Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1891 — Milk as a Fire Extinguisher. [ARTICLE]

Milk as a Fire Extinguisher.

Lightning recently struck the flag pole on the Eastford Hotel, at Oxford, Ma., a large building which was formerly the Maryland Military aud Naval Academy, and set tire to the cupola, causing much consternation among the guests and threatening to destroy the house. This would have been the case but for the rain which was falling at the time aud the efforts of the proprietor, who used milk as an extinguisher, it is stated, in accordance with an old superstition that water will not put out fire caused by lightning. How long this antique fallacy has clouded the minds of the superstitious is not known, but that it has come down from remote times will hardly be questioned. The hotel proprietor, believing that water, would not save his premises, was at his wits’ end for an effective extinguisher until he noticed a milk wagon filled with cans of the lacteal fluid standing just at the moment in front of the house, aready-to-hand method of salvation, provident-* ially supplied. Seizing one of the cans, the non-believer in water lugged it to the top of the hotel and poured it out on the lightning-kindled flames and then went back for further supplies, nntil he had the satisfaction of seeing the last spark smothered and the burning hotel saved.