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into the harness room he saw fire in a coat, and on taking it up to throw out of the barn, a pipe dropped from it, showing the cause of the fire.

Not a few of the fires for which no cause is found are of this origin. The great fire which commenced on Battery Wharf, July 27, 1855, was no doubt set by a workman who was smoking about the loose and drying cotton. The loss was five hundred thousand dollars.

The great fire at London in 1861, which destroyed eleven millions of dollars worth of merchandise, etc., was said to have originated from spontaneous combustion in hemp. But the chances were ten to one that the cause was a workman's pipe. The same cause may be assigned, I believe, for the fire in a cordage store which caused such a sensation a few years since in Boston. A gentleman who is in the hay and straw business told me, a few days since, that it was quite common, especially in wet weather, for people in the streets to come in to the hay stores, while passing, if they saw no one, and lighting a match and then their pipe, to throw the match down among the loose hay. He thought that almost all the hay fires were caused in that way. He said their own men were forbidden to smoke; but I believe some of their worst fires have been brought about by their own workmen smoking "on the sly." He also

said that most of the hay fires occur in wet weather, the time when outsiders come in to light their pipes.

I once saw a most careless act of lighting a pipe. Several workmen came out from breakfast to the workshop, which was in a barn. One of them— and shame to him a Yankee - caught up a handful of shavings, lighted them with a match, then lighted his pipe with the shavings, and without looking at them crushed the shavings in his hand and threw them out of sight under the bench! There were cords of shavings about, and many tons of hay in the barn! But there was not a carpenter's workshop there another day! All over the country, fires are occurring from such causes, and it would be well to enact that if we are to have an eight or ten hour law, no portion of the time should be spent in setting fires by smoking pipes, or tobacco in any form.

STORE FIRE BRIGADE.

People are too much accustomed to leave to others what they could better do themselves. How many will read this little work, and then leave the whole question to be settled by the present fire department. So have the people gone on for years with the small-pox question, and would have still, perhaps, had not some facts come

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to light which startled the public to action. So should the fires of Chicago, Boston, and other places awaken the business portion of all other cities to look into the subject for themselves. A Boston merchant writes to the "Advertiser " that he is going to get up a store fire brigade. So have they at Hovey's store, and also at a few others. Every head of an establishment should select some man and have him get up a little band of the inmates, who would be engine-men, axe-men, or water-carriers, with others to take their places if wanted. The idea that this will tend to make them worse book-keepers or salesmen is absurd. Every man will become more a man if he can put out a fire or do any other good thing for you.

HOTEL FIRE BRIGADE.

Many years ago there was a fire department in the Burnet House, at Cincinnati. Every man had some place assigned him, to which he instantly hastened when the alarm bell struck.. All hotels should have hose always ready at a moment's warning, with men to man it, and axe-men, fire buckets, and small engines, with directions on printed cards hung in every story, and men trained to use them instantly, in case of an alarm in the house. There would be very few lives lost in hotels if these precautions were observed. The

to

men should feel that their own safety depended upon these "fire brigades," and that it was their duty a part of their contract as workmen do what they could for the safety of the patrons of the house. The dreadful disaster at the hotel at Richmond, Virginia, some time since, would not have occurred with such a system, as it was seen when a few dashes of water upon the flames would have kept them back until the inmates could have escaped. With such a system, too, the "brigade" would have seen the dangerous condition of the women at the hotel in New York, and means would have been found to save them.

THE CHICKERING FIRE BRIGADE.

This fire brigade, in their great piano-forte warehouse on Tremont Street, is perhaps the best private fire preventive establishment in the United States, if not in the world.

Thirty fifty-feet lengths of hose are always attached to water-pipes and ready in a moment. Forty-five extinguishers are so distributed that one may be at work in a minute. Axes, iron-bars, spanners, and other tools are distributed about the building.

One captain, ten lieutenants, and one hundred and fifty men, are trained to fly to their places at a cry of fire, or at the stroke of the fire-bell.

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Double iron doors separate the wings from the main building in each story, and water keeps them wet and cool in case of fire.

The chips are taken from the rooms in great barrows, to the elevator, and thence to the floor, from whence they are wheeled to an iron room, and kept for use.

The lumber in the dry houses is safe, as the houses can be filled with steam in a few minutes. The watchmen are trained to use the extinguishers, etc., in case of fire in the night.

With their well-trained and intelligent workmen, their means of extinguishing fires, they set a most excellent example to all other business places in towns and cities.

The expense is of course great, but the Messrs. Chickering have no doubt it pays them for all the outlay. Three fires, one very dangerous, have already been extinguished. The sight of the fire tools and the drills of the firemen have no doubt prevented many others.

OF BUILDINGS WHICH ARE IN GREAT DANGER

OF TAKING FIRE.

Of all the buildings exposed to fire none are in such constant danger as the manufactories of friction matches. Yet it is very seldom that one of them is destroyed. The reason is that, knowing