebs of the halls where civic power once sat enthroned.
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