e ancient capitals of the
world are matters of history; and it is established that something
like organization was extended to the means then employed for
suppressing conflagrations. Even the fire-engine itself, in a
practicable, although imperfect form, was described and illustrated by
a sectional working drawing, by Hero of Alexandria, in a book written
by him more than one hundred years before the Christian era. In its
many translations, from the original Greek into Latin and into modern
tongues, Hero's book, with its remarkable series of drawings, still
occupies a place in the mechanical literature of our own time. But,
although the construction of the fire-engine was thus known two
thousand years ago, we have no actual evidence of its use until within
the last two centuries; and within the whole compass of English
history, at least, we know that nothing like discipline and
organization, in the modern sense of the terms, were introduced into
the management of fire apparatus until a time quite within the
recollection of the middle-aged men of our own day. If there be
anything apparently improbable in this fact, we need only recollect
that many of the grandest triumphs of human genius, with which we are
already so familiar, are not yet forty years old. The modern system of
English fire brigades belongs wholly to the period of railways, steam
navigation, and electric telegraphs, and it owes nearly all to the
genius and disciplined heroism of a single individual, James
Braidwood, who, but little more than four years ago, fell--as nobly
for himself as sadly for others--at his chosen post of duty. What,
when he first gave his energies--indeed, his whole heart to it, was
but the rough and unskilful employment of the fireman, became under
Mr. Braidwood's command and his infusing spirit of order and
intelligence, as distinguished from reckless daring, a noble pursuit,
almost rising in dignity to a profession, and indeed acknowledged as
such by many, and significantly, although indirectly, by Royalty
itself.

Until the year 1833, not only the parish engines of the metropolis,
numbering, as they did, about three hundred, but the engines also of
the Fire Insurance Companies, were comparatively inefficient and often
out of order, while they were also under the most diverse, if not
irresponsible management. There were no really trained firemen, and
those who controlled and worked the engines were oftener in antagonism
with each