sought to use influence of any kind. Now, at last, he
thought there was a chance for him. He had been twenty-two years on
the force, and during that time had saved some twenty-five persons from
death by drowning, varying the performance two or three times by
saving persons from burning buildings. Twice Congress had passed laws
especially to empower the then Secretary of the Treasury, John Sherman,
to give him a medal for distinguished gallantry in saving life. The
Life-Saving Society had also given him its medal, and so had the Police
Department. There was not a complaint in all his record against him
for any infraction of duty, and he was sober and trustworthy. He was
entitled to his promotion; and he got it, there and then. It may be
worth mentioning that he kept on saving life after he was given his
sergeantcy. On October 21, 1896, he again rescued a man from drowning.
It was at night, nobody else was in the neighborhood, and the dock from
which he jumped was in absolute darkness, and he was ten minutes in the
water, which was very cold. He was fifty-five years old when he saved
this man. It was the twenty-ninth person whose life he had saved during
his twenty-three years' service in the Department.

The other man was a patrolman whom we promoted to roundsman for activity
in catching a burglar under rather peculiar circumstances. I happened to
note his getting a burglar one week. Apparently he had fallen into the
habit, for he got another next week. In the latter case the burglar
escaped from the house soon after midnight, and ran away toward Park
Avenue, with the policeman in hot chase. The New York Central Railroad
runs under Park Avenue, and there is a succession of openings in the
top of the tunnel. Finding that the policeman was gaining on him, the
burglar took a desperate chance and leaped down one of these openings,
at the risk of breaking his neck. Now the burglar was running for his
liberty, and it was the part of wisdom for him to imperil life or limb;
but the policeman was merely doing his duty, and nobody could have
blamed him for not taking the jump. However, he jumped; and in this
particular case the hand of the Lord was heavy upon the unrighteous. The
burglar had the breath knocked out of him, and the "cop" didn't.
When his victim could walk, the officer trotted him around to the
station-house; and a week after I had the officer up and promoted him,
for he was sober, trustworthy, and strictly attentive