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MESSRS. EDITORS—A great deal has been published here and elsewhere on the subject of our steam fire engine, which is absolute nonsense. And inferences unfavorable to the inventor have been made on account of the wide-spread destruction of two conflagrations here, which took place recently. In one of them it was stated that upwards of twenty buildings were burned np; in the other, three buildings were destroyed, which rendered it obvious to the writer of this article that the affair was a humbug purely. In the article you published, April 9,1853, taken I believe from the " Enquirer," it is supposed " that it is impossible to get the engine to fires without cutting up the streets and destroying the bouldering." I desire to set you right, regarding the steam fire engine as a machine which must soon supersede the ordinary apparatus for ex tinguishing fires, and will therefore stat a few things which ought to remove any pre judice that may have originated from such statements. The steam engine has never'torn up the bouldered streets of our city These are of late construction, and extend over but. a small portion of the city, although we con template them finally to supersede the ordi nary paving. This last is of the common limestone, an extremely friable material, which wears into holes, the adjacent paving readily wearing out under any heavy pressure, such as log wheels or the steam engine, for example The introduction of a pay fiie de partment here has been nearly contempora neous with the introduction .of the steam fire engine, and the ill feeling with which certain companies, not then brought under the new arrangement, regarded the change, hindered prompt attendance and hearty co-operation at these fires. As to the twenty frame buildings destroy ed, no one here regards their destruction as a loss, and if they had been, a group of twenty frame buildings in proximity to each other anywhere, would doom them to the flames. I expect to obtain trom the ingenious inven tor of the engine, Abel Sharok, and from our city fire engineer, Mr. Bray, such a statement of the character, capacity, construction, and practical workings of the machine as will set the public, outside of Cincinnati, right upon this subject. . CHARLES CIST. Cincinnati, April 19, 1853.
