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The fire-alarms are rung in the hospitals for the information of the ambulance corps. The crippled fireman heard the signal at the dead of night, and, only half awake, jumped out of bed, groped about for the sliding-pole, and, getting hold of the bedpost, tried to slide down that. The plaster cast about his ankle was broken, the old injury reopened, and he was seriously hurt.

In the system of fuses and cut-outs used in connection with electric lighting, the methods of preventing fire due to the development of excessive heat have been well studied. But simplification is particularly required in the case of those fire-alarms which are to be useful for giving intimation of a conflagration from any cause arising.

For fire-alarms and for all sorts of purposes, domestic telegraphy is part and parcel of the nature of an American, and the result was that when the telephone was brought to him, he adopted it with avidity. On this side of the Atlantic domestic telegraphy is at a minimum, and I do not think any one would have a telephone in his house if he could help it.

Fire-alarms are used in America; but in England, also, the fire systems of Edward Bright, Spagnoletti, and Higgins have been introduced, and in that respect we are in very near the same position as our friends on the other side of the Atlantic.

These automatic or self-acting fire-alarms can, of course, be connected in the circuit of the ordinary street fire-alarms, which are usually worked by pulling a handle to make the necessary contact. From what has been said, it will be easy to understand how the stealthy entrance of burglars into a house can be announced by an electric bell or warning lamp.

One of the many daily fire-alarms had gone; the traffic was drawn to one side, and several fire-engines came, with clanging of bells and shouting, through the space, gleaming with brass, splendid in their purpose. Before the thrill in the heart had time to die, or the traffic to close up, swung through an immense open motor-car driven by a young mechanic.

People in town do not mind brigands, in general: they have their gas, their strong doors, and the police. They are generally little afraid of fire. They have their fire-alarms; and at the first spark the neighbor cries, "Fire!" The engines come racing up; and water comes forth as if by magic. But it is very different in the country: here every man is constantly under a sense of his isolation.

"In Kitely's room. Safe and sound. There's no danger. He'll not wake. I mixed him a glass of toddy before he went to bed, and neither earthquakes nor fire-alarms 'ull wake him before nine o'clock tomorrow morning." "Whew!" said Christopher. "Um! it's a dangerous game it's harbouring, you know. However, they'd suspect that he'd come here. Whatever made him come here?"