FIRE-BRIGADE MATTERS.
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Captain A. R. Dix, of the Saffron Walden Brigade, is well advanced in his collections towards the sum of 2480, which is required for the purchase of a petrol fire-engine.
Of the two fire-engines for Calcutta, one a Commercar-Simonis and the other a Leyland, the former has been completed first. This engine is rated to give 50 h.p. at 830 r.p.m.
L.C.C.—Electric vans: Insurance Results.
The Fire Brigade Committee of the London County Council has accepted the tender of the Electric Construction Co., Ltd., of Wolverhampton, at £260, to provide charging apparatus, at the new fire stations in course of erection in BOW' and Bromley-by-Bow, for the electrically-driven motor (escape) vans which it is intended to place at these stations. The other tenders received were as follow Lancashire Dynamo and Motor Co., Ltd., £280 15s. ; General Electric Co., Ltd., .293; Wright and Wood, Ltd., 4304. The chief engineer's estimate was £260.
The same committee reports that in July, 1909, after consideration of various alternative quotations for the insurance of the motor fire-appliances used by the fire brigade, it decided as an experiment not to insure the appliances for one year, and to reconsider the question at the end of that time. A separate record has been kept of the cost to -the Council, including legal and all other expenses, of all damage done to or by these appliances, and it is found that for the 12 months the complete cost of accidents, omitting establishment charges, has been £164 2s. 4d., or, including a liability for certain damage in respect of which no account has been rendered, £180 17s. 4d. The maximum cost paid in respect of any one accident was .f:35 us., and the minimum 2s. 2d. If establishment charges, which are the same whether the risks are insured or not, are added, the total cost is found to be £250 18.s. 4d. The last quotations received, which were in respect of 26 vehicles, amounted to 1.:934, for a limit of liability in respect of any one accident of £100, or £1,167 for a limit of £200, or £1,284 for a limit o £350, so that the saving effected by not insuring during the year under review has amounted toat least £700. Having regard to these results, the Committee thinks it advisable to continue, at all events for the present, the arrangement whereby the actual cost of accidents with motor fire-appliances is paid by the Council, although it points out that the satisfactory results named are only in respect of one year's experience, and that it may again be found at some future time to be in the interests of the Council to insure the appliances.