One Of The Improvements That This

city needs is better facilities for fire alarnis. With our well equipped and well managed fire department we should have first-class facilites for sending in fire alarms promptly and accurately. There are two ways in which this may be done. One is to establish a thorough system of fire alarms throug-hout the city. The installment of such a system and the proper maintainanceof íl would involve an outlay of several thousand dollars to begin with and an annual oxpenditnre eaeh year thereafter of possibly $500. Another method is to lócate in twenty or thirty, or more places, judiciously selected, telephonesespecially for fire alarm puposes. These would be suffieient to render to every portion of the city ampie fire protection. There are a number of arguments in favor of such a method of fire alarms whieh seem to make it much more desirable than making use of expensive special electrical apparatus. It is tnie that it would raquire a few moments more time to getinto a house, espeeialiy in case of a lire at niifht, and cali up the fire department, than it would be to rush to some near by street corner and sound the alarm of an electrie system. This, howevar, wouidbe almost, if not entirely, offset in every lnstance by the fact that with the telephone the fire department could be notiiied as to the exact location of the fire. and would thus save more time in reachlng it than would be lost by the time that would be required to send in the alarm by telephone as compared to an electric system. As to the matter of expense there can be no comparsioD. We understand that the telephone company is to furnish the city with telephones for this purpose at a very low rate. It is quite likely that this rate would be mado so low that the ontire expense would be met by the rcsidents who would be willing to pay the small fee which would 'be asked by the telephone company for such telephones. If, as it has been hinted, such phones could be rented at frora $10 to 112 par year thero is no doubt that at least fifty could be located about the city where they would be the most con venient, and the entire expense metby the residcnts into whose houses the instruments were placed. We respectfully submit the suggestion to 'the coromon council believing that in this way the city can obtain an excellent fire alarm system at practically no expense to the Corporation.