The Westport Times. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1869.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 593, 14 December 1869, Page 2

The Westport Times. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1869.

It is not now only—after the occurrence of two disasters—that some protection against fire has become an obvious local necessity. It is a necessity which has already been felt and publicly recognised. The regret is that public action has not been equal to public intelligence. With £IOO as a subsidy from the Government for the purchase of a fire-engine, and with a promise of proportionate public support, it is to be regretted that the Fire Brigade initiated some time ago has not felt encouraged to do something definite, or has not been able to do that something definito sooner than has been done. We fear that what delay there has been in obtaining some suitable appliances has urisen from a, perhaps, laudable desire to obtain these appliances on a scale unnecessarily perfect and magnificent. Of course it is well that whatever description of engine should be got should be got good. But it is a question if it would not be wise to be content with one of insignificant proportionSj so long as it would be useful, not so much in extinguishing fires as in preventing their spread. It is a question if it would not be even wiser to confine any expenditure for the present to the purchase of some curricle or hand engines which are now to be seen in some of our cities, and which have on many occasions proved eminently useful, either when 'brought early to the scene of a fire or in preventing the spread of fire to adjacent buildings. With water so available as it is in Westport, a forcepump of ordinary power, a quantity of hose, and a few hand pumps for subsidiary use, might constitute a comparatively efficient fire-plant; and, after rjcent occurrences, we should imagine that, either in the case of Westport or Charleston, the Government would not be disposed to do otherwise than read liberally the votes by which the grant-in-aid was passed. Besides such simple appliances, it is well worth the consideration of the inhabitants whether there should not be

procured a supply of those tubes which, after the fashion of the tubular wells introduced during the Abyssinian campaign, are now being adopted in diflerent towns in the colonies. An ample supply of water may be readily tapped in any part -of our streets when the level of the river is reached, and with these taps existent in some of the principal and most accessible situations in town, the proprietors and patrons of taps of another description would probably find themselves more easy in mind and pocket than they now are. Other property owners would, perforce, feel themselves equally secure, or, at anyrate, less insecure. That something must be done is obvious,otherwise Westport, circumstanced and situated as it now is, may at any time be swept off the face of the earth, and its site be reconverted into that condition of wilderness from which it has been elevated by Mr John Martin and his succeeding pioneers. The necessity is the more obvious, as the hope of obtaining insurance which was once held out id not likely to be realised. Ouly a few days ago the incipient agent of an Insurance Company which contemplated establishing agencies both at Westport and Charleston received the information that the Directors had decided against the project, the grounds for this decision being the limited business likely to be done, and their past experience of minor agencies of the kind, the revenue from such never being adequate to the risks run. Almost every agency in the smaller townships in the colony, we are told, has left a loss on three years' business ; and, as events have happened, probably the Directors of this Company will now consider that Westport and Charleston would not have proved exceptions to the rule.