Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

Small Fire Engines.

I observed in a late paper that the town of Salem in Massachusetts had ordered one or more large engines to be contracted for in Philadelphia. The artists of this city in that line, are undoubtedly unrivalled and therefore in the construction of either large or small engines. the people of Salem could not have applied to a better source. A remember engines in a large city are doubtless advantageous; but in general it will be found that small ones are most useful.

In country towns particularly, in which the settlements are extensive and detached, three small engines which may not cost more than one large one, would probably render ten times the service in any given number of years An engine large enough to throw water over the roof of a house, may be transported to the scene of fire by three or four persons, they may be placed in almost any convenient situation, are soon filled and brought into operation The recollection of almost any resident of a large city will furnish him with facts corroborative of the foregoing remarks. Fires are generally prevented from spreading in the first instance by small engines. In the town of Boston a small engine which one man could haul through the streets, was the means of preventing in the space of three years seven fires from becoming conflagration.-The utility of hose was so apparent at the late fire in Chestnut-street, that no time ought to be lost in furnishing every engine with that necessary appendage.

C.