帕萨迪纳的玫瑰比赛。

帕萨迪纳的玫瑰比赛。

A CALIFORNIAN FRORAL PARADE.

While some cities on this continent have their carnivals and outdoor floral parades immediately before Lent or make them occasions of a Mid-Lent festival, Pasadena, Cal., itself a very flower garden, selects New Year’s Day as an appropriate time for its 10,000 or 12,000 people to keep holiday. In that fair clime, when it is not spring in all its maiden beauty and freshness, it is glorious summer, with all its gorgeous floral coloring and rich greenery. Hence, while a winter parade of be-garlanded pieces of fire apparatus seems to Eastern ideas an anomaly, to Californians it comes as natural as do January snow and ice to New Yorkers. Like all the region round about it in Los Angeles county, Pasadena abounds in luxurious vegetation and a never-ending supply of blossoming plants. The city itself is not one of the smallest in the State, as it is by no means one of the largest—only one of average size. Its fire limit covers hardly two miles; but, as the great majority of its buildings are of frame, it wisely provides against any serious outbreak of fire, and boasts not only an adequate equipment, but also a good sized manual force—some eighteen or twenty in all, of whom four are paid full time and the remainder paid part. In case of fire these are summoned by the Gamewell fire alarm telegraph, with its nineteen boxes, and turn out, if for a general alarm, with one steamer, four chemical extinguishers, one hook and ladder truck, three hose carriages, 2.250 feet of cotton hose, and 450 feet of rubber hose—the apparatus being drawn by eight horses valued at $1,500; while the equipment is valued at $6,500, and the buildings at $9,000. The firefighting force is under the command of Chief A. M. Clifford, who, with Assistant Chief Hone, has been set over a firstclass lot of men, each one the reflection of the excellencies of their superior officers.