ficient
and vicious system of management. He had held his post but three
weeks, however, when the series of fires broke forth which still bear
the name of the Great Fire of Edinburgh. Many of the old and lofty
houses in the High Street were destroyed, between four and five
hundred families were made houseless, ten persons were either killed
outright or fatally injured, and for several days nearly the whole of
the High Street, if not the larger part of the old town, was
threatened with destruction. Never were the consequences of want of
organization more conspicuous. There was no real command, for there
were none to obey; and while those who might have stopped the flames
at the outset, wasted their own energies in random efforts, or,
perhaps, fell to quarrelling among themselves, the fearful devastation
rolled on. The occasion was sufficient to induce the authorities and
insurance companies to listen to and profit by Mr. Braidwood's
recommendations. They consented to bear in common the expenses
necessary to organize and maintain an efficient brigade. This was soon
formed of picked men, who, although daily engaged in their former
ordinary occupations, were regularly inspected, trained, and exercised
early in one morning of every week. Fires were becoming more and more
numerous year by year; but the influence of the improved system was
soon felt. The men were taught to improve to the utmost the first few
minutes after an alarm was given, and by constant emulation and
discipline, a spirit of wonderful readiness was cultivated in them.
They were trained to seek out and follow up the source of a fire
before it had had time to spread, and to throw the water from the
engines directly upon it, instead of wastefully, if not injuriously
about. The result was, that while out of forty-eight fires which
happened in the first year of the history of the brigade, eleven
proved total losses, and twelve "considerable" losses, the number of
total losses decreased rapidly, year by year, while the whole number
of "calls" was almost as rapidly increasing. Thus in the second year
of the brigade there were eighty "calls," of which seven were total,
and eighteen considerable losses. In the next three years, with from
ninety-four to one hundred and ninety-four "calls" yearly, there was
but one total loss in each year, and but from nine to eighteen
"considerable" losses.

Mr. Braidwood was meanwhile improving the fire-escapes, and when new
engin