Fires and Firemen | Page 7

1,178 Flues 1,555 Stoves 494 Gas 932 Light
dropped down Area 13 Lighted Tobacco falling down do. 7 Dust
falling on horizontal Flue 1 Doubtful 76 Incendiarism 89 Carelessness
100 Intoxication 80 Dog 6 Cat 19 Hunting Bugs 15 Clotheshorse upset
by Monkey 1 Lucifers 80 Children playing with do. 45 Rat gnawing do.
1 Jackdaw playing with do. 1 Rat gnawing gaspipe 1 Boys letting of
Fireworks 14 Fireworks going off 63 Children playing with Fire 45

Spark from Fire 243 Spark from Railway 4 Smoking Tobacco 166
Smoking Ants 1 Smoking in Bed 2 Reading in do. 22 Sewing in do. 4
Sewing by Candle 1 Lime overheating 44 Waste do. 43 Cargo of Lime
do. 2 Rain Slacking do. 5 High Tide 1 Explosion 6 Spontaneous
Combustion 43 Heat from Sun 8 Lightning 8 Carboy of Acid bursting 2
Drying Linen 1 Shirts falling into fire 6 Lighting and Upsetting
Naphtha Lamp 58 Fire from Iron Kettle 1 Sealing Letter 1 Charcoal
Fire of a Suicide 1 Insanity 5 Bleaching Nuts 7 Unknown 1,323
Among the more common causes of fire (such as gas, candle, curtains
taking fire, children playing with fire, stoves, &c.), it is remarkable
how uniformly the same numbers occur under each head from year to
year. General laws obtain as much in small as in great events. We are
informed by the Post-Office authorities that about eight persons daily
drop their letters into the post without directing them–we know that
there is an unvarying percentage of broken heads and limbs received
into the hospitals–and here we see that a regular number of houses
take fire, year by year, from the leaping out of a spark, or the dropping
of a smouldering pipe of tobacco. It may indeed be a long time before
another conflagration will arise from "a monkey upsetting a
clotheshorse," but we have no doubt such an accident will recur in its
appointed cycle.
Although gas figures so largely as a cause of fire, it does not appear
that its rapid introduction of late years into private houses has been
attended with danger. There is another kind of light, however, which
the insurance offices look upon with terror, especially those who make
it their business to insure farm property. The assistant secretary of one
of the largest fire-offices, speaking broadly, informed us that the
introduction of the lucifer match _caused them an annual loss of ten
thousand pounds!_ In the foregoing list we see in how many ways they
have given rise to fires.
Lucifers going off probably from heat 80 Children playing with lucifers
45 Rat gnawing lucifers 1 Jackdaw playing with lucifers 1 --- 127
One hundred and twenty-seven known fires thus arise from this single
cause; and no doubt many of the twenty-five fires ascribed to the
agency of cats and dogs were owing to their having thrown down boxes
of matches at night--which they frequently do, and which is almost
certain to produce combustion. The item "rat gnawing lucifer" reminds

us to give a warning against leaving about wax lucifers where there are
either rats or mice, for these vermin constantly run away with them to
their holes behind the inflammable canvas, and eat the wax until they
reach the phosphorus, which is ignited by the friction of their teeth.
Many fires are believed to have been produced by this singular
circumstance. How much, again, must lucifers have contributed to
swell the large class of conflagrations whose causes are unknown!
Another cause of fire, which is of recent date, is the use of naphtha in
lamps--a most ignitable fluid when mixed in certain proportions with
common air. "A delightful novel" figures as a proximate, if not an
immediate, cause of twenty-two fires. This might be expected, but what
can be the meaning of a fire caused by a high tide? When we asked Mr.
Braidwood the question, he answered, "Oh! we always look out for
fires when there is a high tide. They arise from the heating of lime upon
the addition of water." Thus rain, we see, has caused four
conflagrations, and simple overheating forty-four. The lime does no
harm as long as it is merely in contact with wood, but if iron happens to
be in juxtaposition with the two, it speedily becomes red-hot, and
barges on the river have been sunk, by reason of their bolts and iron
knees burning holes in their bottoms. Of the singular entry, "rat
gnawing a gaspipe," the firemen state that it is common for rats to gnaw
leaden service pipes, for the purpose, it is supposed, of getting at the
water, and in this instance the gray rodent labored under a mistake, and
let out the raw material of the opposite element. Intoxication is a
fruitful cause of fires, especially