IT
aid, if it should prove requisite-
6
To ring the Fire Bell at the
Central Police Barracks seemed under
the circumstances useless. It was not required, for the reasons above given, to turn out the Police reserve at that Station. Neither was it probable that it would be useful to
eful to anyone residing outside the Station, inasmuch as the noise of the wind, and that caused by the crashing of portions of houses, and trees, was so loud, that the sound of the bell could only have travelled a very short distance, whilst
house in the Colony might._ reasonably be supposed to be so closely barred that the sound would not
every
362
penetrate. Lastly the signal of alarm
would have been so
vaque
as to have
been in itself useless. The tolling of the bell would have applied equally
to
"any portion of the City between the Harbor Master's Office West and the Murray Barracks, East- and between the Harbor North and Albany South. Qwing
to the intense darkness of the
night and the extreme violence of the weather there were none of those. adventitious aids to the discovery of the
scene of a Fire such as are af
a glare
M
afforded by
the sky or by the quickly
circulating rumours from the public in the Streets.
2-
As a matter of practice the