moment back with another, and others followed, and so he dashed it out almost before the other inmates knew there was a fire on the premises. As one of the salesmen went to find the cause of the smoke and disturbance, the lad emerged from the smoke, saying, as he rushed for more water, "I have got it almost out!" And soon it was quite out, and the serious danger over. Not a word of this praiseworthy action was reported. Yet it would no doubt have prevented many other fires if published and commented upon in the newspapers of the day. Nor do I believe that the boy ever received a "thank you, sir," from the insurance company, for whom he saved thousands of dollars.

The best managed fire I ever saw was dashed out in a few minutes by a woman who worked with entire self-possession, and taught a man and her daughter to do so also. A kettle of tar had boiled over in a wheelwright shop, and set the stock, chips, and shavings under a work bench on fire. The workman now seeing the fire, took the kettle of tar from the fire-place to the door, dropping the burning tar all the way, and throwing it out to the side of the shop, where there was a large hole into the cellar down which the burning tar ran upon the chips and shavings which were scattered about there.

A pretty kettle of tar one would say! A

A WOMAN PUTS OUT A FIRE.

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dense black smoke enveloped the row of buildings, and gave the alarm to the firewoman. The wind was blowing a gale to add to the danger. In a moment she seized two pails, filled one and telling her daughter to fill the other, and to pump into the trough, she sprang to the fire, and dashed her pail of water under the bench where was the first fire. In a few seconds came another pail which went into the same place, and drowned out that part of the fire. Now came help, the first man to her assistance. Dashing her next pail of water on the flames along the floor, she pointed to the fire in the cellar, and told him to put it out, which, following her example, he did from the water in the trough, which was now almost full, for the girl stuck to the pump, as her mother did to the fire. By this time the mother had put out all the fire in the shop, and the danger was over, as half a dozen men came rushing up too late to be of any service. If the fire had not been attacked until they arrived, a whole neighborhood would have been destroyed in an hour. Just as the fire was out, though the smoke was so dense that nothing could be seen in the shop, the workman came out of it, as black as a tar-barrel, and with lamp-black enough upon him to have fitted out a dozen negro minstrels !

I doubt if the brave heroine of this exploit was ever thanked by more than one of the half a dozen

owners of the buildings in danger, or received a reward from those for whom she saved many thousands of dollars. Nor did the account of the fire go into the papers to teach, and encourage other women and men to follow her example in similar times of danger.

A house far from help from engines took fire on the roof, and before it was discovered a large portion of one side of the roof was on fire. A young lady of the house caught a mop and pail of water, and telling the others to bring more water, she got on the roof, and dashing out the flames with the mop, soon did for the house what Mrs. Partington could not do with the Atlantic Ocean. She mopped out the fire, and saved their pleasant home from destruction. The excellent lesson she taught the world will first be told in this book. If it had been told in the papers of the day, many a fire would have been mopped out, many another home saved.

CAUSES OF FIRE.

The general use of inflammable oils for lighting houses, often sold when it is more dangerous than gunpowder to life and property, the careless manner of setting stoves and funnels and furnaces, the introduction of steam and hot water, and the careless manner of their arrangement for heating buildings, are wholesale causes of the great increase

MANSARD ROOFS.

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of fires. The construction of buildings, so that if the fire has burned through a partition, ceiling, or stairway, it is out of sight, and with an excellent draft, often better than that of the chimney, it rapidly and safely travels over, and destroys them, is another prolific source of danger.

The introduction into houses and manufactories of chemicals which may take fire from spontaneous combustion, the enormous and careless use of matches, the employment of cheap and careless workmen and watchmen in situations of danger from fires, all add greatly to the number of fires, while the story of the danger of Mansard roofs was told with awful force by the fire at Boston last November.

A very great cause of fires is the wicked recklessness of our people, who will not be taught by such dreadful lessons. Look at the wooden Mansard roofs which have been erected in Boston and vicinity since that great fire. Think of the dreadful fire on Hanover Street where so many lives were lost, and then read in the papers of the hundreds of similar buildings about the city! The general want of knowledge of the best way instantly to attack fires when small and easily extinguished, and an almost entire want of efficient machines for that purpose, and a want of the self-possesssion which persons having them

require, are other causes in the long list. I once saw where a barn had been burned from the centre of a nest of buildings, to which the "great box, little box, band-box, and bundle," would have been but a feeble comparison. I asked a friend how they were saved. "Do you recollect lecturing on fires at the State House once?" said he. "Yes." "Well, I bought an engine, and soon after, that barn took fire. It set the buildings on fire on every side of it, and I, with half a dozen men to give me water, went right round, dashing out the flames on one, and then another, and keeping them wet until the barn burned down; they were all saved." When I say that my friend was Mr. Benjamin Cutter, of Pelham, New Hampshire, the farming portion of my readers will have no doubt the work was well done.

But the cause, perhaps, more than all others combined, is the fact that our fire departments are so arranged that from the time that the fire is first seen, the telegraph people told of it, the horses put to the engines, the engines taken to the fire, then attached to the hydrants, or the reservoirs, and the hose taken to the fire, and the water is turned on to the fire, is upon an average at least fifteen minutes; while a fire doubling its proportions at first every minute, and soon quadrupling, works its way through a building in that time, or