and sergeant excepted, work at the levers along with the men of the other company. Although these operations may appear complicated, they are all completed, and the engine in full play, with three lengths, or 120 feet of hose, in one minute and ten seconds, including the time required for the water to fill the engine so far as to allow it to work. In order to excite a spirit of emulation, as well as to teach the men dexterity in working the engines, I frequently cause a competition amongst them. They are ordered to attach one or more lengths of hose to each of two engines, and to work them as quickly as possible, the first engine which throws water being considered the winner. They are sometimes also placed at an equal distance from each of two separate fire-cocks; on the call being given to move forward, each party starts for the fire-cock to which it is ordered, and the first which gets into play is of course held to have beat the other. The call to stop is then given, and both parties return to their former station, with their hose coiled up, and everything in proper travelling order; the first which arrives being understood to have the advantage. The men are also carefully and regularly practised in taking their hose up common-stairs, drawing them up by ropes on the outside, and generally in accustoming themselves to, and providing against, every circumstance which may be anticipated in the case of fire. When a fire occurs in a common-stair, the advantages arising from this branch of training are incalculable. The occupants, in some cases amounting to twenty or thirty families, hurrying out with their children and furniture, regardless of everything except the preservation of their lives and property, and the rush of the crowd to the scene of alarm, form altogether, notwithstanding the exertions of an excellent police, such a scene of confusion as those only who have witnessed it can imagine; and here it is that discipline and unity of purpose are indispensable; for, unless each man has already been taught and accustomed to the particular duty expected from him, he only partakes of the general alarm, and adds to the confusion. But even when a hose has been carried up the interior of a common-stair, the risk of damage from the people carrying out their furniture is so great, that the hose is not unfrequently burst, almost as soon as the engine has begun to play. If the hose be carried up to the floor on fire by the outside, the risk of damage is comparatively small, the hose in that case being only exposed for a short distance in crossing the stair.