Better building laws and the universal adoption of fire-prevention ordinances, are going to change all this for us, in time, but as yet our annual fire loss stuns the average European by its enormous total. In London, the fire-department comes under the supervision of the city authorities, the London County Council looking after the administration of the "Metropolitan Fire-Brigade," as it is called; and this brigade, in management and routine work, is not unlike many large American fire-departments, though the apparatus used is radically different. A naval officer has always been chief of the London fire-brigade, and the firemen are usually recruited from the marine service, a time-honored custom giving preference to men who have been at least five years at sea. It is argued that the work of a fireman is of a nature more readily performed by a sailor, who is not only accustomed to danger and exposure of all kinds, but is trained to climbing and working in perilous positions. These new men, after passing a severe physical examination before a medical board, are put through three months' careful schooling at fire headquarters, where they are not only taught how to handle every tool and implement used in the brigade, but become skilled in life-saving work. The fire stations in London are much larger than the engine-houses found in American cities, and some of the newer buildings in appearance are not unlike some of our better-class apartment-houses. Indeed, this is practically what they are--a kind of apartment-house or barracks for the men and their families, as well as a station for the apparatus and the horses; and here the firemen live, occupying little apartments of from three to five rooms, according to their rank and position. They are, therefore, in the houses and on duty at all times, with the exception of one day's leave of absence in every fifteen. Enough firemen are found in each London fire station to make up three of our fire-companies, but only one third of these men are in service or on "call-duty" at a time, the rest being held in reserve to answer any other alarms which might come in, or to reinforce the first detachment leaving the house should their "call" prove to be a bad fire. And the men of each squad or detachment on "call-duty" are supposed to be fully dressed when an alarm comes in, and have only to adjust their helmets, which hang in long rows on the walls of the apparatus floor, before jumping on the engines; and no exception is made to this rule, even with the men on the last or "night tour"--from 9 P.M. until 7 A.M. This accounts for the pictures we sometimes see, showing the English firemen seated along the sides of their engines, in military fashion, fully uniformed.