AN INCENDIARY’S PARADISE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 63, 28 October 1911, Page 3

AN INCENDIARY’S PARADISE.

A COMIC OP Eli A FIRE BRIGADE. In Constantinople the incendiary will realise in's fondest dreams or what a eity can provide in the way (M lirev.ooct (says tlie “Argus”J. Suunbonl, tiio purely I urkish quarter, is merely an enormous eoileciion of match-boxes—ii ail, slender, wooden houses, greyish-black with age, artistic to the tourist, hut hopeless to a uro brigade. With never a garden, or even a lane, to separate thorn, the < ra/.y tinder structures huddle together, toppling this way and that, till it seems that were one loosened the whole collection must tumble over, iu eJtamhoul is the Sublime Porte, containing all the Government offices, the Treasury, which has the finest jewels in Europe within its wails, and the .Mosque ol St, Sophia, perhaps the most wonderful church in tho "arid. Another boon to the incendiary is the streets, so narrow that often the tops of the houses almost meet overhead, while some of tho streets hear the name only hy courtesy, there being no pavement whatever. hut just a rough road, made of cobble-stones, and no wider than a Melbourne alley-way. Constantinople’s chief danger in case of a big outbreak of fire is her own fire brigade. This body is a monument of inefficiency, and its performances provide one of the star jokes of the town. One of its chief officials is tiie Beckdji, who, when a lire happens, wanders majestically through tho town calling forth the details of the conflagration, as a warning to tho lire brigade that their services will shortly be required. Then some bugle music is blown from the fire station to convey similar intelligence to distant firemen. After a while, a motley croud -of weary, unwilling heroes gather round, aifd then comes the search for the lire apparatus- One man wanders off casually after the hose j another is sent to seek the ladder, which is kept in a fire station belonging- to: another suburb; whilst various others depart to gather their comrados, and incidentally tho horse and curt. .Usually these gentlemen, who are dubbed the “regulars,’ ’are joined by another crowd, known as the “irregulars’’— a picture ol whom can be better imagined than described. Armed with hatchets and small buckets, of water, this noble nand then make for the scene of tho fire, to be followed by one man dragging the fire-cart, in despair of discovering the whereabouts of the horse. If they arc especially lucky, tho fire has burnt itself out before they arrive, and their triumphant return to toe sound of stirring martial music, is the essence of serio-comedv.