hour of the night, not alone for goodwill, as every man--and there
have been as many as five hundred employed at a time--receives one
shilling for the first hour and sixpence for every succeeding one,
together with refreshments. In France, the law empowers the firemen
to seize upon the bystanders, and compel them to give their services,
without fee or reward. An Englishman at Bordeaux, whilst looking on,
some few years since, was forced, in spite of his remonstrances, to
roll wine-casks for seven hours out of the vicinity of a
conflagration. We need not say which plan answers best. A Frenchman
runs away, as soon as the _sapeurs-pompiers_ make their appearance
upon the scene, to avoid being impressed. Still, such is the
excitement that there are some gentlemen with us who pursue the
occupation of firemen as amateurs; providing themselves with the
regulation-dress of dark green turned up with red, and with the
accoutrements of the Brigade, and working, under the orders of
Mr. Braidwood, as energetically as if they were earning their daily
bread.

The fascination of fires even extends to the brute creation. Who has
not heard of the dog "Chance," who first formed his acquaintance with
the Brigade by following a fireman from a conflagration in Shoreditch
to the central station at Watling-street? Here, after he had been
petted for some little time by the men, his master came for him, and
took him home; but he escaped on the first opportunity, and returned
to the station. After he had been carried back for the third time,
his master--like a mother whose son will go to sea--allowed him to
have his own way, and for years he invariably accompanied the engine,
now upon the machine, now under the horses' legs, and always, when
going up-hill, running in advance, and announcing the welcome advent
of the extinguisher by his bark. At the fire he used to amuse himself