WHERE ALARM-BOXES ARE UNRELIABLE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11711, 22 July 1901, Page 7

WHERE ALARM-BOXES ARE UNRELIABLE.

; TO THE, EDITOR. "aSir,—Your correspondent, F. Castle, may be endowed with the inventive faculty, but it is rather trying to one's patience- to be called on to reply to such densencss as your correspondent exhibits in his letter of the 15th inst. F. Castle asserts that I have

... not brought forward a single argument that will | hold water against the immediate establishment of a complete system" (firealarms is the system referred to). 116 then proceeds on the lines that I am opposed to the fire-alarm system. I will repeat a sentence of my letter of the Bth inst., which I thought was clear enough to show my meaning: "Fire-alarms require some pa.-non to operate on them, and when a fire fis discovered near art alarm-box the system is excellent." And then I proceed to point out that in some unfrequented parts of fie city during the night, alarm-boxes in such localities would not be :so reliable as a man doing duty in a watch-tower, as v he would probably discover a dense column of smoke bo- . fore the actual outbreak. Take another of our friend's statements: "Forewarned" thinks that alarm-boxes may save a little time; there is no uncertainty about it they do save time. Now supposing "F. Castle" was in Smith and Caughey's (one of the ' houses he mentions) where there are two telephones, would he save t-imo by making his way out of. this place to run 110 yds clown the street to "break a glass" in an ■ alarm-box ? If "F. Oastle" is the gentle--1 man who is' associated with Mr. McDermott in a fire-alarm invention, which appears to meet what I desire, the action of. the fire ; sets off the alarm, then this city may be spared the risk of death and disaster in the future, and I heartily wish the inventors ? every success. Having had twice "13 years' . experience in these matters," allow mo once more to point out the unreliability of "fire- ' alarms," unless self acting, in unfrequented ' localities during the night, but at the same '' time keep a tell-tale on the watchman.—l ' am, etc., Forewarned. 1 Ponsonby, July 15, 1901.