The Rotherhithe fire, not the recent little job, but some fifteen or twenty years ago, was also on a grand scale, and very lasting. The engine-pipes were wilfully cut; and I remember some of my friends rallying me on my well-known propensity, jocularly accusing me of lending my knife and my assistance. The Custom-house was a disappointment; it certainly cleared itself effectually, but it was done by day-light, and consequently the long-room fell short of my anticipations. Drury-lane and Covent-garden were better: but I have observed generally that theatres burn with more attention to stage effect. They avoid the noon; a dark night to a fire is like the black letters in a benefit-bill, setting off the red ones. The destruction of the Kent Indiaman I should like to have witnessed, but contrary to the opinion of many experienced amateurs I conceive the Dartford Mills must have been a failure. Powder magazines make very indifferent conflagrations; they are no sooner on fire than they are off,--all is over before you know where you are, and there is no getting under, which quite puts you out. But fires, generally, are not what they used to be. What with gas, and new police, steam, and one cause or other, they have become what one might call slow explosions. A body of flame bursts from all the windows at once, and before B 25 can call fi-er in two syllables, the roof falls in, and all is over. It was not so in _my_ time. First a little smoke would issue from a window-shutter, like the puff of a cigar, and after a long spring of his rattle, the rheumatic watchman had time to knock double and treble knocks, from No. 9 to No. 35, before a spark made its appearance out of the chimney-pot. The Volunteers had time to assemble under arms, and muffle their drums, and the bell-ringers to collect in the belfry, and pull an alarm peal backwards. The parish engines even, although pulled along by the pursy churchwardens, and the paralytic paupers, contrived to arrive before the fire fairly broke out in the shape of a little squib-like eruption from the garret-window. The affrighted family, fourteen in number, all elaborately drest in their best Sunday clothes, saved themselves by the street-door, according to seniority, the furniture was carefully removed, and after an hour’s pumping, the fire was extinguished without extending beyond the room where it originated, namely a bed-room on the second floor. Such was the progress _in my time_ of a fire, but it is the fashion now to sacrifice everything to _pace_. Look at our race-horses, and look at our fox-hounds,--and I will add look at our conflagrations. All that is cared for is a burst--no matter how short, if it be but rapid. The devouring element never sits down now to a regular meal--it pitches on a house and _bolts_ it.