On St. James Street, two buildings stood. One was a very massive and very beautiful structure, of no precise form of architecture, but very chaste and elegant for all that. The other was an old wooden barn-like house that had been decaying for years, and was only waiting to be torn down by some passing high wind. These two buildings were situate within a stones throw of each other, and the one could have been saved just as well as the other. A little nerve, a little will, and a few pails of water would have done the work. The Marine Hospital was built in a garden. It was a useful sort of affair in its day, but it had long ago done all the good that was expected of it. Its day was past, and it must soon have given way to a fine brick structure, to be located on its site. When the fire came tearing along, decimating the buildings in every block, Mr. Barnes, the keeper, and a few of the inmates stationed themselves in good positions, and began a vigorous defence of the old place. A number of well directed buckets of water, plied rapidly when the fire showed itself, was all that these men did, and the old building was saved. The fire was stubborn, for it tried a hundred times to gain a foothold, but the men who defended the hospital were just as indomitable, and the defence was a great success. The hospital now stands in all its grim shabbiness and ugliness, though a barn near by, filled with goods of all kinds, including a piano, of course, perished. People from a distance, who came days afterwards to witness the desolation, ask with amazement why this great house was saved, and the noble charity almost opposite, was allowed to burn. But it is hard to always fathom the short-sightedness of man. All praise is due to Mr. Barnes and his assistants, for saving even one public building, and it is a pity his example could not have been followed opposite, when the Wiggins Orphanage caught. Only one man was left in charge, and it is not expected that he could do everything in a time when all were at their wits' end and full of excitement. This splendid charity was instituted in 1867, and was founded by the late Stephen Wiggins. It was opened July 1, 1876, and erected at a cost of $80,000. Mr. Wiggins left this magnificent sum for a male Orphan Asylum, under certain provisions. These were, that each child to be admitted must be born in the City and County of St. John, preference always to be shown to fatherless children of mariners; the children must be not under the age of four nor over ten years at the time of admission, and not to be continued in the institution after reaching the age of fifteen years. No teacher could be employed who was a Unitarian, Universalist or Roman Catholic, and no Governor could act in that capacity if he were of that belief. The Governors consisted of nine gentlemen. Those at the time of the incorporation were, the Rev. William Scovil, Charles Merritt, Frederick A. Wiggins, Hon. John W. Weldon, Beverley Robinson, J. D.