Fire Protection in Old Dutch Manhattan
“Before the English flag flew over Manhattan an old Dutch ordinance directed the burgomasters to demand from every house money for the purpose of ordering from the mother country leather fire buckets, fire ladders and fire hooks, and once a year, to demand for every chimney one guilder for the support and maintenance of the same,” according to a bulletin issued by the Washington, D. C., headquarters of the National Geographical Society. “This ordinance states in its preamble that ‘in all well-regulated cities and corporations, it is customary that fire buckets, ladders and hooks, are in readiness at the corners of the streets, and in public houses for the time of need.’ Imagine the modern Manhattan so equipped! Buckets hung out on Broadway corners would in number run a close second to the bulbs on its electric signs.”
“Before the English flag flew over Manhattan an old Dutch ordinance directed the burgomasters to demand from every house money for the purpose of ordering from the mother country leather fire buckets, fire ladders and fire hooks, and once a year, to demand for every chimney one guilder for the support and maintenance of the same,” according to a bulletin issued by the Washington, D. C., headquarters of the National Geographical Society. “This ordinance states in its preamble that ‘in all well-regulated cities and corporations, it is customary that fire buckets, ladders and hooks, are in readiness at the corners of the streets, and in public houses for the time of need.’ Imagine the modern Manhattan so equipped! Buckets hung out on Broadway corners would in number run a close second to the bulbs on its electric signs.”
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