These conductors were clad like the firemen--except that their helmets were made of black leather instead of brass. They were not very different from other mortals to look at, but they were picked men--every one--bold as lions; true as steel; ready each night, at a moment's notice, to place their lives in jeopardy in order to rescue their fellow-creatures from the flames. Of course they were paid for the work, but the pay was small when we consider that it was the price of indomitable courage, tremendous energy, great strength of limb, and untiring perseverance in the face of appalling danger. Here is a specimen of the way in which the escapes were worked. On the night of the 2nd March 1866, the premises of a blockmaker named George Milne caught fire. The flames spread with great rapidity, arousing Milne and his family, which consisted of his wife and seven children. All these sought refuge in the attics. At first Milne thought he could have saved himself, but with so many little children round him he found himself utterly helpless. Not far from the spot, Henry Douglas, a fire-escape conductor, sat in his sentry-box, reading a book, perchance, or meditating, mayhap, on the wife and little ones slumbering snugly at home, while he kept watch over the sleeping city. Soon the shout of fire reached his ears. At once his cloth-cap was exchanged for the black helmet, and, in a few seconds, the escape was flying along the streets, pushed by the willing hands of policemen and passers-by. The answer to the summons was very prompt on this occasion, but the fire was burning fiercely when Conductor Douglas arrived, and the whole of the lower part of the house was so enveloped in flames and smoke that the windows could not be seen at all. Douglas therefore pitched his escape, at a venture, on what he _thought_ would bring him to the second-floor windows, and up he went amid the cheers of the on-lookers. Entering a window, he tried to search the room, (and the cheers were hushed while the excited multitude gazed and listened with breathless anxiety--for they knew that the man was in a position of imminent danger). In a few moments he re-appeared on the escape, half suffocated. He had heard screams in the room above, and at once threw up the fly-ladder, by which he ascended to the parapet below the attic rooms. Here he discovered Milne and his family grouped together in helpless despair. We may conceive the gush of hope that must have thrilled their breasts when Conductor Douglas leaped through the smoke into the midst of them; but we can neither describe nor conceive, (unless we have heard it in similar circumstances), the _tone_ of the deafening cheers that greeted the brave man when he re-appeared on the ladders, and, (with the aid of a policeman named John Pead), bore the whole family, one by one, in safety to the ground! For this deed Conductor Douglas received the silver medal of the Society, and Pead,