Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

222 BRITAIN AT WORK. a reserve. At Cardiff 26 constables have a special training, and are therefore available when required to go to the assistance of the permanent brigade, which in that case consists of a dozen civilians. Other cities and towns have adopted the same system of a police reserve, including Bristol, Norwich, Nottingham, and Sunderland. The Man- chester brigade of 100 men is entirely civilian, and has no such relationship to the police, also in reserve. At Newport (Mon.) the chief officer of the brigade is a solicitor, and the mechanics who serve under him receive no retainer, but only their honorarium for work done. The same plan is adopted at Llanelly, except that here the brigade contains a leaven of seamen within its ranks. An excellent example of a voluntary brigade is to be seen at Pembroke, where there is a company of a dozen drilled men, who have PRESENTATION OE MEDALS TO FIREMEN. being in that respect modelled upon the metropolitan system. Glasgow also has its independent fire staff, a body of 124 picked men, each of whom must have had previous experience in a handicraft, and it is a justifiable pride with which their chief points to the fact that he has attended nearly six thousand fires with his brigade without losing the life of a single man. At Exeter a still less expensive system is adopted. I here are only two permanent officers, and the rank and file consists of a body of mechanics employed by the munici- pality. They receive a retaining fee of two guineas per annum, and a small payment for each fire attended. A few police are no engine, but rely entirely upon a couple of hoses. The Rickmansworth brigade is also voluntary, the chief officer being a medical man and a justice of the peace. Uis force consists of thirty men, and they have no less than three engines, one of them worked by steam I he Teddington brigade obtains no funds except such as are contributed volun- tarily or obtained from the owners or insurers of property that has been saved. All over the country there exist elaborate organisations within docks, factories, asylums, and other large institutions for the extinction of fire by private effort. As these lines were being written a fire broke out within Marl- borough House, and it was promptly attacked