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In this latter phase of civilised prudence, which is the subject for consideration here, Melbourne is particularly well equipped: in fact, it is no sort of boasting parochialism which prompts the remark, perfectly justified as it is, that probably no city in the world is better provided against disaster by fire than is the capital of this colony. The arrangements are new, fashioned after the best models, and \u2014 what is more important \u2014 in the hands of an enthusiastic and able directing head; hence their perfection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
People do not thoroughly realise, perhaps, what they owe to the Fire Brigade. They do not know what its vigilance saves them. It is at once the pride and the punishment of perfect organisation, that its smooth working tends to cause it to be overlooked. It is the purpose of this article to show what the regular, everyday discipline of our brigade involves, what sacrifice of comfort and convenience, what self surrender to duty, what unsparing energy and constant watchfulness, what courage and recklessness of personal pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The watch-tower of the Central Fire Brigade Depot on Eastern Hill is the highest point in Melbourne. From it the whole city can be surveyed at a glance. The look-out post at the top of the tower is 150 ft. from the earth, and enables the watchman on duty to see at once anything peculiar or suspiciously lurid for a distance for a distance of many miles around the metropolis. A finer view of the place there could not be. One cannot stand here (as the writer did, in company with Captain Stein, the chief officer, a few hours ago) without saying to oneself that with which we started \u2014 \"how wonderful is the mechanism of a great city.\" It is close upon midnight. The wind blows strong and cool from the south, scurrying the clouds across the sky as though hastening them to a stormy rendezvous. Only a few lone Stars peep intermittently through the veil, revealing depths of dark infinity beyond. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"A good night for seeing a fire,\" remarks the chief officer, as we look through the glass walls of the small room; \"it would show up against those clouds finely.\" <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Down below, the city stretches itself in miles upon miles of streets, seen dimly in the light of myriad gas-lamps, which glimmer, like stars gemming a gigantic carpet of darkness. A faint monotony hums up like an exhalation of sound from that mighty pulse that is still throbbing, though soon it will cease and rest, and leave the watchman to the <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Lone and silent hours, In the distance, down through an avenue of lamps, comes a bulky mass, with a head of blue fire, rumbling and grumbling in its rapid career; and there again, in another direction, comes another similar hulk, with a red light ahead \u2014 and there again a third, fronted with luminous green. One stops for a moment, then clear, but faint, ascends the metallic tinkle of a bell, and the mass moves again, on, on, on, till it rounds a curve and is soon no more. A few swift gondolas on wheels skim rapidly over the surface of the dark carpet and plunge into by-streets. Occasionally a bucolic cry ascends from a convivial throat, or the inebriate scream of some sodden daughter of Rahab, who, \"with vine leaves in her hair,\" is cursing the devils that destroy her peace. Teufelsdroctch ought to be here, with his immortal interpreter and disciple. You think of him, and you quote to yourself from memory that most unforgettable piece of incomparable Carlylian prose: \u2014 \"Ach, mein Lieber! it is true sublimity to dwell here! These fingers of lamplight, struggling up through smoke and thousand-fold exhalation, some fathoms into the ancient reign of Night, what thinks Bo\u00f6tes of them as he leads his Hunting Dogs over the Zenith in their leash of sidereal fire. That stifled hum of Midnight, when Traffic has Iain down to rest, and the chariot wheels of Vanity, still rolling here and there through distant streets, are bearing her to halls roofed in, and lighted to the due pitch for her; and only Vice and Misery, to prowl or moan like night-birds, are abroad ; that hum, I say, like the stertorous unquiet slumber of sick life, is heard in Heaven! Oh, under that hideous coverlit of vapors and putrefactions and unimaginable gases, what a fermenting vat lies simmering and hid! The joyful and the sorrowful are there, men are dying there, men are being born, men are praying \u2014 on the other side of a brick partition men are cursing; and around them all is the vast, void night.\" <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the day time, the view of Melbourne from this tower is brilliantly picturesque. One sees it then bustling with life \u2014 palpitating \u2014 vivid \u2014 vigorous. The river bisects the acres of buildings like a band of silver; the parks and reserves show up gloriously green; whilst away in the distance on the one side lies the bright sapphire sea stretching to the far horizon, and on the other the limit of view is bounded by wooded hills which a lucent atmosphere makes vaguely blue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But at night there is nothing to be seen but great tracts of darkness and constellations of lights. The distribution of these dark patches is not a tittle curious. To the south, in the middle distance, is a long stretch of blackness, which Captain Stein points out as the Government House reserve. Further on in this direction the lamps end abruptly, and you do not need to be told that there the sea is washing along the shore \u2014 particularly as you catch the gleam of the Gellibrand lightship, conspicuous in its isolation. But more immediately near, spread out at the foot of the tower, the blots of blackness are more puzzling. The chief officer catches your look of wonderment and explains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \"You are looking at those lights on the left? They are the lights of Carlton. This suburb, being municipally an adjunct of Melbourne, is as well illuminated as the city itself. But the suburbs that are independent municipalities are much more sparing with the gas. Look there, for instance: that long row of lights is Nicholson street. That is the boundary between Carlton and Fitzroy. You observe, therefore, that the street cuts light from darkness in a very sharp manner. On the left the lamps are numerous ; on the right you have a dark patch. Further to the right you have Collingwood, and that is blacker still. There seems scarcely a street lamp there at all.\" <\/p>\n\n\n\n \"But in the event of a fire breaking out, on a dark night like this, how would the look-out man be able to fix the exact locality.\" \"Oh, our men who are put on this duty, know the district thoroughly, and there are certain landmarks, even at the dead of night, which they know, and which define the precise locality of an outbreak. Right away there to the left, for example \u2014 that high light, I mean \u2014 is the North Melbourne Town Hall. There are some such lights in nearly every direction.\" <\/p>\n\n\n\n \"And can the man here detect a fire very early in its inception?\" \u2014 \"He can detect a fire immediately any light, or unusual body of smoke, makes its appearance. He knows the look of the district in its normal aspect. Directly he sees an unusual bright light, he fixes it with the powerful binoculars with which he is provided, rings the telephone communicating with the officer on duty below, and in less time than it takes me to describe the process to you, very often, the engines may be on there way to tho scene.\" <\/p>\n\n\n\n \"There is a ruddy glow in the sky over to the south now\u2014 what is that?\" The look-out man scrutinises it through his glasses to satisfy curiosity, but it does not deceive his practiced eye. It is only the light from a foundry, a different kind of illumination altogether, to that of a fire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \"How long is one man on duty here at a stretch?\"\u2014 \"Two hours,\" replies the captain. \"The watch used to be four hours, but I found it was too long. It is fearfully lonely up here, in the dead of the night, and I began to find that one or two of my best men were breaking one of the strictest of our rules on this duty. I found a man asleep here when I came up one night. I poke about at all hours of the night to see that everything is all right. Of course, I dismissed him, but as he was going he said to me, 'Well, sir, you should try it yourself for a night, and see if you could keep awake.' I never like to feel that I am giving any man a thing to do which I could not do myself, so I did try it. I took the middle watch, from twelve to four, and well the result was that I changed the duration of the watch from four hours to two.\" <\/p>\n\n\n\n When we have descended the ladder and leave the watchman in the lantern to \"solemn midnight's tingling silentness,\" we go into the chief officer's private room for a chat about fires, firemen and fire extinction. One is not in Mr Stein's company many minutes before one recognises that one is talking to a man who is an enthusiast at his work. A strong, power-fully-built man in the prime of life; with a face full of character, eyes quiet and penetrative, a voice evidently used to command; a genial good-tempered man ordinarily, but one whom it would be dangerous to thwart ; one who is rapid in forming plans and actions, and endowed with immense force of will to carry them out; ready to accept suggestions, but brooking no interference with the proper discharge of his duty \u2014 such a man is Captain Stein. He graduated in a fine school. His master in firemanship, Captain Shaw, now Sir Eyre Massey Shaw, is the man who made the London Fire Brigade the splendid body it is to-day; and Mr Stein did not serve under Captain Shaw for nothing. The story goeth forth that at a recent fire an official of some importance in his own eyes and in the community was present, and ventured, by reason of his own conception of his exalted position, to give instruction as to how the fire should be coped with. The story proceedeth to tell how Mr Stein threatened to turn a hose pipe on to that official if he did not \"shut up\" and mind his own business, which he thought it discreet to do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Having been \"through the mill,\" and done the rough and dangerous part of a fireman's work in London, the chief officer, when he gives an order, knows just how it can be executed, how it should be executed, and could do it himself in case of need. Talking about fires he is extremely interesting company. \"The first fire I was at,\" he says, \"was in Bankside, London.\" Ah, a place famous for fires. The writer has an abiding memory of seeing one there \u2014 at a great oil store it was \u2014 early one winter's morning, when there was just time to dash to the spot in a hansom, and gather sufficient facts about it to write it for the morning's paper, just then about to go to press,. There is no better place in London for seeing a fire to advantage from the spectacular point of view. The great tongues of red and yellow flame shot up high, on this occasion, and made the dark waters of the Thames scarlet with light, as though dyed with blood. Barges and boats thronged the stream, and from Blackfriars Bridge one could see thousands of people gazing upwards, the light falling peculiarly on their raised faces ; whilst near by the mighty dome of St. Paul's \"hung like a bubble in the sky,\" reddened with the reflection, and catching the glow of the giant golden cross that rises high above the grimy city. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \"Yes,\" says Captain Stein, \"it was there that I got my baptism of fire, and I ran as near to getting killed there as I have ever been in my life. It was a high building. In the top floor there was some heavy crane machinery. Some of us were working on one of the lower floors, when this tremendous weight of iron work came crashing through the floors. At once there was a rush of our men for the means of exit. I dashed for a window, and stood there under the arch while tho machinery and tons of burning debris came thundering down just behind. The walls bent and shook like pieces of paper, and we expected that they would crash down. But we held on and were saved. Dangerous? Of course the work is dangerous, but not so dangerous as people sometimes suppose. It is the timid, nervous men who generally get injured. In the event of anything going wrong in the building in which he may be working, this sort of man rushes for the staircase \u2014 the very worst thing to do. The place of safety in such a case is the window, where the arch gives protection.\" <\/p>\n\n\n\n The firemen of Melbourne have no easy time of it. During the last ten years there were over 900 alarms of fire in the metropolitan area. The brigade turned out in every one of these cases. On the night of which this visit took place there had been three fires in different parts of the city and suburbs. There is complete telephonic communication between the different fire stations, so that if the local force is not sufficient to cope with a fire, further assistance can be obtained in a very few minutes. There are 49 fire stations in and around Melbourne, a staff of 83 permanent men is employed, and the auxiliary brigade numbers 226 fireman. The Metropolitan Brigade costs about L30,000 per annum to maintain, but the money is well spent. \"Why, we sometimes save that sum in a single night,\" says Captain Stein. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The chat had by this time lasted to the small hours of the morning, and the chief officer proposed another look round to see that everything was in perfect order. Down below the two engines and the manual stood ready for immediate work. The fires were laid in the fireboxes, the harness was hung up over-head ready to drop on to the horses' backs if the alarm bells rang. The whole mechanism of the place is wonderfully clever. The officer of the watch has only to ring the electric bells, when the doors of the horse-boxes automatically swing open, the horses, which are beautifully trained, run out and take their places, and before you have time to appreciate what has been done, everything is ready for a start. If a horse is lazy, and does not leave the box at once, the electricity sets in motion a spring that swishes a cane down on to his hide and hurries him up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We take a quiet peep into the dormitories. The men are all asleep now, hut everything is ready should they be roused for a fire. Their long jack-boots are arranged inside their trousers, so that, on being awakened by the bells, they have only to jump out of bed, step into their clothes, and swing themselves on to their engines, buttoning up as they go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \"We'll have a call, just to show you how it is done,\" says the Chief. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \"Oh, but it is a pity to fetch men out of bed in the middle of the night for no real serious cause.\" <\/p>\n\n\n\n \"Not a bit of it. A fireman mustn't think of his discomforts. As we haven't got a fire, we will show you what would happen if we had.\" <\/p>\n\n\n\n He goes to the switch board and turns the handle. The bells ring all over the building, the electric lights gleam brilliantly, the doors of the horse boxes fly open, the horses run out, there is a clatter and a sound of hurrying feet, then a rushing of men to their posts, and in a few seconds \u2014 so rapidly that you can hardly realise it \u2014 everything is ready. The big gates swing open. \"Drive round the block,\" orders the chief. The manual engine dashes out into tho street and goes round the strip of reserved ground and back again, and then the men are ordered back to bed. There is not so much as a sullen look to be seen. To preserve perfect efficiency, it is necessary that there should be calls of this kind sometimes. Captain Stein will occasionally get up in the night and have a turn out, purely for disciplinary purposes. It is a strenuous life, that of a fireman. No \"eight-hours'-day\" for him. His motto must be \u2014 \"Ready! Aye, ready\" And he must act up to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When night makes a weird sound of its own
Stillness\"<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n