COMIC OPERA FIRE ENGINE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 144084, 1 May 1913, Page 4

COMIC OPERA FIRE ENGINE.

HOW IT FAILED 2TO SAVE BLAZING VILLAGE. LONDON, March 8. At various London music-halls Alfred locator, who was the, original melancholy jockey in “'The Arcadians,” has been making audiences scream,' of late, with a quite, 'original sketch called ‘‘The Village Fire Brigade.” Needless to say, tlio brigade therein depicted—consisting of Lester and another man—is highly inefficient, but what makes audiences laugh hardest is .the fire-engine around ■■ which most of the action centres, an , antediluvian contraption whoso workings the two members of the brigade understand only dimly, and in'the inner parte of which liens are kept. It all has been taken as a. gorgeous joke —. ‘‘frightfully ' exaggerated, of course, don’t you know,” ' for.nobody believed that, even in the most behind-tho-times .of English villages such an apology for a fire-engine, would be tolerated. Not until the night before last, that is. when half of the Cambridgeshire town of Swavesey, went up in smoko because the only fire-engine the place boasted was a practically useless old curiosity that was. acquired in the year 1827. Twenty-five houses were burnt to the ground, and .seventy persons, out of the eight hundred or .so in the town, left homeless,, One family lost the savings of a lifetime, there were several narrow escapes from death, and out of the contents of the whole of the cottages not twenty pounds’ worth of goods was .saved from destruction. To begin with, the, vintage-of-1827 fireengine Was late in .arriving on. the scene, and when it got there it proved practically useless. The village, it seems, has no fire brigade, the’engine being kept in a shed in charge of ir gardener, . who, when he receives the alarm, which roust be by word of mouth, relies on volunteers to turn out, and do their best. The engine which bears on its .side in faced gold letters the legend ‘‘Swavesey Subscription Engine, 1827,” is worked by hand. Attached to. it are three or four lengths of old leathern hose, through which sixteen stalwarts, with the schoolmaster at their head, tried to pump water, with' indifferent success. Meanwhile the battered old ‘‘manual” was a target’for the anathemas of the people, who 1 blamed it as the author of their misfortunes, and little was done to cheek the “devouring' element” until the arrival of the fire brigade from St. Ives.' followed by a steatner and another “manual” engine from Huntingdon. ' ■

Now it proves tlimt not only was Swavesey’s fire-engine purchased nearly a' century ago, but that it was 'secondhand then! J. C, Mer.rywca.ther, of the famous British firm of fire-engine builders, writes to the papers that, ho has been looking back in their ' records and finds that tire now, famous Swavosey’s fire-engine, which originally was built for the British Fire Office, was ~»ld to tlio Cambridgeshire township, second-hand, on September 10, 1827, for £lOl. , .