Page:Fires and Fire-fighters (1913).djvu/41

Rh bucket period. A person discovering a fire would run to his nearest neighbour for help, and then the alarm would be given from one house to another and immediately all would be confusion. Volunteers there would be in plenty, armed with buckets or any other domestic utensil which would contain water. Forming a line they would pass the buckets from hand to hand, sending them back by their women folk to be refilled. With such loss of time and feeble resistance it is small wonder if usually the flames continued their course practically unchecked, and a building saved from complete ruin was considered as a remarkable achievement.

Next came the period of the hand engine. Bells upon churches and other public buildings were now the means of spreading the dire tidings, and upon hearing their summons the voluntary firemen would hurry to their quarters and drag their engine in the direction of the first alarm. Then arose the question, where was the nearest water supply, and no doubt time was wasted through unsolicited advice. If, as was often the case, the supply proved to be at too great a distance from the outbreak for one engine to furnish an efficient stream, a second was stationed between the fire and the water. The ensuing contest between both parties of excited men as to which should occupy the place of honour near the fire, and the efforts of the vanquished to pump up more water than the engine in front could use, no doubt, added to the gayety of the community, and the mythological God of Fire must have smiled and perhaps murmured, "What fools these mortals be." But this opera bouffe method of fire-fighting really served a useful purpose, inasmuch as the increasing seriousness of the fire risk did not appeal in the same degree to the sense of humour of those who lost their property, with the result that the advent of a new factor in fire control was welcomed by the influential of the population. George Braithwaite, an Englishman, first conceived a steam fire engine, which was completed in the year 1829 and was a portent of the great change to come. Skeptics there were who scoffed at its