FIRE BRIGADE COMPETITIVE TRIAL.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 602, 24 May 1876, Page 2

FIRE BRIGADE COMPETITIVE TRIAL.

As our readers are doubtless aware, the managers of the deinonsi ration taking place at Ballarat in honour of the Queen's Birthday, have included in their programme several prizes for competition amongst the members of the various Are brigades throughout the colony, extending over a series of trials of speed and efficiency. To this competition the fire brigades of Dunedin and Wellington have sent representatives, and it is somewhat to be regretted that possessing as we do a brigade second to none in New Zealand, Cant rbury should he unrepresented at this intercolonial contest. Had the subject been mooted we believe that the requisite funds would have been cheerfully subscribed by the public. However, be this as it may, several of the members of the C.V.F.B. expressed their des re to engage in at least one of the trials set forth in the Ballarat programme, and accordingly, Mr Superintendent Harris, having given his consent to the trial, two squads were detailed. His Worship the Mayor, and Capt. W. K. Mitchell (fire police), having kindly offered to act as timekeeper and judge respectively, the trial was fixed to take place this morning. The trial took place as follows :—The hand engine, the Dreadnought, fully equipped as for a fire with her hose and all upon her buckled up, was stationed opposite the Bank of New South Wales. At a distance of ICD yards was a small tank with which the steamer stationed on the Hereford street bridge threw water sufficient for the trial. At a given signal the eight men with the assistance of others only as regarded the dragging portion, ran the engine down to the tank, and then attaching two lengths of suction hose, and the branch commeucecl to

work the levers, and threw a jet over a piece of timber erected in the road at a height of ten feet.

When we consider the extremely slippery state of the road, and the great weight of the engine levers to be worked only by eight men, the time of the various trials is exceedingly good, and we think will bear favourable comparison with any of even the champion brigades. The times made were as follows : NO 1 SQUAD. Seconds. First trial (eight men) 60 . Second do (eight men) 59 Third do (seven men) 62$ SECOND SQUAD. Seconds. First trial (eight men) ... 59 Second do (eight men) ... 60£ Third do (seven men) 64£ By this it will be seen that the quickest time was made by the first squad, although with the eight men the second ran the winners very close. Allowing one-eighth for the fact that the squads only on the last-trial consisted of seven men, the best time made in the competition was by No 1 squad, viz., 55sec., No 2 squad doing it in 57sec. At the conclusion of the trial hot coffee was served to the men at the Shades, and before dispersing Mr Superintendent Harris called on the men to pass a vote of thanks by acclamation to his Worship the Mayor and Captain Mitchell, for their kindness in acting in their respective positions. This was heartily responded to, and after his Worship and Captain Mitchell had replied the men dispersed.