Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 June 1875 — How the Japanese Manage a Fire. [ARTICLE]

How the Japanese Manage a Fire.

One writing about the transit of Venus from Nagasaki to the Boston Advertiser tells in passing how oddly they mismanage a fire in that country, as follows: We arrived at the fire evidently some time after it had begun, and found the streets full of people, all with lantern*: Here all persons are required to carry lanterns at night, having painted on the outside at the bottom the bearer’s businesi. For instance, this is indicated for the navy by one zigzag line, for the army two. In the middle the crest, and at the top the rank indicated by the number of horizontal stripes. The narrow streets were full of men looking at the fire, but not moving. We happened to be near one of their peculiar fire-engines. They are made throughout of wood, the main part being an oblong heavy box. Running parallel with the length of this a beam worked up and down, carrying on each side of its central support the plunger of a pump. These pumps are connected with the bamboo nozzle, about five feet long, which is fastened by a rude universal joint, so that it may be turned in any This machine is brought on wheels, ana put down in a convenient place; buckets of water are brought and poured into this box, and five or six men work the beam while another stands on the box and directs the nozzle. The houses are all low, about one and a half story, and made of wood, except the heavy, tiled roof.~ When we first saw the fire they had one of these squirts, but no water, so we joined the crowd in yelling “Mitzee.” Finally some was brought in large buckets and poured into the box of the apparatus, and they began to* pump; but being too far from the fire did not do much with their water. So three of us persuaded them by very energetic gestures to move nearer. This they did; but as soon as it became a little warm they withdrew and again played from a distance. We next tried to get them to use axes and cut through the posts of the houses. This they did to some extent, but did not begin sufficiently far from the fire and were too late. About this time some Russian sailors appeared with Topes and buckets. The ropes we tied to beams, and a number of men pulling on these tkrev? down some of the houses which had been partly cut away. For a few minutes we stopped active work, and I tried to make some of the Japanese who were there in uniform understand the advantages of cutting down the houses in front of the fire. I took one of them, who I found after the fire was the Chief Engineer, by the arm and walked him up a ladder to the top of a house and tried to point out to him the advisability of leveling some of the houses in a certain direction. He took all of it very quietly and seemed to like the plan. We next passed buckets of water and threw them on the fire, there happening by gooa luck to be a cistern near by. There appeared at this moment a small iron forcepump which had on it about forty feet of hose. The nozzle of this was passed up and I played fireman by directing it. Before long we had checked the fire in one direction and retired to another part, where we found the Russian sailors had the fire nearly under control. Went home at three a. m., tired and wet through. In case of a fire the man who lives in the house where the fire originates must pay for that house. If too poor to do so he has to go to prison and work until it is paid for.