More than a century ago, when the Empress Dowager was given a miniature engine to bear her about the Imperial City, she found the "fire cart" so insulting to the natural order that she banished it and insisted that her carriage continue to be dragged by eunuchs.
There are quite a few loan translations, e.g., galt tereg 'train' ('fire-having cart') from Chinese huǒchē (火车, fire cart) 'train'.
"The fire-carts," says John Rudd, 75, of Dufton who lives in the picturesque village of Dufton nestling in the Eden Valley three miles from Appleby and beneath High Cup Nick, "were remarkably successful: two cart wheels carried hoses wrapped round spools that could be trundled to the nearest fire hydrant by horse- or man-power".
A big man, who makes hay rakes for a living, Mr Rudd continued: "At the war's end my father – also called John – persuaded the powers-that-be for Dufton to keep its fire-cart because the narrow roads to the village are easily blocked by snow or floods, possibly preventing fire brigades reaching burning buildings".
A day after one of the deadliest fires in New York City in years had killed five people in the Bensonhurst section, police and fire investigators carted off debris and other evidence to examine whether it had been deliberately set, and city officials studied whether the building's two residential floors had been illegally subdivided.
Around the city, there was fighting between Basijis and pro-Moussavi demonstrators who had set fire to trash carts and buses.
The other day, a little boy and his brother were at the supermarket in one of those fire engine shopping carts.
Kids just destroying shit, fucking in the hallways, setting golf carts on fire, blasting Taylor Swift 24 hours a day.
Run by the Firemen's Association of the State of New York, the museum measures 50,000 square feet and includes nearly 100 fire trucks, from rudimentary carts that were pulled through the streets in the 1700's, topped with leather buckets filled with water that were set to be used by bucket brigades, to the more modern machines, some from Westchester firehouses.
The boys had been setting fires in the hallways and lit the cart on fire.
There are spectacular fires, military parades, horse carts, tugboats and bustling streets, and a narrative that tells the stories behind the scenes and the prints.
