LONDON'S FIRE FIGHTERS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 64, 13 September 1909, Page 8

LONDON'S FIRE FIGHTERS.

An interesting article on the London Metropolitan Fire Brigade appears in the London Daily Telegraph. The annual cost of the corps is about a quarter of a million, the salaries and wages bill alone coming to more than £125,000 annually. The clothing of the men costs about. £10,000 a year, and nearly a tenth of that amount is spent in medical attendance. The strength of the brigade consists of about 1300 officers and men, and included among them are nearly, 200 coachmen and a dozen pilots, whilst between thirty and forty skilled mechanics are kept continuously employed on the equipment. 'I his equipment is increasing annually to the extent of £5000 or £6000 worth on an average, and, roughly speaking, the brigade at present possesses 86 steam engines, a dozen motor fire-engines, half a dozen motor fire-escapes, 110 vans, 100 hose carts and ladder trucks, 5 fire-floats and tugs, 7 rafts "and store barges, 250 various lands of escapes and long ladders, %.nd 60 miles of nose. A motor fire-engine, which is .the latest thing in fire appliances, costs £1200, or nearly three times the cost of a horsed steam-fire engine. The Ion" turn-table ladders, which aTe designed to reach some of the highest buildings in London, run to about £750 each, and these were introduced largely as the outcome of that disastrous fire in Queen Victoria-street on one Tuesday afternoon some five or six -years ago. About £17,000 is expended, every year on telephones, fire alarms, and electric bells ; horse hire absorbs nearly £23,000, whilst new hose and other gear and stores are accountable for more than £10,000 annually. A few weeks ago it was shown in The Post that America was trying to solve the back-blocks road problem by using layers of sawdust in regions wherethere was a clayey foundation, and reports from the States indicated that the results were remarkably good. Later accounts demonstrate that another waste product, pulp liquor from the papermaking mills, is being .turned to admirable use on city roads. A subsftsnee which was once turned into rivers and" lakes, polluting them and poisoning the fish, is now converted into a road, preserver. A cheap preparation made from wood pulp lefuse, is mixed with water, and is spread on the roads by an ordinary sprinkler. It allays the dust, hardens the surface of the road, and resists the wear of "automobiles. Dr .Hall, who has been medical officer'in charge of the Whangarei Hospital since its establishment, has resigned, states an exchange, as a protest against the draatic changes in management resolved upon at tho last meeting of tjie Hospital Board. On Thursday last the Auckland City Council decided not to accept the offer of the Hon. E. Mitchelspn to present two or three pheasants for the Domain. The council, reports a local paper, does not feel prepared to undertake the formation of a zoo just now Messrs. T. Kennedy Macdonald, Ltd., insert particulars of a salo of 400 sheets of iron, building material, etc., .on. the ground, oocnor of Little Taranaki-street and Dixonstreet, to-morrow, at 11 o'clock. The firm ' also advertise a sale of furniture in their rooms on Wednesday, at 1.30 o'olook. To-morrow, at 11, at the Fruit Exchange, Blair-street, Messrs. Thompson Bros., Ltd., will sell a bay pony, broken to toddle and -ivrnew.