In September, 1841, the _Evening Post_ was again vigorously denouncing “the desperate scoundrels nourished by the fire department.” These denunciations it had ample opportunity to keep up month by month, for the frequency of incendiarism and of street affrays among the volunteer companies was appalling. The best companies were ill-equipped, since not until 1856, after obstinate opposition, were really powerful fire engines introduced from Cincinnati. The regular firemen were accompanied by a swarm of “runners” and irregular assistants, many of them known to be guilty of arson. Whenever two rival companies wished a trial of skill, a fire was sure to break out in a convenient place. The subscriptions for funds circulated among shopkeepers and householders were little better than blackmail, for it was well known that those who withheld contributions were peculiarly liable to fires. In their deadly feuds the companies, fighting with hammers, axes, knives, and pistols, furnished the morgue and the hospitals with dozens of subjects a year. Thieves frequently started conflagrations. We read in the _Evening Post_ just after the destruction of Metropolitan Hall (1854): At the fire on Saturday night, about half of the goods that were thrown out of the windows of the La Farge Hotel, it has been estimated, were carried away by thieves. The inmates of the Bond Street House, who were obliged suddenly to decamp, found afterwards that their rooms had been rifled, and all the valuables which they left behind carried away.... There is no city in the world where the thefts committed at fires are so many and so considerable as with us. The rogues have an organization which brings them in an instant to the spot, the goods are passed rapidly from hand to hand, and disappear forever. A large fire is a windfall to the whole tribe. Cincinnati the previous year, as the _Post_ said, had substituted a paid fire department for the volunteer system. It was disgraceful for New York to depend on a violent, licentious body which was educating the city’s youth in turbulence and rowdiness and was often worse than useless when the firebell sounded. The insurance companies at this time kept eighty men, at a cost of $30,000, to guard against fires, and many merchants and families employed private watchmen. But relief did not come for more than a decade.