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4
The comparison of London with provincial towns is of course complicated by the fact that
in their case there is not the same divided jurisdiction over the police and the fire brigade as
there is here. It will be remembered that this dual control was not the plan originally entertained.
The Select Committee of the House of Commons which was appointed soon after the disastrous
Tooley-street fire in 1861 recommended that the duty of fire extinction in London should be entrusted
to the police. The Government did not, however, approve this proposal, and so it came about that
the Fire Brigade Act of 1865, which terminated the responsibilities of the parochial authorities and
the insurance companies for the extinction of fires in London, also transferred to the Metropolitan
Board of Works the duty of protecting life in case of fire. This duty had been previously discharged
by "The Royal Society for the Protection of Life from Fire," an incorporated association which had
commenced its operations in 1844. As no arrangement had been made prior to the passing of the
Act of 1865 for relieving the society of its duties, it was not until July 1, 1867, that as the result of
negotiations the fire-escapes and staff of the society were transferred to the Board, and the duty
of saving life from fire and the extinction of fires were carried on by one organisation. At the
present time fiirst-aid is efficiently rendered by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, but serious cases of
burns are handed over to the Police and by them removed to hospitals.
Contrast is frequently drawn between the respect which law pays to property in comparison
with that which it accords to the person; and while we have in London an elaborate organisation for
protecting life and property when threatened with destruction by fire, there is no such adequate and
properly organised provision at present available for securing prompt assistance when life and limb
are endangered by accident, or when sudden sickness calls for aid in public places.
W. J. Collins.