gave Ahearn the medal for bravery, and made him
chief. Within a year he all but lost his life in a gallant attempt to
save the life of a child that was supposed to be penned in a burning
Rivington Street tenement. Chief Ahearn's quarters were near by, and
he was first on the ground. A desperate man confronted him in the
hallway. "My child! my child!" he cried, and wrung his hands. "Save
him! He is in there." He pointed to the back room. It was black with
smoke. In the front room the fire was raging. Crawling on hands and
feet, the chief made his way into the room the man had pointed out. He
groped under the bed, and in it, but found no child there. Satisfied
that it had escaped, he started to return. The smoke had grown so
thick that breathing was no longer possible, even at the floor. The
chief drew his coat over his head, and made a dash for the hall door.
He reached it only to find that the spring-lock had snapped shut. The
door-knob burned his hand. The fire burst through from the front room,
and seared his face. With a last effort, he kicked the lower panel out
of the door, and put his head through. And then he knew no more.

His men found him lying so when they came looking for him. The coat
was burned off his back, and of his hat only the wire rim remained. He
lay ten months in the hospital, and came out deaf and wrecked
physically. At the age of forty-five the board retired him to the
quiet of the country district, with this formal resolution, that did
the board more credit than it could do him. It is the only one of its
kind upon the department books:--

_Resolved_, That in assigning Battalion Chief Thomas J. Ahearn to
command the Fourteenth Battalion, in the newly annexed district,
the Board deems it proper to express the sense of obligation felt
by the Board and all good citizens for the brilliant and
meritorious services of Chief Ahearn in the discharge of duty
which will always serve as an example and an inspiration to our
uniformed force, and to express the hope that his future years of
service at a less arduous post may be as comfortable and pleasant
as his former years have been brilliant and honorable.

Firemen are athletes as a matter of course. They have to be, or they
could not hold their places for a week, even if they could get into
them at all. The mere handling of the scaling-ladders, which, light
though they seem, weigh from sixteen to forty pounds,