(and two more efficient and admirable staffs do not exist in this country, or any other country); we think, after Mr. Phillips’s invention has passed through every test that can reasonably be required, that all Fire-engines, and every Fire-escape, would do well to have one or more of these Fire Annihilators with them as a regular part of their apparatus. Of the Fire-escapes of the Royal Society, the promptitude of their action (they are almost always first at a fire), and the many lives saved by them every year—nay, sometimes, in the course of a week—we had contemplated a substantive account, but have been withheld by the impossibility of doing justice to the various patents without accurate drawings and diagrams. However, as these are already before the public, we may content ourselves by saying, that, whether the Royal Society make use of the Fire-escape invented by Winter and Sons, by Wivell, or by Davies, the humane exertions of the Society have attained a success which commands the admiration, and ensures the gratitude, of society at large. Respecting the annihilating properties of water, much may be said, and will be said; but all in vain, until the water companies are brought to their senses, and the utter abolition of domestic cisterns and water-butts is effected. Without the continuous supply system—till all the water-pipes in all the houses and all the streets are kept always fully charged at high pressure, conflagrations never will, and never can, be promptly put out by the agency of what the penny-a-liners have lately taken to call the “antagonistic element.” Fire-engines, if not wholly laid aside, must be only kept for exceptional cases, and the Fire Brigade—well conducted, efficient, courageous as it is—may, some of these days, be turned into a corps of reserve. With the mains ever charged, with water at high service, no engines will be required. At the first alarm of fire, the policeman pulls up the fire plug—which should be opposite every sixth or eighth house—fixes the hose, and out spouts a cataract in two minutes. Assistance arrives; trails of hoses are made to lead from the rows of plugs on either side, or in other streets, and in five minutes a deluge—and no more fire. For the extinguishing of fire, _time_ is a most important consideration. A few gallons of water would be effective if used at once, where thousands of gallons would effect little after ten or fifteen minutes had elapsed. The average time the Brigade engines take in arriving at a fire after the first alarm is ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, rapid as are their movements. The Parish engines are far more numerous, but always last—and seldom of any use when they _do_ come. Conceive a parish beadle at a fire!