Having exhausted the hosecart, and shown how carefully all its equipments are packed so as to combine the minimum of space with the maximum of availability, our guide passes on to the engine itself, for which he seems to entertain as much affectionate pride as if it were a living pet. It stands immediately behind the hosecart, allowing a space of about three feet between the end of its pole and the back of the cart. The driving-seat is very high, and gives room for one man beside the driver, all the rest of the force having their allotted seats in the cart. The engine itself, a powerful steamer, is as handsome an object as bright paint and brilliantly polished metal can make it; and no one, judging from its spick-and-span appearance, would credit it with the yeoman service it has done in many a conflagration. Beneath the boiler, the fire is already laid, with wood soaked in coal-oil and a substratum of highly inflammable ‘kindling,’ ready to spring into a blaze on the smallest conceivable provocation. The boiler is connected by a tube with a large stationary boiler in the cellar beneath, and a constant supply of hot water passes from the latter to the former. This tube being automatically severed from the engine the instant an alarm is sounded, and the engine-fire kindled at the same moment, a sufficient pressure of steam for the pumps is generated long before the scene of the fire is reached, and so again valuable time is saved. Our attention is next drawn to the harness, which is suspended from the ceiling exactly over the places occupied by the horses when attached to the engine and cart. Great ingenuity is displayed both in the construction of each part of the trappings and in the mathematical accuracy with which it adjusts itself to the exact spot of the horse’s anatomy which it is intended to occupy. The collars are of iron, hinged at the topmost point, and having a clasp like that of a lady’s bracelet to close them beneath the horse’s neck. When hanging, they are open to their full extent; and as they descend upon the horse, they close and snap by their own weight. The polechains are attached by spring snaps to the collars, and this is the only part of the harnessing which has to be done by hand after the alarm sounds. The entire harness for each vehicle is suspended by a single cord, which merely requires a touch of the driver’s hand, when he reaches his seat, to adjust and liberate the whole.