OUR BOSTON LETTER.

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OUR BOSTON LETTER.

[Special Correspondence of FIRE AND WATER.]

BOSTON, April 8, 1896.

Hose company 7, one of the old timers of the department, has been abotished. It was in active service in Roxbury be fore that city became a part of Boston. and before the first steam engine was introduced there. Ten years ago there were ten of these independent hose companies in the department; but now there is onlyone left, hose company 3 of Charlestown.The one day-off-in eight system, also the vacations, begin the first of next month.-Five thousand feet of new cotton jacket hose have just been added to the department supply, 3.OoO of which were furnished by the Boston Belting Company and 2,000 by the Eureka Company of New York-Thirty new re cruits will be put into training by Drill Master Stevens at once.-The aldermen have ordered that the committee on finance be requested to include the sum of $8,200 in the next loan bill to increase the salaries of the chief, the first and second assistant chiefs, and the eleven district chiefs. It is expected that the bill will go through. TaEMor~T.

TREMONT.

There is said to be nofoundation for the report that the city of New York will condemn nearly all the property in the new village of Katonah for the Croton water works. The liar. nngton annex, however, has been condemned and will be taken.

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OUR BOSTON LETTER.

2

OUR BOSTON LETTER.

[Special Correspondence of FIRE AND WATER.]

Fire Commissioner Russell’s first annual report just issued is in the main favorable. Two thousand and nine alarms of all sorts were sent out, and the total fire loss was $1,040,. 486. He recommends that the city shall supply $50,000 by transfer and appropriation to introduce the system of salt water pumping from the harbor Recording to plans furnished by the city engineer several years ago. As yet, however, the proposition has received very little encouragement, and for reasons best known to themselves the fire underwriters do not seem to favor it. Mayor Quincy was at first inclined towards it, but now seems somewhat lukewarm in the matter. As was to be expected Commissioner Russell speaks very highly of the officers and men of the department as he has found them during his year of service.—Youthful firebugs are becoming prominently in evidence. Edward A. Jarvis, a fifteen-old boy has been sent to the reform school until he is of age. His fires were always set at nodn and in the neighborhood of Box 54. Within the last three years, or thereabouts, Boston has suffered to the extent of millions of dollars by fires set by boy incendiaries, the one who caused the Lincoln street fire of March 10, 1893, being also in the reform school. TREMONT.

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