of glass, and
again the dizzy ascent. Straight up the wall they crept, looking like
human flies on the ceiling, and clinging as close, never resting,
reaching one recess only to set out for the next; nearer and nearer in
the race for life, until but a single span separated the foremost from
the boy. And now the iron hook fell at his feet, and the fireman stood
upon the step with the rescued lad in his arms, just as the pent-up
flame burst lurid from the attic window, reaching with impotent fury
for its prey. The next moment they were safe upon the great ladder
waiting to receive them below.

Then such a shout went up! Men fell on each other's necks, and cried
and laughed at once. Strangers slapped one another on the back, with
glistening faces, shook hands, and behaved generally like men gone
suddenly mad. Women wept in the street. The driver of a car stalled in
the crowd, who had stood through it all speechless, clutching the
reins, whipped his horses into a gallop, and drove away yelling like a
Comanche, to relieve his feelings. The boy and his rescuer were
carried across the street without any one knowing how. Policemen
forgot their dignity, and shouted with the rest. Fire, peril, terror,
and loss were alike forgotten in the one touch of nature that makes
the whole world kin.

Fireman John Binns was made captain of his crew, and the Bennett medal
was pinned on his coat on the next parade-day. The burning of the St.
George Flats was the first opportunity New York had of witnessing a
rescue with the scaling-ladders that form such an essential part of
the equipment of the fire-fighters to-day. Since then there have been
many such. In the company in which John Binns was a private of the
second grade, two others to-day bear the medal for brave deeds: the
foreman, Daniel J. Meagher, and Private Martin M. Coleman, whose name
has been seven times inscribed on the roll of honor for twice that
number of rescues, any one of which stamped him as a man among men, a
real hero. And Hook-and-Ladder No. 3 is not especially distinguished
among the fire-crews of the metropolis for daring and courage. New
Yorkers are justly proud of their firemen. Take it all in all, there
is not, I think, to be found anywhere a body of men as fearless, as
brave, and as efficient as the Fire Brigade of New York. I have known
it well for twenty years, and I speak from a personal acquaintance
with very many of its men, and from a professional knowledge