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Updated: June 10, 2025
Four wire-using businesses were already in the field when the telephone was born: the fire-alarm, burglar-alarm, telegraph, and messenger-boy service; and at first, as might have been expected, the humble little telephone was huddled in with these businesses as a sort of poor relation.
Some members present may remember that, when I described my last visit to America, I mentioned how in Chicago the fire-alarm was worked by an electric method, and I told you a story then that you did not believe, and which I have told over and over again, but nobody has yet believed me, and I began to think that I must have made a mistake somewhere or other.
This was the fire-alarm telegraph, the "roulette-wheel of the fire demon," as some one has aptly called it. "All the alarms for fire from all the boroughs, both from the regular alarm-boxes and the auxiliary systems, come here first over the network of three thousand miles or more of wire nerves that stretch out through the city," McCormick was explaining to us. A buzzer hissed.
"I have it!" he whispered hoarsely: "I will ring in the fire-alarm! The crew will run to quarters. The boats will be lowered. We will cut one of them adrift. In the confusion " What was to happen in the confusion that his imagination had conjured up, I was not to know. For what actually happened was so confused that of nothing am I quite certain.
There was a broad glare of light in the sky, and the bells of many of the churches were ringing out the fire-alarm. As they passed, many people put their heads out from windows and asked where the fire was. In five minutes they approached the scene. A dozen houses were blazing fiercely, while, from those near, the inhabitants were busily removing their valuables.
But one fact, which is obvious at the first intelligent glance, becomes clearer and more important with deeper study, and that is that it is not the fault of the head. When the head aches, it is, nine times out of ten, simply doing a combination of scapegoat and fire-alarm duty for the rest of the body.
A projectile had fallen a hundred yards distant and hit the top of a house in the Rue de Hanovre. The pompiers were on the spot within three minutes, having been summoned by the fire-alarm box near the Bourse. No serious damage was done, but little lead pellets were found in profusion.
This shock of arms was like a fire-alarm in our great cities, and the North arose in its might with a grand unanimity which the South did not expect. The spirit and principle of Rebellion were so uncaused and unprovoked, that scarcely could any one be found at home or abroad to justify them.
The fire-alarm of the future must be very simple and inexpensive in order to ensure its introduction, not only into offices and warehouses but also into shops and houses.
It was also from the Brockton central station that current was first supplied to a fire-engine house another display of remarkably early belief in the trustworthiness of the service, under conditions where continuity of lighting was vital. The building was equipped in such a manner that the striking of the fire-alarm would light every lamp in the house automatically and liberate the horses.
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