Reminiscences of the old fire laddies and volunteer fire departments of New York and Brooklyn. . ave been rapid and great; butthe demands upon such apparatus have much more than equaled these 274 Reminiscences of the Old Fire Laddies. We need but to compare the heights and depths and lengths and breadths of modernmercantile buildings with those of earlier days, to realize the vast change which hastaken place in this respect. These are often crowded with inflammable material to anextent formerly unknown, and indeed impossible. They are already so high thathuman muscles refuse th
Reminiscences of the old fire laddies and volunteer fire departments of New York and Brooklyn. . ave been rapid and great; butthe demands upon such apparatus have much more than equaled these 274 Reminiscences of the Old Fire Laddies. We need but to compare the heights and depths and lengths and breadths of modernmercantile buildings with those of earlier days, to realize the vast change which hastaken place in this respect. These are often crowded with inflammable material to anextent formerly unknown, and indeed impossible. They are already so high thathuman muscles refuse the strain of climbing to their higher stories, hence the increas-ing use of elevators, which, in their turn, enable the structures to be carried still in our greater cities buildings are found which largely exceed one hundred feetin height, and how high they are to be carried, unless by building laws their altitudeshall be restricted, no one can tell. The old-fashioned fire-ladders are becoming inmany cases inefficient, and aerial ladders, as they are appropriately termed, have. Undine, No. 52. been introduced, and upon these firemen have to be projected skyward, until they areable to reach the vast elevation of the higher stories of modern structures. The bravemen who perform these duties have far less credit than they deserve. Whether aerialladders are less dangerous to their limbs and lives than will be the balloons which someenterprising inventor will before long feel constrained to originate for employment inreaching the ever-increasing height of buildings, is an unsettled question. In propor-tion as towns increase in size, such buildings increase in number and in greater the city the more of them are to be found; the greater the amount ofproperty endangered by them, so much the greater the number of them to extend thedanger. The strain upon the hose is increased, and it must be made stronger, heavier,and more unwieldy, and the labor of the fire
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