“Newe Devised Squert”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 590, 16 February 1929, Page 18

“Newe Devised Squert”

S fire-fighters our forefathers must have been singularly efficient, writes J. P. Quane in jM th e e^ourn ® “Herald.” That they laboured under difficulties when the dread alarm was given may be readily understood by the awesome aspect of the contrivance portrayed in the illustration. This, by the way, is one of the fruits of Heath Robinson’s fertile brain, but an engraving, published in 1590, of an Elizabethan fire engine. It is said that the first engine used in England was of this type. The letterpress of the volume from which the*, illustration is reproduced states that the machine is “a newe devised squert out of which a hoggeshead of water may be thrown on a fiered house or any other thing.”

~ But , J^ 11 the brigade turned out in the old days the actual fire-fighting was the least troublesome task ahead ot them. The worst trouble was getting the engine on the spot with the greatest show of expedition. Besides, you could not always arrange tor a fire to occur in a convenient position, and if one broke out any distance from a public cistern it took 28 men to roll a portable one to the scene of devastation. Then while the apparatus was placed in a point

whence the stream could bi unerri q ly directed upon the conflagration, * the maids and matrons set an° ut ing the cistern, and their ;iob was keep it replenished while the re the team bent all tbeir energie combating the flames.

If the age of the beforo-allud book was not beyond doubt, we c • almost imagine the old geutle® busily engaged turning the dean screw to be clad in n? pyjamas and slippers! : ‘ e 1 r j hardest-worked man in the sr° u '\ ij 8 the otter active male, as be the long-handled dipper, reminos . of the gradually vanishing market gardener or the “fossick our boyhood days. The nonchalant person "l? o ‘’t c i n e it was to pull the engine to tae .^ re . ' of activity leans in a posture 0 6js less abandon upon the ha 1 5 Ie i ea piug machine, regarding not :he , nrI MJ tongues of flame 30 uncomt contiguous. He is probab v ing with pleasurable antic pR I t , 3 sweet-scented moisture which 1 (we feel sure) shall pour ‘f >r ,. hot ge»an entirely different kind 01 head.” houtk And, after their strenuous la who among us would d.ny ‘ 1 them?