False alarm

“ When an “alarm” is given, no delay is allowed, but all have to assemble as they are. On this night (which by the light of the moon was as clear as day) the “corps dramatique” ran as they were for their arms, and so appeared on the public parade amidst roars of laughter, for their appearance was certainly comic in the extreme, and such a sight of armed warriors in petticoats as never was witnessed before. The “alarm” proved a false one, occasioned by a young soldier firing from his post at the prisoners’ barracks on hearing some quarrel amongst the convicts within. ”

“ If the alarm were only sounded generally through the kingdom, the cause of the p. 112Lord would not want defenders, both numerous and powerful, and the discomfited emissaries of Satan would be driven from the field.
Mankind are always disposed to close their eyes against unpleasant objects,—to shut their ears against unwelcome truths. Thus we are willing to be deceived: if we see evils increasing, we still hope they are only partial and temporary; if alarming reports reach us, we persuade ourselves that they must be false or exaggerated. ”

“ And when Marshal Oudinot who was in the lead suspended his march from any unknown cause, there was a general movement of alarm, and ominous rumors were circulated; and since men who have seen much are disposed to believe anything, false rumors were as readily credited as true, and the alarm lasted until the front of the army again moved forward, and their confidence was somewhat restored. ”

“ Although there was necessarily great excitement, and 10among the female part of our community much alarm, yet, the night passed off without any thing like commotion or disturbance, and it is peculiarly honorable to the corps on service, that in a populous town, the streets filled until a late hour with persons, uncertain whether it was safe to go to rest or not, not a single case of false alarm was excited. ”

“ I silently resolved to have a burglar alarm installed before the next day came to an end. I would take no more chances, rest assured of that, as this business was taking a decidedly serious aspect. It took me well into the night to put the room into any semblance of order, but the events of the evening had driven all thoughts of sleep from my mind.
I was handicapped by the oath of secrecy and I did not dare report this matter to the police because of the publicity that such a proceeding would entail. No, it was to be a battle of wits, and I must fight it alone. ”

“ Therefore they have inherent within them a power of automatic alarm, a warning signal, which unerringly operates to apprise them of approaching conflicts and unfailingly keeps them sufficiently separated as not to interfere with their proper and effective functioning. ”

“ Sometimes even your four hours' sleeping time is rudely broken into by half a dozen alarms; for separated sometimes by hundreds of feet from your comrades of the next post, the instinct of self-preservation makes you line your loopholes and peer anxiously into the gloom beyond, when any one of the enemy shows that he is afoot. A single rifle-shot spitting off near by is as often as not the cause of the alarm; for that rifle-shot cracking out discordantly and awakening the echoes may be the signal for the dread rush which would spell the beginning of the end. ”

“ Yes, sir, a burglar alarm combines in its person all that is objectionable about a fire, a riot, and a harem, and at the same time had none of the compensating advantages, of one sort or another, that customarily belong with that combination. ”

“ XII. The two branches of the secondary mischief of an act, the alarm and the danger, must not be confounded: though intimately connected, they are perfectly distinct: either may subsist without the other. The neighbourhood may be alarmed with the report of a robbery, when, in fact, no robbery either has been committed or is in a way to be committed: a neighbourhood may be on the point of being disturbed by robberies, without knowing any thing of the matter. Accordingly, we shall soon perceive, that some acts produce alarm without danger: others, danger without alarm. ”

“ The alarm was borne loudly and wildly along the streets—the rapid clattering of footsteps, as some individual hastened by to the scene of the disaster, followed by another, and another, was in a few seconds succeeded by the loud, confused, and hurried tramping of many men, as they rushed along shouting with hoarse voices the quick note of alarm. ”

“ You must first moderate your present alarm, and then change your attitude, and be alarmed, all of you, for the Thebans. They are far more within the reach of disaster than we: it is they whom the danger threatens first. ”

“ Next morning we sent for the burglar-alarm man, and he came up and explained that the reason the alarm did not 'go off' was that no part of the house but the first floor was attached to the alarm. This was simply idiotic; one might as well have no armor on at all in battle as to have it only on his legs. The expert now put the whole second story on the alarm, charged three hundred dollars for it, and went his way. ”

“ If an alarm comes—no matter of what kind—don't be frightened, but stand in front of and protect her from being seen, until she says to you: 'Sauve qui peut?' That will be her signal for you to run and scream, and do whatever the rest are doing. ”

“ True, the alarm may be given, as in a recent case, and we may run who feel alarmed, and shoot off our guns, while our enemy may be robbing our property, ravishing our wives, and burning our houses over our defenseless families. ”

“ Notwithstanding all the false official assurances, the sleepiness of the much-vaunted Intelligence Department, and the fettered hands of the police—both Metropolitan and Provincial—must surely give the man-in-the-street to pause. Spies are to-day among us in every walk of life, and in almost every town in Great Britain. Every single man and woman among them is impatiently awaiting the signal for the destruction of our homes and the ruin and massacre of our dear ones, and yet we are actually asked to believe that no danger exists! ”

“ Such is the case at present, and I believe a general uncertainty pervades every class of society, from the highest to the lowest; nobody looks upon any institution as secure, or any interest as safe, and it is only because those universal feelings of alarm which are equally diffused throughout the mass but slightly affect each individual atom of it that we see the world go on as usual, eating, drinking, laughing, and dancing, and not insensible to the danger, though, apparently indifferent about it. ”

“ On the solution of these two questions, joined with our opinion of the value of the object to be affected by their machinations, the justness of our alarm and the necessity of our vigilance must depend. Every private conspiracy, every open attack upon the laws, is dangerous. One robbery is an alarm to all property; else I am sure we exceed measure in our punishment. As robberies increase in number and audacity, the alarm increases. These wretches are at war with us upon principle. They hold this government to be an usurpation. See the language of the Department. ”

“ The twelve hundred citizens, as we read in the minutes, “compelled to unite by the too well founded alarm inspired in all the citizens by the danger which seems to threaten them each individually, and by the imminent necessity of taking prompt measures to avert its effects, considering that a number of individuals, terrified perhaps by the rumours which doubtless evil-disposed persons have disseminated, are traversing, armed and in disorder, all the streets of the capital, and that the ordinary town guard either mingles with them or remains a passive spectator of the disorder it cannot arrest ”

“ The point upon which everything turns is the secret, and therefore dangerous, character of the conspiracy, which, as we are told, completely eluded the vigilance of the authorities, and was on the very verge of success before even a breath of suspicion was aroused, being balked only by a lucky accident occurring at the eleventh hour, in a manner fitly described as miraculous. ”

“ You allowed the quarter of an hour to elapse before you raised the alarm?"
"Certainly, I had promised," was the response.
"But a promise extorted by threats of violence is not binding," he suggested as he pulled meditatively at his right ear. ”

“ It is easily seen from the above description that a burglar who might discover that a house was wired for alarm would be greatly perplexed to know what to do, for the very thing that would prevent one kind of alarm from ringing would cause the other to ring. ”

“ Had I had some definite knowledge as to the cause of my alarm I should not have suffered so much, but it [271] was my ignorance of what was there, of what I feared, that made my terror so poignant. Each second saw the agony of my suspense increase. I dared not move. I hardly dare breathe, and I dreaded lest the violent pulsation of my heart should attract the attention of the Unknown Presence and precipitate its coming out. ”

“ Is there no medical police, then, against such efflated hour-fulminators and alarm-cannon, by which notwithstanding no gunpowder cannon are saved? In my opinion, nobody should be invested with the watchman-horn but some reasonable man, who had already blown himself into an asthma, and who would consequently be in case to sing out his hour-verse so low, that you could not hear it. ”

“ The timid recoil into themselves, yielding most of their faculties to a tormenting imagination, that augments the causes of alarm and diminishes the means of security, while the firm of mind rally and condense their powers to the point necessary to exertion. ”

“ At the first signal of alarm the street-doors are to be closed, the men to rush to the windows, and from there to fire on the assailants. “Hold yourselves in readiness; it is very possible you may be attacked. ”

“ The day on which this answer is written ought of itself to prove to the subjects of your sovereign that the American people are not to be intimidated by menace; or induced to adopt any measures except by a sense of their perfect propriety. Seduced by the false show of security, they may be sometimes surprised and slaughtered, while unprepared to resist a supposed friend. That delusive security is now passed forever. The late occurrence has taught us to confide our safety no longer to anything than to our own force. ”

“ I boast of being one of these same alarmists; but I had noble support and honourable [63] associates, whose genius, talents, virtue, and integrity, might well endure to be weighed in the opposite scale with those who, perhaps, whilst they felt alarm themselves, from a far different source, affected the language of ridicule, disdain, and security. Their alarm was, lest Mr. Pitt and his band of real patriots, should frustrate the attempts of his adversaries, and save his country. ”

“ While the necessary precautions to avert the coming danger have been either neglected or postponed under the impression of false security we have fallen victims to our own procrastination; and as the withering blast howls in its fury as it settles its incubus form upon our spirits, we mourn our own inertness, when timely exertion would have saved us from the calamity. ”

“ Fool that I was, I might have known better. 'They' are far too cunning thus to advertise their power needlessly. Day after day I dwelt in a world of terror, and nothing happened, save the complete interruption of any intercourse with the spiritual world. Malevolent forces had closed that door. I waited, each moment expecting disaster, I knew not from what quarter, as a man waits in a dark wood for the lurking danger to spring at him. Suddenly—a week ago today—they commenced to act. ”

“ A whole house will be awake and take the first alarm given by a good and trusty watch-dog, who barks only at the approach of thieves; but we hate the importunity of those noisy curs, which are perpetually disturbing the public repose, and whose continual ill-timed warnings prevent our attending to them, when they may perhaps be necessary. ”

“ Even some persons who possess means of information that are not open to me, profess to discern in the signs of public feeling, in the views of some hope and some fear, the expectation of something about to happen, something reaching far beyond partial, or local, or even agrarian, disturbance, and calculated to create a greater degree of alarm than anything we have witnessed, or anything that has happened. ”

“ Alarm (Vol. ii., pp. 151. 183.) .—The origin of this word appears to be the Italian cry, all'arme; gridare all'arme is to give the alarm. Hence the French alarme, and from the French is borrowed the English word. Alarum for alarm, is merely a corruption produced by mispronunciation. ”

“ Doubtless the unfortunate man was perfectly aware of the imminence of the danger; but we may charitably suppose, that he held such language for the purpose of preventing alarm which might be fatal. The alarm bell was now rung with so much violence that the clapper broke, and some of the passengers continued to strike it for some time with a stone. The bell was heard, it is said, at Beaumaris, but, as there was no light hoisted on the mast of the steamer, (a fatal neglect!) those who heard the signal were, of course, ignorant whence it proceeded. ”

“ They must not be permitted to deceive the general, and lead us all to certain destruction. Have them arrested at once, and put them in the outer guard-house—stay, and to prevent their communicating this false information to the men—as it would soon reach Price—have them gagged! ”