Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/72

64 hooks and ladders, 15 hose carts, manned by 736 firemen, including 1 chief, 8 assistant chiefs and 57 foremen, and the appropriation for the whole bureau amounted to $979,501.20: in 1800 the city was dependent on volunteer fire companies of limited usefulness. In 1899 the sum of $1,118,017.78 was appropriated for electric lighting and $279,930.00 for gasoline lighting, and 19,417 gas lamps were lighted by the gas company; in 1800, $18,000 sufficed for 'watching and lighting" the city.

It is when we come to consider the activities of a bureau like the Electrical Bureau of Philadelphia, however, that we find the most amazing developments. I was about to say changes and advances, but there was nothing corresponding to it a century ago. Chief Walker, of the Electrical Bureau, in a recent report to the Director of Public Safety, summed up the situation in these words:

"Among the many bureaus in the department over which you so ably exercise the directorship, there is none, perhaps, whose duties are so varied and which embraces a system so diversified in its branches and which is required to be so persistently active, as the Electrical Bureau. Correspondents from other cities frequently ask what duties are concentrated in, and what knowledge is necessary to an effectual supervision of the affairs of the Electrical Bureau. An enumeration of the various duties assigned includes, among others, the Police Telegraph, the artery through which the orders and wishes of the officials of the executive branches of the municipality are transmitted, and the medium of communication for all municipal affairs requiring immediate attention; the Fire Signal System, over whose wires the signals are sent from localities threatened with the dangers of a conflagration; the Fire Alarm System, by means of which the signals received over the Fire Signal System are transmitted to those skilled and trained in the handling of the magnificent apparatus provided for the suppression of fire; the Fire Signal and Telephone System, a very efficient auxiliary to the Bureau of Fire, by means of which verbal communication is possible between the Chief of the Bureau and his aids, and which at the same time serves as an additional means of transmitting alarms to the Bureau of Fire; the Police Signal and Telephone System, by means of which the officials of the Bureau of Police are in almost constant touch with the patrolmen while on their respective beats, and which has proved its value many times over; the Trunk Line, between the local and long distance telephone exchanges entering the City Hall, which are of necessity under control of this office, centering at a switchboard in the operating room, where the necessary connections are made by employees of this bureau; the Telephone Service between the police stations and their sub-stations, by means of which the officers in charge of the district are in constant communication with their subordinates. The armories of the National Guards and the officers of the various hospitals are in direct communication with and the services connecting them are supervised and maintained by this bureau.

What might be termed the general municipal telephone system, embracing the system of inter-communication in City Hall and