Among other interesting appliances which the Paris firemen have found of great assistance to them in their work there may be mentioned a portable electric search-light, carried like an ordinary hand-lantern, fitted with a powerful storage battery, and producing a very intense, and, of course, a thoroughly safe light. It is used largely for night work or in dark, smoky cellars. Also a large hand-carried electric fan, which can be operated by hydraulic power as well as electricity,
A Berlin fire-alarm box. using the pressure from the street hydrants for this purpose; and this fan has been found useful for clearing rooms or hallways of heavy smoke or poisonous vapors.

Paris, with a population of 2,750,000 souls, has about 1800 fires every year, and spends, annually, $575,000 to support her fire-brigade, an organization of some eighteen hundred men which can be turned into the field as two battalions of infantry at short notice. Therefore this expenditure might be said to provide two kinds af protection—military as well as civic. But splendid building laws and equally excellent laws covering the use and storage of explosives ant inflammable materials of all kinds, have made the work of her firemen a comparatively easy one, and the large fire is of such rare occurrence in this famous city that the “French Pompier,” using methods which appear very amusing to American visitors, is enabled to make a most satisfactory yearly showing to his Minister of War.

In Berlin, and in practically every other German city, the fire-brigade is managed upon almost the same general plan as the brigades found in London and Paris, and the apparatus, in nearly every instance of German manufacture, is very similar to that used by the English and French firemen. The men are all husky fellows, well drilled and military in appearance, and the majority are ex-soldiers, as preference is given to men who have seen army service in recruiting new members for the brigade. The fire stations are usually very large, sometimes occupying as much space as would be covered by an entire block in an American city, and nearly all of the stations are built in rectangular form, with a spacious inner court, or drill-yard, in the middle. On one side of this yard will be found the engines, ladder-trucks, etc,, housed in individual compartments, or barns, and on the other the stables for the horses; while the upper part of the building on both sides is occupied as dormitories or lounging-rooms for the men, and quarters for the officers. Every station has its own fire alarm-bureau, or “watch-room,” looked after by an officer and two or three operators. The “turnout” in answer to an alarm in a German fire station is very similar to an artillery drill, and is performed in the same stiff, almost automatic, manner, for the brigades are conducted on strict military lines,

The men in these stations are divided into littke squads, each commanded by a petty officer, or oberfeuerwehrmann, as he is called, and each squad placed in charge of a separate piece of apparatus, When an alarm strikes in the “watch-room,” a bell is started ringing in the quarters of the men, which sends them clattering down the long flight of stairs in their heavy leather boots, while they hastily adjust coats, belts, and helmets. Reaching the yard, each squad breaks up into two detachments, two men, the driver and his aide, running to the stable for the horses, the rest for their respective pieces of apparatus. The doors of the apparatus barns are thrown open, and the engines, ladder-trucks, and wagons are found standing there with poles detached, the latter lying on the floor directly under each machine. At

A Berlin auto fire-engine.

a command given by the petty officer the pole is lifted up, shaved back in its socket, and the kingpin dropped into place. The men then jump back to the wheels at each side, and at another command the apparatus is pushed out into the yard. By this time, the horses, fully harnessed, have been brought over from the stables by the other two men, and are backed into position beside the

Vol. XL.—123.