One afternoon Mr. Peter Dewsnap was seated in the great library in which
he passed most of his leisure time, busily engaged on a work in which he
had taken a great deal of interest. A tap on the door interrupted his
labor, and in response to his invitation Bruce Decker entered the room,
cap in hand, and saluted him.
“Ah, it’s you, young Decker, is it?” said the old gentleman, as he rose
to greet his visitor. “Well, how is the chief to-day?”
“He’s very well,” answered the boy, in hesitating tones, “and the fact
is it was at his advice that I accepted your invitation to come up and
see your library.”
“Very glad to see you, indeed, my young friend,” responded the old
gentleman, cordially. “As you said yourself the other day I’m an old
fire crank, and I like nothing better than talking to young men of your
age about what I think is the most important branch of public service in
the country. Sit down here, Decker, and if you’ve an hour to spare it
won’t do you any harm to hear an old man talk about a subject that’s
nearest to his heart.”
[Illustration: Bruce in Mr. Dewsnap’s ‘fire library.’—_Page 79._]
Bruce seated himself in one of the big leather arm-chairs and glanced
about the room. He had never seen as many books in handsome bindings in
all his life, and he was particularly struck with the fact that one side
of the room was completely filled with oaken shelves containing only
books bound in red morocco. About the room were also scattered a number
of old colored prints representing, for the most part, pictures of fires
and of engines.
“Those books in red constitute my fire library,” said Mr. Dewsnap, “and
I am proud to say that it is one of the best, if not the very best, in
this country. I have books in French, German and English, for you know
that the service has a much greater literature than most people have any
idea of.”
Then Mr. Dewsnap lit a cigar, puffed thoughtfully at it for a moment or
two, and went on: “The trouble with most of the boys who want to become
firemen is that they are so carried away with the idea of jumping out of
bed at a moment’s notice and tearing away through the streets at full
gallop, and then turning streams on the flames and climbing up ladders
and all the rest of it, that they entirely forget the fact that there is
a serious side to it all, and that being a good fireman involves more in
the way of training, both physical and mental, than almost any other
public career that is open to them.
“As I told you the other day, people have been in the habit, or to speak
more correctly, were in the habit during the ante-bellum days, of
regarding firemen as a lot of toughs and loafers who got together to
have a good time and a big hurrah, and sometimes even for political
purposes, and comparatively few really knew what a fireman’s life meant.
Well, when you look at those books there, many of which were written by
people of the highest eminence in science or literature, you realize
that there must be something in the art of overcoming the most
destructive and dangerous of all the elements to excite the attention
and enlist the brains of these men. Now take this book for example and
glance through it.”
Bruce took a large flat volume which Mr. Dewsnap handed him, opened it,
and glanced attentively at some of its copper plates. They represented
men in quaint, old-fashioned costumes, engaged in putting out fires by
the most primitive of means, chiefly by leather buckets passed from hand
to hand. The book, as Mr. Dewsnap explained, was printed in 1735 in
Holland by Jan vander Heiden, the first inventor of flexible hose. It
was an exhaustive treatise on conflagrations and the art of
extinguishing them.
“What did they make the hose of in those days?” asked Bruce, as he
studied the old-fashioned prints with deep attention.
“Leather,” replied Mr. Dewsnap. “And leather continued to be used until
forty years ago. In fact, it’s used to a great extent to this very day
in the smaller towns and cities where fires are of rare occurrence.
There are some men who claim that it is better than rubber because it
lasts longer and does not rot so easily, but I just showed you that book
because its pictures would give you some idea of the enormous
advancement that has been made in the last century and a half. Here’s
another book written in German that is devoted entirely to the burning
of the Theatre Comique in Paris a few years ago. Four books in all have
been written and published on that subject alone, but strange to say, no
book has yet been written in regard to the burning of the Brooklyn
Theatre, which was a catastrophe involving an infinitely greater loss of
life. It is interesting, by the way, to know that every great fire
teaches us some important lesson, and the direct result of the Brooklyn
Theatre fire was a number of new laws which govern the construction of
theatres, and provides for various improvements and appliances for
safety that had never been thought of before.”
“Why is it,” inquired Bruce, “that so many of these books seem to be by
French, German or English authors, instead of by Americans? It seems to
me that as we have the best department in the world, the best books on
the subject ought to be by American writers.”
Mr. Dewsnap smiled broadly at the boy’s remark. “That’s a very pertinent
question, my lad,” he said, “and the answer to it is simply this: Those
foreigners are more given to writing and talking and thinking than we
are. Here we go ahead and do things without stopping to write books
about them. I’m expecting some foreigners here within a short time, and
when they come I shall take them down to call on Chief Trask. If you see
them, you will understand what I mean when I speak of the difference
between Americans and either Germans or Englishmen.”
“What do you consider the greatest improvement that has been made in the
department in your recollection?” asked the boy.
“Well, to my mind, though I would not have admitted it twenty years ago,
I think that the fact that politics has been eliminated from the
department is one of the chief things that we have to be thankful for,
and I believe that it is almost the first time in the history of the
world that a fire department has been run without mixing it with
political affairs. Why, before the birth of Christ, the Emperor Pompey
once refused to allow a new fire company to be formed in Rome because he
knew that it was merely an excuse to get together a new crowd of his
political opponents, and in the old days when I used to run with a
company, politics and the fire department were very much mixed up. I
could give you the names of dozens of men who have reached the highest
offices in the city and have climbed all the way up by means of their
connection with the fire department. Some of these were good men and
others were not. But nowadays when a lad like yourself enters the
service he sees nothing ahead of him except that service, and the
consequence is if he stays in it he devotes himself to his duties with
no object in view except to become chief of the department. At least
that’s what he ought to do.
“But for all its politics and its toughs, the members of the old
department had just as much pluck and were just as ready to take the
hose nozzle in hand and go right into a burning building as they are
to-day. I’ve shown you these books, my boy, because I wanted you to feel
that there was a dignity in the service to which you intend to devote
yourself, and if you want to rise in it, it must be by hard work,
obedience to orders, and constant study. Don’t be afraid to borrow some
of these books of me to read when you have nothing else to do. There are
plenty of them that are in English that you could learn something from.
It’s education nowadays that tells. But I’ve a project in my mind that
both Mr. Trask and I have devoted considerable time to, and I hope to
live to see the day when it will be carried out. I want to see a school
established in which boys like yourself can be trained for the fire
department just as they are trained for the navy. My idea would be to
take a number of boys every year from the public schools in the city and
give them a regular course of training in gymnastics and special
scientific studies so that by the time they were twenty-one they would
be much better prepared to fight fire than are the young men that
usually join the department at that age.”
“That’s a magnificent idea!” cried Bruce with an enthusiasm that was so
hearty and genuine that the old gentleman was delighted, “and I can tell
you one thing, and that is you wouldn’t have any difficulty in getting
scholars for it. It seems to me that every boy in New York is just as
crazy to run to fires as I was when I lived in the country. Why, do you
know sir, that every time we start out of quarters there’s such a swarm
of young ones in the street that it’s a wonder we don’t run over two or
three of them. And besides, boys seem to me to be tougher and more
supple than men. There are lots of things I can do in an athletic way
that Tom Brophy can’t and he’s twenty-five years old.”
“Well,” said the old gentleman pleasantly, “you ask some of the lads of
your acquaintance how they’d like to join such a school as that and put
down on paper any ideas you may have regarding it. Then the next time I
see you we will talk them over.”
As Bruce walked slowly homeward after one of the pleasantest hours he
had spent since his arrival in the city, he felt a new pride which he
had never known before, in the great department which it was his wish to
serve. The fact that fire departments had existed since the earliest
times had never occurred to him, and he determined to devote all his
leisure time to a study of Mr. Dewsnap’s pet scheme of a training school
in the hope that he might be able to render the kindly old gentlemen
some service which he would appreciate.