а Date implements at Paris. In juxtaposition having spread that the awful explosion which with this case we are tempted to put another, did so much damage arose from the illicit in which the attempt at extinction was fol- stowage of seven tons of gunpowder in the lowed by exactly the opposite effects. A Messrs. Sisson's warehouse, the interested intradesman was about to light bis gas, when, surance companies offered a reward of 1001. finding the cock stiff, he took a candle to see to elicit information. The experiments instiwhat was the matter; whilst attempting to tuted, however, by Mr. Pattinson, in the turn it, the screw came out, and with it a presence of Captain Du Cane, of the Royal jet of gas, which was instantly fired by the Engineers, and the coroner's jury impanelled candle. The blaze igniting the shop, a pass- to inquire into the matter, showed that the er-by seized a wooden pail and threw its water from the fire-engine falling upon the contents upon the flames, which flared up mineral and chemical substances in store was immediately with tenfold power. It is scarce- sufficient to account for the result. The folly necessary to state that the water was whis- lowing were the experiments tried at Mr. key, and that the country was Old Ireland. Pattinson's works at Felling, about three Spontaneous combustion is at present very miles from Gateshead :little understood, though chemists have of late turned their attention to the subject. It • Mr Pattinson first caused a metal pot to be forms, however, no inconsiderable item in the inserted in the ground until its top was level with list of causes of fires. There can be no nitrate of soda and 6 lbs. of sulphur, he ignited the surface; and having put into it 9 lbs. of question that many of those that occur at the mass; and then, heating it to the highest railway-stations and buildings, are due to the possible degree of which it was susceptible, he fermentation which arises among oiled rags. poured into it about a quart of water. The effect Over-heating of waste, which includes shoddy, was an immediate explosion (accompanied by a sawdust, cotton, &c., is a fearful source of loud clap), which would have been exceedingly conflagrations. The cause of most fires which perilous to any person in its immediate vicinity. have arisen from spontaneous combustion is conditions. The pot into which the sulphur and The experiment was next made under different lost in the consequence. Cases now and then nitrate of soda were put was covered over the top occur where the firemen have been able to with a largo piece of thick metal of considerable detect it, as for instance at Hibernia Wharf weight; and above that again were placed several in 1846, one of Alderman Humphery's ware- large pieces of clay and earth. It was deemed houses. It happened that a porter had swept necessary to dry this cxperiment in an open field, the sawdust from the floor into a heap, upon of the spectators placing themselves at a safe dis away from any dwelling-house, and which admitted which a broken flask of olive oil that was tance from the spot. The materials were then placed above dripped its contents. To these ignited as before ; and when in the incandescent elements combustion the sun added its pow-state, water was poured upon the mass down a · er, and sixteen hours afterwards the fire broke spout. The result was but a comparatively slight out. Happily it was instantly extinguished ; explosion, and which scarcely disturbed tho iron and the agents that produced it were caught, and clods placed over the mouth of the vessel . red-handed as it were, in the act. The Another experiment of the kind was made with chances are that such a particular combina- the same result. At length, a trial having been tion of circumstances might not occur again that the vessel was covered over the top with an. made for the third time, but with this difference, in a thousand years. The sawdust will not other similar vessel, and that the water was poured be swept again into such a position under the upon the burning sulphur and nitrate of soda with oil, or the bottle will not break over the saw- greater rapidity than before, by slightly elevating dust, or the sun will not shine in on them to the spout, the effect was to blow up the pot on complete the fatal sum. It is an important fact, tho top into the air to a height of upwards of however, to know that oiled sawdust, warmed seventy feet, accompanied by a loud detonation. by the sun, will fire in sixteen hours, as it ac- that, whether or not the premises in Hillgate con With this the coroner and jury became convinced counts for a number of conflagrations in saw- tained gunpowder, they contained elements as mills, which never could be traced to any certainly explosive, and perhaps far more deprobable cause. structive.' We here mention as a curious result explosions. It used to be assumed that gun- of the Gateshead fire that several tons of lead, powder was answerable for all such terrible whilst flowing in a molten state, came in coneffects in warehouses where no gas or steam tact with a quantity of volatilised sulphur. was employed ; and as policies are vitiated Thus the lead became re-converted into leadby the fact of its presence, unless declared, ore, or a sulphuret of lead, which, as it many squabbles have ensued between insur- required to be re-smelted, was thereby debased ers and insured upon this head alone. At in value from some twenty-two to fifteen the late great fire at Gateshead, a report shillings a ton. 139 . The great fire, again, which occurred in Beershops 142 Liverpool in October last, was occasioned by Coffee-shops and Chophouses Brokers and Dealers in Old Clothes 134 the explosion of spirits of turpentine, which Hatmakers. 127 blew out, one after another, seven of the walls Lucifer-match makers 120 of the vaults underneath the warehouse, and Wine and Spirit Merchants 118 in some cases destroyed the vaulting itself, Tailors. 113 and exposed to the flames the stores of cotton Hotels and Club-houses 107 above. Surely some law is called for to pre- Tobacconists 105 vent the juxtaposition of such inflammable Euting-houses 104 Booksellers and Binders 103 materials. The turpentine is said to have Ships 102 been fired by a workman who snuffed the Printers and Engravers 102 candle with his fingers, and accidentally threw Builders 91 the snuff down the bung-hole of one of the Houses unoccupied 89 barrels of turpentine. The warehouses burnt Tallow-chandlers. 87 were built upon 75 plan, which the Liverpool people introduced, Saw-mills 67 Firework Makers . some years ago, at a great expense to the Warehouses 63 town. Chemists 62 Water alone brought into sudden contact Coachmakers 50 with red-hot iron is capable of giving rise to Warehouses (Manchester) 49 a gas of the most destructive nature witness Public Buildings . 46 the extraordinary explosions that are continually taking place in steam-vessels, especially If we look at the mere number of fires, irin America, which mostly arise from the respective of the size of the industrial group lurching of the vessel when waiting for pas- upon which they committed their ravages, sengers, causing the water to withdraw from houses would appear to be hazardous accorone side of the boiler, which rapidly becomes ding to the order in which we have placed red hot. The next lurch in an opposite di- them. Now, this is manifestly absurd, inasrection precipitates the water upon the highly- much as private houses stand at the head of heated surface, and thus explosive gas, in the list, and it is well known that they are addition to the steam, is generated faster than the safest from fire of all kinds of tenements. the safety-valves can get rid of it. Mr. Brown, of the Society of Actuaries, who A very interesting inquiry, and one of has taken the trouble to compare the number vital importance to the actuaries of fire-in- of fires in each industrial group with the surance companies, is the relative liability to number of houses devoted to it, as far as he fire of different classes of occupations and could find any data in the Post-office Direcresidences. We already know accurately the tory, gives the following average annual pernumber of fires which occur yearly in every centage of conflagrations, calculated on a trade and kind of occupation. What we do period of fifteen years :not know, and what we want to know, is the proportion the tenements in which such trades Lucifor-match makers 30.00 and occupations are carried on, bear to the Lodging houses 16.61 Hatmakers. total number of houses in the metropolis. 774 Chandlers 3.88 The last census gives us no information of this Drapers. 2.67 kind, and we trust the omission will be sup Tinmen, Braziors, and Smiths 2:42 plied the next time it is taken. According to Carpenters. 2.27 Mr. Braidwood's returns for the last twenty- Cabinet Makers 2:12 one years, the number of fires in each trade, Oil and Colour men. 1.56 and in private houses, has been as follows: Beershops 1:31 Booksellers 1.18 Private Houses 4,638 Coffee-shops and Coffee-houses 1.2 Lodgings 1,304 1.12 Victuallers 715 .86 Sale Shops and Offices . 701 •75 Carpenters and Workers in Wood . 621 .61 Drapers, of Woollen and Linen 372 Grocers. •34 Bakers 311 Stables 277 It will be seen that this estimate in a great Cabinet Makers 233 Oil and Colour men measure inverts the order of dangerous, as 230 Chandlers 178 we bave ranged them in the previous table, Grocers. making those which from their aggregate 162 Tinmen, Braziers, and Smiths 158 number seemed to be the most hazardous Houses under Repair and Building . 150 trades appear the least so, and vice versa. 7 . . . a Thus lucifer-match makers have a bad pre- feet wide—and thus invaded the great rivereminence; indeed they are supposed to be side wharf. The two floating engines belongsubject to a conflagration every third year, ing to the Brigade were brought into service while the terrible victuallers, carpenters, mer- on the occasion, and although they threw cers, and bakers, at the top of the column, between them fourteen hundred gallons of shrink to the bottom of the list. These con- water a minute to the height of a hundred clusions nevertheless are only an approxima- feet, they had not the slightest effect upon the tion to the truth, since it is impossible to pro- burning mass. cure a correct return of the houses occupied Nothing shows better the relative degrees by different trades. Even if a certain class of of hazard than the different rates charged for tenements is particularly liable to fire, it does iusurance. Thus an ordinary dwelling-house not follow that it will be held to be very pays but 18. 6d. per cent., while a sugarhazardous to the insurers. Such considera- refinery pays at least two, and sometimes tions are influenced by another question. Are three guineas per cent., or from 30 to 40 the contents of houses forming the group of times as much. The same class of houses that nature that, in case of their taking fire, pay different rates according to their locality, they are likely to be totally destroyed, se- The residence which is charged 1s. 6d. in riously, or only slightly damaged ? For' in London, is, in St. John's, Newfoundland-a stance, lodging-houses are very liable to fire ; town famous, or rafher infamous for firesbut they are very seldom burned down or charged by our English offices ll. 118. 6d. much injured. Out of 81 that suffered in per cent. Probably the heaviest loss the 1853 not one was totally destroyed; only Phænix office ever sustained was by the fire four were extensively affected; the very large of St. John's, in 1846. majority, 77, were slightly scathed from the It is a notable fact that the city of London, burning of window and bed curtains, &c. which is perhaps the most densely inhabited Among the trades which are too hazardous spot the world has ever seen, bas long been to be insured at any price are—we quote from exempt from conflagrations involving a conthe Tariff of the County Fire-office-floor- siderable number of houses. "The devouring cloth manufacturers, gunpowder dealers, hat- element,' it is true, has made many meals ters' stock in the stove, lamp-black makers, from time to time of huge warehouses and lucifer-match makers, varnish makers, and public buildings; but since the great fire of wadding manufacturers; whilst the following 1666 it has ceased to gorge upon whole quar'are considered highly hazardous,-bone- ters of the town. We have never had, since crushers, coffee-roasters , composition orna- that memorable occasion, to record the ment makers, curriers, dyers, feather-stovers, destruction of a thousand houses at a time, a flambeau makers, heckling-houses, hemp and matter of frequent occurrence in the United x dressers, ivory-black makers, japanners States and Canada-indeed in all parts of and japan makers, laboratory-chemists, pa- Continental Europe. The fires which have tent japan-leather inanufacturers, lint-mills, proved fatal to large plots of buildings in the rough-fat melters, musical-instrument makers, metropolis, have in every instance taken oil and colour men, leather dressers, oiled place without the sound of Bow bells. A silk and liven makers, oil of vitriol manufac- comparison between the number of fires turers, pitch-makers, rag-dealers, resin-dealers, which occurred between the years 1838 and saw-mills, seed-crushers, ship-biscuit bakers, 1843, in 20,000 houses situate on either side soap-makers, spermaceti and wax refiners, of the Thaines, shows at once the superior sugar refiners, tar-dealers and boilers, thatched safety of its northern bank, the annual avehouses in towns, and turpentine-makers. rage of fires on the latter being only 20 nass of these trades bear 'ha- against 36 on the southern side. For this zardous upon the very face of them ; but it is exemption face of them; but it is exemption we have to thank the great disasnot equally apparent why that of a batter ter, if we might so term what has turned out should be so very dangerous, and particular a blessing. At one fell swoop it cleared the portions of his stock uninsurable. "We are City, and swept away for ever the dangerous given to understand that the stoves at which congregation of wooden buildings and nartheir manufacture is carried on, and the shell. row streets which were always affording malac and willow, are the causes of this prone- terial for the flame. ness to conflagrations. The memorable fire Mr. Peter Cunningham, in his Handbook at Fenning's Wharf, which burned with a of London,'* gives the following curious infury to which that at the Royal Exchange and formation respecting its supposed origin :at the houses of Parliament was a mere bonfire, originated at a hatter's on London Bridge, * Repeated reference to this valuable work has from which place it speedily spread to Alder- more than confirmed the opinion we originally ex pressed of it. There are few books of greater utiliman. Humphery's warehouses in the rear, ty than what is in fact a History of London Past leaped across Tooley street-at this spot 60 and Present." The great a It was The fire of London, commonly called the fire with safety to another canse than a Roman Great Fire, commenced on the east side of this conspiracy. We are to remember that the flames lane (Pudding-lane), about one or two in the originated in the house of a baker; that the sea. morning of Sunday, September 2nd, 1666, in the son had been unusually dry; that the houses house of Farryner, the king's baker. were of wood, overhanging the road-way (pent• It was the fashion of the true blue Protes- houses they were called), so that the lane was tants.of the period to attribute the fire to the even narrower than it is now, and that a strong Roman Catholics, and when, in 1681, Oates and east wind was blowing at the time. his plot strengthened this belief, the following in thought very little of at first. Pepys put out his scription was affixed on the front of this house head from his bedroom-window in Seething-lane, (No. 25 I believe), erected on the site of Farry- a few hours after it broke out, and returned to ner the baker's : bed again, as if it were nothing more than an or«« Here, by the permission of Heaven, hell dinary fire, a common occurrence, and likely to be broke loose upon this Protestant city, from the soon subdued. The Lord Mayor (Sir Thomas malicious hearts of barbarous priests by the hand Bludworth) seems to have thought as little of it of their agent, Hubert, who confessed, and on till it was too late. People appear to have been the ruins of this place declared the fact for which paralysed, and no attempt of any consequonce he was hanged, &c., that here began that dread was made to check its progress. For four sucful fire which is described on and perpetuated by cessive days it raged and gained ground, leaping the neighbouring pillar, erected anno 1681, in the after a prodigious manner from house to house mayoralty of Sir Peter Ward, knight.” and street to street, at great distances from one This celebrated inscription, set up pursuant another. Houses were at length pulled down, to an order of the Court of Cominon Council, and the flames, still spreading westward, were at June 17th, 1681, was removed in the reign of length stopped at the Temple Church in FleetJames II., replaced in the reign of William III., street, and Pie-corner in Smithfield. In these and finally taken down on account of the stop- four days 13,200 houses, 400 streets, and 89 page of passengers to read it.” Entick, who churches, including the cathedral church of St. makes addition to Maitland in 1756, speaks of it Paul, were destroyed, and London lay literally in as lately taken away.” The house was "re- ruins. The loss was so enormous, that we may built in a very handsome manner.” be said still to suffer from its effects. Yet the • The inscribed stone is still preserved, it is advantages were not few. London was freed said, in a cellar in Pudding.lane. Hubert was a from the plague ever after; and we owe St. French papist, of six-and-twenty years of age, Paul's, St. Bride's, St Stephen's Walbrook, and the son of a watchmaker at Rouen, in Normandy. all the architectural glories of Sir Christopher He was seized in Essex, confessed he began the Wren, to the desolation it occasioned.' fire, and, persisting in his confessior, was hanged, upon no other evidence than his own. He stated In addition to these advantages we acin his examination that he had been suborned quired another, that of PARTY-WALLS—a safein Paris to this action," and that three more w.combined to do the same thing. They asked guard which has prevented fires from spreadhim if he know the place where he first put fire.ing in the City, when whole streets have He answered he knew it very well, and would been swept away in a few hours in other show it to anybody.” He was then ordered to parts of the metropolis, and especially in be blindfolded, and carried to several places in what might be termed the water-side tho City, that he might point out the house. suburbs of London-Rotherhithe, GreenThey first led him to a place at some distance wich, and Gravesend. The Act by which from it, opened his eyes, and asked him if that party-walls were enforced came into operawas it; to which he answered, “ No, it was tion immediately prior to the rebuilding of nearer to the Thames." “ The house and all which were near it,” says Clarendon, “ were so the town, and has been rendered more strincovered and buried in ruins, that the owners gent and effective from time to time by vathemselves, without some infallible mark, could rious amendments. The Building Act of the very hardly have said where their own house had 7th and 8th of Queen Victoria contains the stood; but this man led them directly to the important enactment, that no warehouse place, described how it stood, the shapo of the shall exceed 200,000 cubic feet in contents'. little yard, the fashion of the doors and windows, Fire becomes unmanageable when it has acand where he first put the firo; and all this with such exactness, that they who had dwelt long near cess to large stores of combustible matter; it could not so perfectly have described all parti- under such conditions it acquires a 'fortified culars." Tillotson told Burnet that Howell (the position,' and cannot, in the vast majority of then Recorder of London) accompanied Hubert cases, be reduced unless by an early surprise. on this occasion, “ was with him and had much As the very heart of London is largely occudiscourse with him, and that he concluded it was pied with Manchester warehouses, full of the impossible it could be a melancholy dream.” most inflammable materials, the safety of the This , however, was not the opinion of the judges capital depends upon this restrictive law. who tried him. “ Neither the judges,". says Clarendon, “ nor any present at the trial, did be- The Manchester warehousemen nevertheless lievo him guilty, but that he was a poor dis- have managed to set that part of the Act at tracted wretch, weary of his life, and chose to defiance. Let us take, as the latest and most part with it in this way." We may attribute the flagrant example, Cook's warehouses. This a structure, which within these last two years where there was some oil, which it immedi-. has raised its enormous bulk in St. Paul's ately set fire to.' The great dome would be Churchyard, and actually dwarfed the metro- in quite as much danger as Mr. Cottam's politan cathedral by the propinquity of its workshop. Engines would be useless at such monotonous mass, contains 1,100,000 cubic a height even as the stone gallery-the place feet of space open from end to end, or nine where large bodies of burning material would hundred thousand feet more than it is entitled most likely make a lodgment. Irreparable to possess. If we were to take twenty-five as would be the disaster with which we are ordinary-sized dwelling-houses and pull down threatened in this direction, one quite as great their party-walls, we should have just the lies in another. Eastward of Cook's warestate of things which is here presented to us. houses, and in the neighbourhood of a vitriol But it will be asked, if it is against the law, or some other chemical manufactory, is siwhy do not the proper officers interfere ? tuated Doctors' Commons, the repository of Where are the City surveyors ? The reason, the great mass of English wills. The roofs good reader, is this: the Manchester-ware of this pile of buildings* are continuous—the housemen of late years have adopted a new buildings themselves are nearly as dry as the reading of the law-a reading which we be law itself . If one portion of the structure lieve no judge would allow, but which the were to catch fire, nothing could save the surveyors have not yet ventured to dispute. whole from destruction. It may be urged "We escape altogether,' say these gentlemen, that the block of buildings, which commands, 'the provisions of the Building Act relative like a battery, two such important points in to warehouses, as by reason of our breaking the metropolis, is after all fire-proof, and as bulk, our places of business are not mere far as danger from without is concerned, this storehouses. That this reading is a violation is true enough; but as cotton bales are not of the spirit of the statute there can be no fire-proof, it is an impossibility to insure doubt; that it is also a violation of its letter safety from within. Iron columns in such inwe also believe : if not, it is high time that stances melt before the white heat like sticks the law be amended upon this point, for we of sealing-wax; stone flies into a thousand affirm, on the very best authority, that Lon- pieces with the celerity of a Prince Rupert's don has never, since the great fire, been in drop; slate becomes transformed into a such danger of an overwhelming conflagra- pumice light enough to float upon water; the tion as it is now by the presence and rapid iron girders and beams, by reason of their spreading of these buge warehouses, filled | lateral expansion, thrust out the walls; and with the elements of destruction, and placed the very elements which seem calculated under side by side, as though for the very purpose ordinary circumstances to give an almost exof producing the utmost mischief by conta- haustless durability to the structure, produce gion. its most rapid destruction. The great fire at Let us suppose, for instance, that a fire bad Messrs. Cubitt's so-called fire-proot works at once established itself in Cook's warehouses; Pimlico is one of the latest proofs we have had to extinguish it would be out of the question of the entire fallacy of supposing stone and Fire-engines would be perfectly useless against iron can withstand the action of a large body a body of flame which would speedily become of fierce flame. We saw the other day porlike a blast furnace, and burn with a white tions of columns from this building fused as heat. Who knows what would come after though they had been composed of so much Supposing the wind to be blowing from the pewter. Again, when the armoury at the south, we tremble for the Cathedral. The Tower was destroyed, the barrels of the mushuge dome is constructed entirely of oak, kets were found reduced to the most fantastic dried by the seasoning of 150 years, and the shapes, and some of the largest pieces of ordcombustible framework is only lined on the nance were doubled up. A stronger instance exterior by sheet lead. It may be imagined still was exhibited at Davis's wharf in 1837, that this would be protection enough against when a cast-iron pipe outside the building the enormous masses of burning cotton and was melted like an icicle. But such a fierce linen cloth which would speedily be blown furnace is not at all necessary to destroy castupon it, but Mr. Cottam not long since stated iron supports, as it appears from the experiat the Institution of Civil Engineers that, ments of Mr. Fairbairn that at a temperature of when the Princess's Theatre was on fire, part 600° the cohesive power of the metal rapidly of his premises also caught; on examination decreases with every increment of heat. Mr. he found that it arose from a piece of blazing Braidwood, in his paper on fire-proof build. wood being thrown over from the theatre, which, falling into the leaden gutter, had Somerset House is also continuous, thereby greatly * The roof of the pile of buildings composing melted it , and the liquid metal passed increasing the risk of the entire building, if one through the ceiling on to a workman's bench portion of it were to catch. 6 |