Chapter I: Part 1

“_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
A WEEKLY JOURNAL.

CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

N^{o.} 7.] SATURDAY, MAY 11, 1850. [PRICE 2_d._

THE FIRE BRIGADE OF LONDON.

Earth, Air, and Water are necessary conditions of human life; but Fire is the first great element of civilisation. Fire, the first medium between the ‘cooking animal’ and the wild root and raw-flesh-devouring savage; fire, the best, because the most useful of servants, and, according to the old proverb, the worst, because the most tyrannical of masters; fire, the chief friend of man in creations of nature and of industrial art, yet the most potent of all enemies in destruction; fire, the most brilliant and magnificent object on the earth, yet the most frightful and appalling when once it obtains dominion over man and man’s abodes;—to subdue, and render docile to all needs, this devouring dragon, and bend his splendid crests, not only to ‘boil the pot’ but to lick the dust before the feet of Science, this is one of the greatest triumphs of mankind, the results of which are every year more and more stupendous.

But, amidst all our mastery, we are never permitted to forget that this illustrious slave has neither abandoned nor abated one jot of his original nature. Of this we are but too constantly reminded. Not to speak of lightning and volcanic eruptions, the weekly record of colliery and other mine explosions, of steamboat explosions, the burning of ships, and the dismal transformation to a heap of ashes of valuable warehouses, costly public edifices, or private houses, with ‘dreadful loss of life,’ need but the slightest mention to excite a thrill of alarm, or some passing thought of caution in the mind of every person holding the smallest stake in the social community.

To meet this sudden emergency, therefore, and to restore the balance of power, or, rather, to put down the mutiny of this powerful slave, and reduce him to his habitual subserviency, we have the Fire Brigade, divided into four sections, and having nineteen stations in the most central quarters of the metropolis. This includes two ‘mighty engines’ floating on the Thames.

‘Of all the rallying words,’ says a writer in Charles Knight’s
“London,” ‘whereby multitudes are gathered together, and their
energies impelled forcibly to one point, that of “_Fire!_” is,
perhaps, the most startling and the most irresistible. It levels all
distinctions; it sets at nought sleep, and meals, and occupations, and
amusements; it turns night into day, and Sunday into a “working-day;”
it gives double strength to those who are blessed with any energy, and
paralyses those who have none; it brings into prominent notice, and
converts into objects of sympathy, those who were before little
thought of, or who were, perhaps, despised; it gives to the dwellers
in a whole huge neighbourhood the unity of one family.’

But even while we are trimming our midnight lamp to write this paper, the cry of ‘Fire!’ suddenly resounds from a distant street. The heavy boots of a policeman clatter along beneath our window. The cry is repeated by several voices, and more feet are heard hurrying along. The fire is in a squalid court, leading into a mews which runs close to the backs of the houses of one side of a great square. We hastily struggle into an overcoat, snatch up a hat, and issue forth to follow the alarming cry.

The tumult sounds in the court; the cry of ‘Fire!’ is wildly repeated in a woman’s voice from one of the windows of the mews; now from another window!—now from several. ‘Fire! fire!’ cry voices of many passengers in streets, and away scamper the policemen to the nearest stations of the Fire Brigade, passing the word to other policemen as they run, till all the police force in the neighbourhood are clattering along the pavement, some towards the scene of the fire, but most of them either towards an engine-station, to one of the Fire-escapes of the Royal Society, or to pass the word to the policeman whose duty it will be to run to the engine-station next beyond. By this means of passing the word, somebody arrives at the gates of the Chief Office of the Fire Brigade, in Watling Street, and, seizing the handle of the night-bell, pulls away at it with the vigour which such events always call forth.

The fireman on duty for the night, immediately opens the gate, and receives the intelligence, cutting short all loquacity as much as possible, and eliciting the spot where the fire has broken out, and the extent to which it was raging when the person left. The fireman then runs to a bell-handle, which he pulls; and applying his ear to the mouth-piece of a pipe, hears a voice ask, ‘What is it?’ (The fireman hears his own voice sound as if at a great distance; while the voice actually remote sounds close in the mouth-piece, with a strange preternatural effect.) The bell-wire reaches up to the Superintendent’s bedside; and the bell being rung, Mr. Braidwood raises himself on one elbow, and applying his mouth to the other end of the tube, answers, and gives orders. A few words of dialogue conducted in this way, suffice. Up jumps Mr. Braidwood—crosses the passage to his dressing-room (armoury, we ought rather to call it), and in three minutes is attired in the thick cloth frock-coat, boots, and helmet of the Fire Brigade, fixing buttons and straps as he descends the stairs.

Meanwhile all the men have been equally active below. No sooner has the fireman aroused Mr. Braidwood, than he rings the bell of the foreman, the engineer, and the ‘singlemen’s bell’—which means the bell of the division where the four unmarried men sleep. He then runs out to the stables, calling the ‘charioteer’ by the way, and two other firemen lodging close by; after which he returns to assist in harnessing the horses.

Owing to this simultaneous action, each according to his special and general duties, by the time Mr. Braidwood reaches the bottom of the stairs, the engine has been got out, and put in working order. All its usual furniture, implements, and tools are placed within, or packed about it. Short scaling-ladders, made to fit into each other, are attached to the sides; six lengths of hose; branch-pipes, director-pipes, spare nozzle, suction-pipes, goose-neck, dogs’-tails (the first to deliver water into the engine; the second are iron wrenches), canvas sheet, with rope handles round the edge (to catch people who will boldly jump out of window), dam-board (to prevent water from plug flowing madly away), portable cistern, strips of sheep-skin (to mend bursting hose), balls of cord, flat hose, escape-chain, escape-ropes, mattock, saw, shovel, pole-axe, boat-hook, crow-bar (_such_ a fellow!) to burst through doors or walls, or break up pavement; instruments for opening fire-plugs, and keys for turning stop-cocks of water-mains, &c.

All being ready, the Superintendent mounts the engine to the right of the driver, and the engineer, foreman, and firemen mount also, and range themselves on each side of the long red chest at the top, which contains the multifarious articles just enumerated. Off they start—brisk trot—canter—gallop! A bright red gleam overspreads the sky to the westward. The Superintendent knows that the fire in the court has reached the mews, and the stables are in flames. Full gallop!

Along the midnight streets, which are now all alive with excited people—some having left the theatres, others wending homeward from supper at a friend’s, from dances, or perhaps late hours of business in various trades,—all are running in the direction of the fire! As the engine thunders by them, the gas-lamps gleaming on the helmets of the firemen and the eager heads of the horses, the people send up a loud shout of ‘Fi-ire!’ and follow pell-mell in its wake.

Arriving at the mews, the Superintendent sees exactly all that has happened—all that must happen—all that may happen—and all that may be prevented. The court is doomed to utter ruin and ashes; so is the mews. Two of the larger stables are on fire, and the flames are now devouring a loft full of hay and straw. But in doing this, their luminous tongues stretch far beyond, seeking fresh food when this is gone. The wind too!—the fatal wind, sets in the direction of the square! The flames are struggling, and leaping, and striving with all their might to reach the back premises of the houses on this side of the square; and reach it they will, if this wind continues!

Meanwhile, two of the Fire Brigade engines from stations nearer at hand than that of the Chief Office, are already here, and hard at work. A fourth engine arrives from the Chief Office close upon the wheels of the first—and now a fifth comes thundering up the mews. The Superintendent taking command of the whole, and having ascertained that all the inmates of the court and mews have been got out, gives orders for three of the engines to continue their efforts to overcome the fire, and at any rate to prevent it spreading to the houses in the square on each side of the one which is now so imminently threatened. He then directs his own engine and one other to be driven round to the front of the house in the square, so as to attack the enemy both in front and rear at the same time. The flames have just reached it—not a moment is to be lost! As he drives off, innumerable cries and exhortations seek to arrest his progress, and to make him alter his intentions. Several voices, louder and more excited than all the rest,—vociferating something about ‘saving her life’—cause him to pause, and prepare to turn, till, amidst the confusion, he contrives to elicit the fact that a stable cat has been unable to escape, and has darted out upon the burning roof of a loft—and, also, that Mrs. Jessikin’s laundry—but he listens no further, and gallops his engine round to the front of the house in the square, followed by shouts of excitement and several yells.

The Fire-escape ladders of the Royal Society have already arrived here in front. All the inmates have been got out by the door—at least it is _said_ that all are out, by those white figures with faces as white, who, looking round them, really see nothing distinctly and know nothing as it is—having been awoke by the cries of ‘Fire,’ and not being quite sure if all this mad hubbub of people, flames, voices, and water-spouts, may not be some horrible nightmare vision.

The water-plugs have been drawn, and the gutters are all flooded. The gully-hole is covered—a dam-board arrests the stream and gives depth—the portable cistern is quickly filled—the suction-pipes of the engines, being placed in it, both of them are got into position. The flames have reached the back of the house; their points are just seen rising above the roof! A rush of people seize on the long pump-levers, all mad to work the engines. The foreman rapidly selects ten for each side—sets them to work—and then, one at a time, takes down their names in a book for the purpose, so that they may be paid a shilling an hour—those who choose to accept it. But a hundred volunteer to work—they don’t want the shilling—they want to pump. ‘Let _me_ pump!’ ‘_I’m_ the one to pump!’ ‘Do you want any more to pump?’ resound on all sides from men of all classes, while the crowd press forward, and can scarcely be got to leave room enough for the engines to be worked—and they would not, but for the man with the director-pipe, who soon makes a watery circle around him. The fortunate volunteers at the levers now begin to pump away with a fury that seems perfectly frantic. The Superintendent, who has had many a fine-engine disabled during the first five minutes of this popular furor, insists upon their ardour being restrained; and with no little difficulty succeeds in getting his pumping done a degree less madly. Who, that did not know them, would believe that these outrageous pumpers were the very same people who stood with lack-lustre eyes at some tedious operation in trade or workshop, all day long; or, who sat stolidly opposite each other in an omnibus, without a word to say, and seeming too dull for either thought or action? Look at them now!

The wind still blows strongly from the blazing stables—the flames are rapidly eating their way through the house from the back! The two upper stories are already on fire. A figure appears at one of the windows, and makes signs. All the inmates had NOT been got out! An aged woman—a very old and faithful servant of the family—had lingered behind, vainly endeavouring to pack up some of her dear young mistress’s clothes and trinkets. A prolonged cry bursts from the crowd, followed with innumerable pieces of advice—bawled, hoarsely shouted, or rapidly screamed to the Superintendent, and the firemen directing the nozzle of the hose.

‘Point the nozzle up to the _window_!’

‘Up to the _roof_ of that room!’

‘_Smash_ the windows!’

‘The _Fire-escape_, Mr. Braidwood!’

‘Bring the ropes for her!—_throw up_ the ropes to her!’

‘Don’t smash the windows; you’ll _cut_ her!’

‘She’s gone to _jump out_ at the back!’

‘She is lying on the _floor_!’

‘She’s _suffocated_, Mr. Braidwood!’

‘Send up the _water_, to bring her to her senses!’

‘She’s burnt to _ashes_, Mr. Braidwood—I see her lying _all of a red tinder_!’

Amidst these vociferations, the Superintendent, having a well-practised deaf ear for such pieces of advice, has despatched two firemen to ascend the stairs (no fireman is allowed to enter a burning house alone) while two others enter below, and a lengthened hose is handed up to them with a boat-hook through the front drawing-room window, in order to combat the fire at close quarters, each one being accompanied by another fireman, in case of one fainting from heat or smoke, and meantime to assist in getting out furniture from the rooms not yet touched by the flames.

The two foremost firemen have now ascended the stairs. One remains on the second-floor landing, to watch, and give notice if their retreat is likely to be cut off, while the other ascends to the upper room where the poor old servant had been last seen. The room is quite full of smoke. He therefore drops down directly with his face almost touching the floor (because, as the smoke ascends, he thus gets ten or twelve inches of clear space and air), and in this way creeps and drags himself along till he sees a bundle of something struggling about, which he at once recognises, seizes, and drags off as quickly as possible. Almost exhausted, he meets his comrade on the stairs, who instantly giving aid, they bring down a little white, smutty, huddled-up bundle, with a nightcap and arms to it; and as they emerge from the door, are greeted with shouts of applause, and roars and screams of ‘Bravo! Bravo! God bless ’em! Bravo!’ from voices of men, and women, and boys.

The old woman presently comes to herself. She holds something in one hand, which she had never loosed throughout, though she really does not know what it is. ‘At all events,’ says she, ‘I’ve saved _this_!’

It is a hearth-broom.

The two firemen, each bearing a hose, have now got a position inside the house—one standing on the landing-place of the second-floor within ten or twelve feet of the flames, the other planted in the back drawing-room. The first directs his nozzle so that the water strikes with the utmost force upon the fire, almost in a straight line, dashing it out into black spots, and flaws, and steam, as much by the violence of the concussion as the antagonistic element. The other fireman directs his jet of water to oppose the advances of the flames from the rafters of the stables behind, and the wood-work of the back premises. Both the men are enveloped in a cloud of hot steam, so hot as scarcely to be endurable, and causing the perspiration to pour down their faces as fast as the water runs down the walls from the vigorous ‘playing of their pipes.’

But next door—to the right—what a long succession of drawing-room and dining-room chairs issue forth, varied now and then with a dripping hamper of choice wine, and the sound of cracking bottles; now, with a flattened cradle, now a tea-tray of richly-bound books; now, a turbot-kettle, and then more chairs!

In the door-way of the house on the left, there is a dreadful jam. An abominable, huge mahogany table has fixed one of its corners into the wall, on one side, and the brass castor of one leg into a broken plank of the flooring, on the other, just as a Broadwood horizontal-grand was coming down the stairs in the most massive manner (like a piano conscious of Beethoven), with its five bearers. These five men with the piano-forte, receiving a check in the passage from three men bearing boxes and a large clothes-horse, who had themselves received a check by the jam of the huge mahogany and its eight or nine excited blockheads, the stoppage became perfect, and the confusion sheer madness. Some of the inmates of this house, who had been wildly helping and handing down all sorts of things, observing that a stoppage had occurred below, and believing they had no more time to spare before the flames would penetrate their walls, brought baskets to the window, and with great energy threw out a quantity of beautiful china, glass, and choice chimney ornaments down upon the stones below, to be taken care of; also an empty hat-box.

Above all the tumult, and adding in no small degree to the wildness and abrupt energies of the scene, a violent knocking at doors in the square is frequently heard, sometimes by policemen, at other times by excited relations suddenly arriving, desperate to give their advice, and see it attended to. The bedroom windows, in rows on either side, are alive with heads, many of them in night-caps, while the upper windows of several, apparently ‘the nurseries,’ are crowded with white dolls, whose round white nobs are eagerly thrust forth. In the windows of the houses, lights are seen to move about rapidly from room to room, and windows are continually thrown up; a figure looks out wildly—then suddenly disappears.

The two firemen who had gained positions inside the house, each with his long hose supplied from the engine below, had hitherto maintained their posts; the one on the second-floor landing having very successfully repelled the advance of the fire, the other in the back drawing-room having fairly obtained a mastery. But a strong gust of wind rising again, sets all their previous success at nought. The flames again advance; and all their work has to be done over again.

By this time the two men are nearly exhausted; two other firemen are, however, close at hand to relieve them. They take their places. As the flames advance, the engines below are worked with redoubled energy by the people, who also relieve each other; but no one will relinquish his place at the pump-lever, so long as he is able to stand, or have one heave up, or one bang down, more. Still the flames advance!—they enter the house!—the front drawing-room is suddenly illuminated!—a glare of light is reflected from a great looking-glass on one of the walls! A loud shout of excitement resounds from the crowd—while bang! bang! go the engine-pumps.

The fireman, who is surrounded by so strong a glare of light that he appears all on fire, is seen to retreat a few paces towards the door. He is presently joined by another fireman, who runs to the front drawing-room window, out of which he suspends an iron chain to secure their escape, in case of need, and then returns to his comrade. They rally, and each with his brass director-pipe advances again within half-a-dozen paces of the blazing walls. They are, foot by foot, driven back into the front drawing-room. The flames follow them, and soon are very close to the or molu frame-work of the great looking-glass.

Bang! bang! go the engines.

‘Save the glass!’ shout numbers of voices.

‘The ceiling! the ceiling’s bursting down!’ cry others.

Bang! bang! go the engines.

‘Save the pieces!’

‘The door-post’s on fire!’

‘Look behind you!’

‘The glass!—the glass!’

‘Save yourselves!’

Bang! bang! go the engines.

The Superintendent has sent orders to the firemen to give no more attention to the interior of this house, except with a view to prevent the fire spreading to the adjoining houses. Consequently, the streams of water are now directed to drenching the walls, and beating back the flames on either side. The great looking-glass, no longer an object of special protection, is presently reached by the flames; they coil and cluster round the frame-work, which, breaking out into jets of coloured fire, gives a splendid magnificence to the design of the carving. The crowd jump up and down to see, and also from excitement. The flames flap about, and point their long luminous tongues across the broad plate of the glass, which for a moment reflects every object in the room,—the falling ceiling—the firemen in their helmets—the blazing ruin around;—and then, crack!—clash! clash!—the whole falls, a wreck of sharp angles.

Again a loud shout from the crowd below!—not so much of regret as a kind of wild purposeless joy, which causes them again to leap up and down, expecting and (without knowing it) hoping the same thing will happen to some other glass in the room. Melted lead from the roof now runs gleaming down—spurting upon the helmet of one of the firemen, and then running in straggling lines down his thick coat; while a slate falling, as usual, edgeways, sticks across the centre-piece of his comrade’s helmet. Now, with a rattling and loud rumble, falls the partition between the front and back drawing-rooms, and with it a great part of the ceiling! A terrific shout of alarm bursts from the crowd. The two firemen are buried in the ruins. The whole space is filled with the dense smoke and with piles of lath and plaster, and brick and blazing wood.

But see!—a helmet, white with mortar, rises from the floor near the window-sill—and now another! One after the other, the exhausted firemen descend the iron chain, and are caught in the arms of the Superintendent and two of their comrades below, while loud shouts and vociferations of applause burst from the crowd.

The stable cat, too, from the mews! See! she has crossed between the burning rafters, and leaped into the balcony of the next house, with smoking tail and ears.

The flames have been smothered for a time by this fall of the ceiling and partition-wall; the Superintendent has now got seven engines round to the front; he takes advantage of the fortunate accident; the wind, too, has shifted; the seven engines pour torrents of water upon the smoking mass and against the walls, and thus continue till the most frightful of all enemies is thoroughly subdued and reduced to blackness and quietude. Most dismal is the scene of devastation; but the enemy is at all events laid prostrate and rendered incapable of further mischief.

Drenched to the skin with cold water, and reeking at the same time with perspiration, the gallant men of the Fire Brigade return to their several quarters. Two of them, however, remain on watch with an engine all night, a change of clothes and ‘a dram’ being sent them from the station.

The present efficient condition of fire-engines, as may easily be supposed, has only been the result of many years of skilful experiment and practical experience. Our ancestors (notwithstanding their wisdom) were by no means furnished with such means of extinguishing fire, although, from the great number of wooden buildings, and greater quantity of wooden materials employed, to say nothing of thatch, they had greater need of them. On the other hand, they had not so many scientific combustibles among them. Still, the want of a proper engine is manifest from what we know of their attempts in that way. They used squirts,—actually nothing but squirts. Every alderman was obliged to provide one. It will be understood that the squirt was not of schoolboy dimensions, but so large as to require two men, holding it in their arms between them, like a sort of mummy, to dip its nose into a bucket, and then, raising it to the proper angle, discharge the contents at the building on fire.

The first construction of the fire engine, properly so called, is attributable to a German named Hautsch, in 1657, which was afterwards improved by the brothers Van der Heyden, in 1672. But, though the merit of the invention confers all due honour on the engineering mind of Germans, it may be questioned whether the character of the people was ever of a kind to induce the working of them with promptitude or efficiency. So recently as a few years ago, when the writer was staying in the town of Bonn, intelligence was brought of a fire at Popplesdorf, a village about a mile and a quarter distant. The town engine was got out by a couple of men, with pipes in their mouths, and the horse—one horse—being put to, it was trotted off in the most deliberate manner. Outside the town gates we overtook a number of students and other gentlemen, all leisurely sauntering with their pipes towards Popplesdorf, never doubting but they would be in ample time before the engine had extinguished the fire. And so they were, for it was burning nearly half the day. Nevertheless, the Prussian Government have been the first to purchase the invention of the Steam Fire Engine. Their theories in the matter seem perfect; but to put out a fire with promptitude cannot be done even by a Steam Fire Engine without a little human activity.

The contrast of our vivacity in these matters is very striking, and in no case more so than when some mischievous idiot gives a false alarm (an atrocity which we believe is not often committed), or when some extraordinary meteorological phenomenon induces the mistake. We find two extraordinary instances of this recorded in Knight’s ‘London.’

‘On the first of these, _twelve_ engines and _seventy-four_ brigade
men were kept in constant motion from _eleven in the evening till six
the next morning_, in endeavouring to search out what appeared to be a
large conflagration; some of the engines reached Hampstead, and others
Kilburn, before it was found that the glare was the effect of the
“northern lights.” On the other occasion, a crimson glare of light
arose at the north-east part of the horizon, at about eight o’clock in
the evening, seemingly caused by a fierce conflagration; and the
resemblance was increased by what appeared to be clouds of smoke
rising up after the glare, and breaking and rolling away beneath it.
_Thirteen_ engines and a large body of men went in search of the
supposed fire, and did not detect their error till they had proceeded
far to the north-east.’

The statistics of London fires are very interesting, and much may be learned from them, not only as matter of anxious information, but of salutary warning.

The total number of fires in London in the past year, was 838. Of these, 28 were utterly destructive fires; the number of lives lost being 26. Seriously damaged, 228; slightly damaged, 582.

Of chimneys on fire there were 89; and there were 76 false alarms—not mischievous, but from error or panic.

The number of calls on the fire-office and other aids amounted to 1003.

In the above 838 fires, the number of insurances (ascertained) were 368; those which insured on the building only, were 163; those which insured on the contents only, were 72; and the number of uninsured was 235.

Of the 26 lives lost, 13 were from the ignition of bed-furniture or wearing apparel; explosion of fire-works, 5; and 8 from inability to escape out of burning houses.

An examination of the statistics of fires in the Metropolis during sixteen years, _i.e._ from 1833 to 1848 (which document was obligingly laid before us by Mr. Braidwood), has put us in possession of a great mass of very curious and instructive information, from which we extract the following:——

Apothecaries and dealers in drugs 36
Bakers 244
Booksellers, binders, and stationers 137

Of these latter, 96 burnt gas; and the fires caused by gas amounted to 28.

Cabinet-makers 156
Carpenters and workers in wood 434
Churches 33

Of these last-named, 3 were totally destroyed, and 10 much damaged; the rest slightly, or mere alarms. Of the cause of the fires, 8 were from the stoves, flues, &c., and 2 from lightning.

Drapers, woollen and linen 254

Of these, 105 were much damaged; 239 burnt gas; and the cause of 140 of these fires was carelessness or accident with the gas.

Fire-Preventive Company 1

The cause of this was an experiment with some ‘fire-proof plaster,’ which ignited in a most unexpected and insubordinate manner, and caused great damage.

Fire-work Makers 49

The cause of these fires, all of which did great damage, was from the nature of the trade; from the smoking of tobacco; from boys playing with fire; and from the reckless trick of a lighted squib or cracker being thrown into the shop-window.

Gas-works 37

From the great care taken, and ready means of prevention, only 9 of these were much injured, and none totally destroyed.

Grocers 120

Of these, 109 burnt gas; and 26 of the fires are attributable to carelessness or accident with the gas.

Gunpowder-sellers 1

Notice the result of a full consciousness of the danger, and proportionate care. Only one fire!

Lodgings 868

Of the above number, 368 were found to have been caused by the taking fire of curtains, linen airing, &c. Some of the rest were caused by hunting fleas, &c.

Lucifer-match-makers 101
Lunatic asylums 2

Observe the great care in these asylums. All the asylums for lunatics furnishing only two fires in sixteen years!

Printers and Engravers 72
Private houses 3352

Of the above, the immense number of 1302 were discovered to have been caused by the taking fire of curtains, dresses, airing linen, &c.

Sale-shops and offices 526

Of these, 379 burnt gas; and the fires caused by gas were 129.

Ships 82

Caused by stores, flues, cooking, igniting of cargo, smoking tobacco, &c.

Stables 192

Caused by candles, lucifers, smoking tobacco, intoxication, &c.

Tailors 81

Seventeen of the above were caused by gas; 13 by candles; and some by smoking tobacco.

Theatres 20

Of the above number, 8 were caused by gas; some others by smoking tobacco, and the taking fire of curtains, dresses, &c.

Tobacconists 43

Of the above, 6 were caused by gas; 6 by lucifer-matches; others by curtains, smoking tobacco, by a _cat_, and by _rats_. A word more of these incendiaries presently.

Victuallers 542

Of the above, there were 21 totally destroyed; 167 much damaged, and 354 slightly. Of the causes, 83 were from the flues; 73, curtains, dresses, &c.; 65, gas; 36, smoking tobacco; 35, a candle. The remainder comes under the various heads of lucifers, hot cinders, intoxication, children playing with fire, a spark, and a monkey.

Besides this ‘monkey,’ we have had occasion to mention several other ‘sparks,’ concerning whom some passing explanation may be needed. Having noticed the word ‘cat,’ occurring several times in the list of annual causes of fire,—‘Yes,’ replied Mr. Braidwood, ‘we often have a cat.’ It appears that the cat sometimes upsets the clothes-horse with things airing; or, perhaps, in creeping under the clothes to get inside the fender, drags some of them with her on her back. The fire caused by the monkey was attributable to some prank of his—meaning no harm, perhaps, but not much caring about that. The incendiarism of the rats was undoubtedly effected innocently by their investigation of a box of lucifers, which included a trial if the matches were good to eat. Their teeth exploded them—a feat very easily performed.

Of carelessness with gas in shops and warehouses, or with candles near bedroom curtains, muslin dresses, or linen airing before the fire, we need not speak, as the dangers are too obvious by the results; nor of carelessness with lucifer-matches; nor the very common practice of raking out the fire at night from the grate (where it would be safe) down upon the hearth, and leaving the hot embers, which perhaps ignite by the air of the closing door, as the careful person retires to bed. Carelessness with a cigar or pipe is also an obvious cause. Working men often put their pipes, half-extinguished, or alive at the bottom of the bowl, into their jacket-pocket at night; and then hang up the jacket, and go to bed. Children, also, being left alone, near a fire, may generally be expected to play with fire, either because it is beautiful, or because the play is interdicted.

With respect to ‘sparks,’ that a house should take fire, had always been regarded by us with no small degree of scepticism. A gentleman of our acquaintance carried his disbelief much further. Sitting with a party of sporting friends round a winter’s fire, and these dangers being the subject of conversation, he offered to empty the whole contents of the grate on the carpet in the middle of the room—_he_ to pay all expenses if the house took fire; his opponent simply to pay for the carpet and the charred floor. They were all to sit round, and watch the result. It was agreed. ‘Now,’ said a friend, ‘I will bet you _ten_ to one this house will take fire, provided we all go out of the room, lock the door, and leave the house.’ The other would not venture on this.

Mr. Braidwood’s speculation on the question of sparks, in reply to our doubts, is very curious and practical. He estimated the number of houses in London at 300,000. Allowing two _domestic_ fires to each house, we have 600,000 in the day; and these multiplied by 7, give 4,200,000 in a week. That one spark, therefore, from 4,200,000 fires should fly out upon some materials easy to ignite, once in a week, is far from difficult to credit; and this would fully bear out the number on the list that are declared to have occurred from this cause.

The number of fires and alarms of fire that occurred in London during the fifteen years ending in 1847, present a continual _increase_. In 1833 they amounted to 458; in 1834, to 482; and so on, down to 1847, when they amounted to 836. This gives a total of 9662 fires during the fifteen years. The average of this is 644. We next find that in 1848 the number of fires amounted to 805; showing an _increase_ beyond the previous year of 161. In 1849 the number amounted to 838, being an increase of 33 beyond the previous year.

How are we to reconcile this increase with the extraordinary efficiency of the Fire Brigade, and the improvements in measures of precaution? Partly by the regular increase in the numbers of houses. But Mr. Braidwood frankly declares that this does not meet the increase of fires and alarms of fire that reach the Office. We can only account for it, therefore, by the great increase of scientific combustibles, not merely in our shops, but in our domestic arrangements—especially gas, and lucifer-matches—and yet more to the fact that, in former years, many slight fires caused no alarm to be given, while now the arrangements are so complete, that probably almost every slight alarm of fire that occurs is carried to the Office, and duly recorded.

With respect to Fire-Escapes; precautions against fire, that should be adopted in houses; arrangements to meet the accident; and the best means of extinguishing fires (particularly with reference to Mr. Phillips’ Fire-Annihilator, which possesses an undoubted power over _flames_), we cannot now afford the space their importance merits; but we shall bear them in mind for a future number.

POETRY IN THE BYE-WAYS.

Every book-hunter, whose connection with paper and print has more of individuality than of fashion in it—must in his time have met with scores of small volumes of rhyme forced out with a care and pains of which the heart aches to think, prefaced with the bad taste of immoderate deprecation on the part of the author,—or with the worse appeal of extravagant commendation on the part of the patron—none of which shall merit a place on the shelf by the side of Crabbe, or Wordsworth, or Burns—none of which can be denied the possession of some sparks and breathings of true poetry.

Sometimes, however, it must be owned, that the difficulties under which the rhymester has laboured, are the best—nay the sole—evidences of his genius. In the verses of Phillis Wheatly, the negro girl, for instance, there is not a line that is not the stalest of the stale—not an image that is not the most second-hand of the second-hand. Yet, that sixty years since, a woman of her condemned colour and oppressed race—in America, too,—should find spirits to sing, and power to attract an audience,—in that fact was a poem of no common order.

Years ago, there passed through the writer’s hand a small collection of verse—if verse it might be called—in quality, the most dreary and antipathetic, possible—sectarian hymns, full of phrases, the intimate sense of which can never have pierced to the mind of their maker. This was a poor creature in a hospital, who had been found on a harsh January night, frozen into the kennel where she had fallen, and who paid for that night’s lodging with a lingering death of cruelly long duration. Her vital powers gradually retired one by one. For many years she was unable to move a limb; latterly could scarcely speak audibly, or take barely sufficient food to keep life in the half-dead body. But these dismal hymns were her receipt for occupation and cheerfulness. ‘When I cannot sleep,’ she would say, in a dialect of her own peculiar pattern, ‘I _mew_.’—There was poetry in the origin of these ‘_mewings_,’ though none in the dark and narrow stanzas themselves.

From the above illustrations it may be gathered that much of the bye-way poetry with which we shall deal, has never been promoted to the honours and heartaches of paper and print—nor even taken the manuscript forms of ‘longs and shorts’ as decidedly as did the imaginative instincts of Black Phillis, or the long-tried patience of the sufferer in the —— Ward. We may—and shall—have to do with authorship in humble life,—but less, perchance, than those will expect, who have considered our subject merely from the outside of the bookseller’s window, or from the sum total of a rhymester’s subscription list—drawing thence the charming inference that A., B. or C. is a poet, because he has found a publisher and extorted a public!—Too seldom has a Capel Lofft, or a Southey, or a More, while trying to bring forward a Bloomfield, or a Mary Colling, or an ungrateful Bristol Milkwoman, whose facility in versifying has arrested them,—considered how wide is the distance betwixt what may be called the unconscious Poetry of the People—and that meagre and second-hand manufacture, produced with a desire for fame, or under hopes of gain, which challenges competition with the efforts of men more favourably circumstanced, and which goes forth as virtually a solicitation for alms.—On the one side (to take the first instance which occurs) we shall find something like the Gondolier songs of Venice, patched up—St. Mark and the Moon know how!—out of bits of plays and bits of verses and bits of opera-tunes, by old men and girls and boys, while a sprightly people ply their picturesque trade under an Italian sky, with every image round them to inspire and encourage a sense of tune,—and which, after a while, get so rubbed into shape—so rounded and changed,—so decked with canal-wit,—so filled with local names and local words,—that a College of Anatomists should be puzzled to ‘resolve them into their primary elements.’—On the other side, we may cite as example any of the myriad verses anxiously strung together by the hectic and over-wrought operative, by the light of his candle, whose very burning would be reprehensible as an extravagance, could not the ware fabricated at midnight find an immediate market. The first is an utterance—the second a manufacture. The first speaks with the breath of a peculiar life, and wears the colour of a peculiar scenery—the second is an exercise produced under circumstances, which, however stimulating to energy, are but discouraging to Fancy. We may be told, it is true, that many of our dearest ‘household words’ have been wrung from our greatest men, by the pressure of the cruellest exigency. One poet, to pay for his mother’s funeral, must needs write a ‘Rasselas’—another, under constraint less instant, but perhaps not less harassing, shall gladden England for ever, by calling up _Olivia_ and _Sophia_ in the hayfield, and _Farmer Flamborough’s_ Christmas party, and the Vicar slyly making an end of ‘the wash for the face,’ which his innocently-worldly daughters were brewing. But evidence like this does nothing to contradict our wisdom. Had Johnson been compelled to compose his superb style, at a moment’s warning by the coffin-side; had Goldsmith possessed no treasury of adventure and experience to draw upon, no power to handle the pen already learned—neither _Imlac_ nor _Mrs. Primrose_ would have been alive at this day. Without preparation, training, craftsmanship, there is little literature—there is no art. Ballads may grow up—but not epics be produced, nor five-act plays be constructed, nor tales be woven, nor even a complete lyric be finished. It has fallen to the lot of every one of us too often and again, to see hearts fevered, hopes wrecked, life embittered, and Death (or Madness) courted, because men cannot—and their friends _will not_—sufficiently fix their minds on this plain truth; because inclinations are perpetually mistaken for powers; because, bewildered by some faëry dream that the world in which a Scott is king or a Siddons is queen, is paved with gold—every boy who can cut paragraphs into lengths fancies that he is a Scott—and every girl with a strong voice who loves playgoing, that she is a _Lady Macbeth_, a _Cleopatra_, a _Queen Constance_, who can shake ‘the playhouse down.’

At all events, in such mistakes as the above, followed by their sure consequence of misery, lives not the Poetry which we are seeking. In its place we too often encounter a dismal wax-work show—a creature with glassy eyes and hot red cheeks, and a stiff arm, in a noble attitude perhaps, but always beckoning in one and the same direction,—not the living, breathing, hoping, fearing being, human like ourselves, yet better than ourselves, with whom we can sit down at meat, and kneel down at prayer—not the fragment of Heaven upon Earth to encounter and make acquaintance with, which redeems us from utter heartlessness or discomfort. The Poetry of appreciation when creation is impossible—the Poetry of daily life, as sung in deeds of unselfishness, delicacy, triumph over temptations—consideration of the weak (let the brute-force theorists ‘sound their trumpets and beat their drums’ as loudly as if upon themselves devolved the whole orchestral and choral noise of ‘Judas Maccabeus’) and companionship with the humble—the Poetry of a healthy, not a maudlin love for Nature—these are to be sought out and gathered up. In turn we may sit on the bleak hill-sides of Scotland with the shepherd-rhymesters of the north—or wander down the alleys of English manufacturing towns, to see what fairly-patterned verse may have been woven there. Or in a green lane we may open such a book as good Mr. Barnes has published in the Dorsetshire dialect, to show how ingeniously music may be got out of a corrupt local English phraseology. Or we may cross the Channel to hear Jasmin, the Provençal hairdresser, recite; or to see Reboul, the Nismes baker, bring out an ode hot from his oven.—But our business will be more with deeds than with words, more with genuine thoughts and impulses in action, than with second-hand fancies, faded as the coarse artificial flowers of a milliner’s shop in Leicester Square, when the season is over, which no passer-by, ‘gentle or simple,’ can think of taking home.

We may have to do, moreover, with the poetry of association as conveyed in those festivals of joy or of sorrow which mark the progress of life and the peculiarity of manners. The nasal, droning burial psalm that may still be heard in remote places of England, winding up a hollow lane or across the corner of a moor,—as some little congregation of friends or neighbours bears a dead body home,—the twilight vesper service (intrinsically tuneless and unmusical) of the Sisters of Charity, who come back to their _Beguinage_ after a long day of hard work, hard prayers, hard consolation, and hard gossip among the poor;—do these things say nothing to us? Is nothing told us by the cry of sailors as they warp the ship into dock at the close of a wild and wintry voyage? by the serenade-music with which the impulsive people of a German town welcome some favourite poet or artist?—Are these not all, more or less, poems conveying to us something of feeling, and life, and youth, be we ever so soured, ever so seared by perpetual contact with coarser and harsher contemplations and employments? May we not call up such pictures,—may we not soothe ourselves with such harmonies,—may we not lay them to our souls as evidences? We must not use them by way of unction flattering us into the sentimental Waiting Gentlewoman’s notion that crime is to disappear like a scene in a pantomime, and thieves all of a sudden to grow as orderly as beadles; but we may apply them as alteratives when we are in danger of being wearied into doggedness, by the man who enacts fits at the street corner—or by the begging-letter Impostor who wrings crowns out of kind-hearted and economical souls, who must for their credulity’s sake forego their holiday—or by the Pole with his anti-Russian pamphlet, who makes his way in, to abase himself by fawning and genteel mendicity, under pretext of being a friend’s friend—or by the sight of such a pillar of stone as the woman who went into the confectioner’s shop to buy gingerbread, ‘because they were going to see our Sally hanged, and should be hungry!’

Yes: if sights and provocations and discouragements like these—of the earth, earthy—force themselves into our highways, all the more need is it that all celestial appearances and sounds in our bye-ways, be they ever so few, faint, and far, should be collected, and set down. Be they ever so rich, they will not be rich enough to justify an over-complacent or supine spirit—still less to tempt the healthily-minded to confound dross with pure gold: be they ever so meagre, they ought to keep alive in us the faith, that no portion of the earth is so barren, that Truth or Beauty, and Love, and Patience, and Honour, cannot grow therein.

THE MINER’S DAUGHTERS.—A TALE OF THE PEAK.

IN THREE CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER II.—MILL LIFE.

We must pass over the painful and dreadful particulars of that night, and of a long time to come; the maniacal rage of the father, the shattered heart and feelings of the mother, the dreadful state of the two remaining children, to whom their brother was one of the most precious objects in a world which, like theirs, contained so few. One moment to have seen him full of life, and fun, and bravado, and almost the next a lifeless and battered corpse, was something too strange and terrible to be soon surmounted. But this was wofully aggravated by the cruel anger of their father, who continued to regard them as guilty of the death of his favourite boy. He seemed to take no pleasure in them. He never spoke to them but to scold them. He drank more deeply than ever, and came home later; and when there, was sullen and morose. When their mother, who suffered severely, but still plodded on with all her duties, said, ‘David, they are thy children too;’ he would reply savagely, ‘Hod thy tongue! What’s a pack o’ wenches to my lad?’

What tended to render the miner more hard towards the two girls was a circumstance which would have awakened a better feeling in a softer father’s heart. Nancy, the younger girl, since the dreadful catastrophe, had seemed to grow gradually dull and defective in her intellect, she had a slow and somewhat idiotic air and manner. Her mother perceived it, and was struck with consternation by it. She tried to rouse her, but in vain. She could not perform her ordinary reading and spelling lessons. She seemed to have forgotten what was already learned. She appeared to have a difficulty in moving her legs, and carried her hands as if she had suffered a partial paralysis. Jane, her sister, was dreadfully distressed at it, and she and her mother wept many bitter tears over her. One day, in the following spring, they took her with them to Ashford, and consulted the doctor there. On examining her, and hearing fully what had taken place at the time of the brother’s death—the fact of which he well knew, for it, of course, was known to the whole country round—he shook his head, and said he was afraid they must make up their minds to a sad case; that the terrors of that night had affected her brain, and that, through it, the whole nervous system had suffered, and was continuing to suffer the most melancholy effects. The only thing, he thought, in her favour was her youth; and added, that it might have a good effect if they could leave the place where she had undergone such a terrible shock. But whether they did or not, kindness and soothing attentions to her would do more than anything else.

Mrs. Dunster and little Jane returned home with heavy hearts. The doctor’s opinion had only confirmed their fears; for Jane, though but a child, had quickness and affection for her sister enough to make her comprehend the awful nature of poor Nancy’s condition. Mrs. Dunster told her husband the doctor’s words, for she thought they would awaken some tenderness in him towards the unfortunate child. But he said, ‘That’s just what I expected. Hou’ll grow soft, and then who’s to maintain her? Hou mun goo to th’ workhouse.’

With that he took his maundrel and went off to his work. Instead of softening his nature, this intelligence seemed only to harden and brutalise it. He drank now more and more. But all that summer the mother and Jane did all that they could think of to restore the health and mind of poor Nancy. Every morning, when the father was gone to work, Jane went to a spring up in the opposite wood, famed for the coldness and sweetness of its waters. On this account the proprietors of the mills at Cressbrook had put down a large trough there under the spreading trees, and the people fetched the water even from the village. Hence Jane brought, at many journeys, this cold, delicious water to bathe her sister in; they then rubbed her warm with cloths, and gave her new milk for her breakfast. Her lessons were not left off, lest the mind should sink into fatuity, but were made as easy as possible. Jane continued to talk to her, and laugh with her, as if nothing was amiss, though she did it with a heavy heart, and she engaged her to weed and hoe with her in their little garden. She did not dare to lead her far out into the valley, lest it might excite her memory of the past fearful time, but she gathered her flowers, and continued to play with her at all their accustomed sports, of building houses with pieces of pots and stones, and imagining gardens and parks. The anxious mother, when some weeks were gone by, fancied that there was really some improvement. The cold-bathing seemed to have strengthened the system: the poor child walked, and bore herself with more freedom and firmness. She became ardently fond of being with her sister, and attentive to her directions. But there was a dull cloud over her intellect, and a vacancy in her eyes and features. She was quiet, easily pleased, but seemed to have little volition of her own. Mrs. Dunster thought if they could but get her away from that spot, it might rouse her mind from its sleep. But perhaps the sleep was better than the awaking might be; however, the removal came, though in a more awful way than was looked for. The miner, who had continued to drink more and more, and seemed to have almost estranged himself from his home, staying away in his drinking bouts for a week or more together, was one day blasting a rock in the mine, and being half-stupified with beer, did not take care to get out of the way of the explosion, was struck with a piece of the flying stone, and killed on the spot.