chowder" they partook of afterwards, and the
"good time" they had generally.

Observe, too, a special American characteristic,
the big laughing nigger, "the big buck
nigger," as the firemen call him, half fondly,
half contemptuously (for these election quarrels
do not make the masses look more kindly on
the slave), who carries the target riddled into
a colander with bullet-holes. There are even
popular Yankee songs about

              The Dark who ' totes' the target.

The song writer compares him to Pompus
Caesar, whom the coloured girls peculiarly
admire, and the chorus is, I remember:

               They come together
               With sword and feather,
      Loud trumpets, drums and hooting,
               And with the mark
               Bring up the dark
        When they go out a shooting.

There is not a red-shirted young democrat in
that regiment, I feel sure, who would not shoulder
his rifle and go off in dudgeon if any one
dared to propose that he should take the place of
the "great buck nigger" and tote the target.
Democracy has its pride, too, as well as oligarchy:
its just pride and its foolish pride.

The perpetual firing of these red-shirted
youngsters is not without danger, for it is, like
all American sports, practised in a reckless way
by lads utterly regardless of life. Only yesterday
I read in the Tribune, the great abolitionist
paper, a rather frightened complaint from some
boatmen, who, while quietly steering up the
East river, had their hats perforated with bullets.

These street processions are incessant in New
York, and contribute much to the gayness of
the street. Whether firemen, or volunteers, or
political torch-bearers, they are very arbitrary
in their march. They allow no omnibus, or van,
or barouche, to break their ranks; and I have
often seen all the immense traffic of Broadway
(a street that is a mixture of Cheapside and
Regent-street) stand still, benumbed, while a
band of men, enclosed in a square of rope,
dragged by, a shining brass gun or a bran new
gleaming fire-engine.

But, after all, it is at night-time that the fireman
is really himself, and means something.
He lays down the worn-out pen, and shuts up
the red-lined ledger. He hurries home from
Lime-street, slips on his red shirt and black
dress trousers, dons his solid japanned leather
helmet bound with brass, and hurries to the
guard-room, or the station, if he be on duty.

A gleam of red, just a blush in the sky, eastward
William-street way among the warehouses;
and presently the telegraph begins to
work. For, every fire station has its telegraph,
and every street has its line of wires, like metallic
washing-lines. Jig-jig, tat-tat,goes the indicator:

"Fire in William-street, No. 3, Messrs.
Hardcastle and Co."

Presently the enormous bell, slung for the
purpose in a wooden shed in the City Park just
at the end of Broadway, begins to swing and
roll backward.

In dash the volunteeers in their red shirts and
helmet—from oyster cellars and half-finished
clam soup, from newly-begun games of billiards,
from the theatre, from Bourcicault, from Booth,
from the mad drollery of the Christy minstrels,
from stiff quadrille parties, from gin-slings, from
bar-rooms, from sulphurous pistol galleries, from
studios, from dissecting-rooms, from half-shuttered
shops, from conversazioni and lectures—
from everywhere—north, south, east, and west
—breathless, hot, eager, daring, shouting, mad.
Open fly the folding-doors, out glides the new
engine—the special pride of the company—the
engine whose excellence many lives have been
lost to maintain; " a reg'lar high-bred little
stepper" as ever smith's hammer forged. It
shines like a new set of cutlery, and is as
light as a " spider waggon " or a trotting-gig.
It is not the great Juggernaut car of our Sun
and Phoenix offices—the enormous house on
wheels, made as if purposely cumbrous and
eternal—but is a mere light musical snuff-box of
steel rods and brass supports, with axes and coils
of leather, brass-socketed tubing fastened
beneath, and all ready for instant and alert use.

Now, the supernumeraries—the haulers and
draggers, who lend a hand at the ropes—pour in
from the neighbouringdram-shops or low dancing-rooms, where they remain waiting to earn some
dimes by such casualties. A shout—a tiger!

"Hei! hei!! hei!!! hei!!!! " (crescendo), and
out at lightning speed dashes the engine, in the
direction of the red gleam now widening and
sending up the fan-like radiance of a volcano.

Perhaps it is a steam fire-engine. These are
entire successes, and will soon be universal
among a people quick to grasp onward at all
that is new, if it be but better than the old.
Then the fires are lighted, and breathing out
ardent smoke, and spitting out trails of fiery
cinders; off it dashes.

Now, a roar and crackle, as the quick-tongued
flames leap out, red and eager, or lick the black
blistered beams—now, hot belches of smoke
from shivering windows now, snaps and
smashes of red-hot beams, as the floors fall
in— now, down burning stairs, like frightened
martyrs running from the stake, rush poor
women and children in white trailing night-gowns
—now, the mob, like a great exulting
many-headed monster, shouts with delight and
sympathy—now, race up the fire-engines, the men
defying each other in rivalry, as they plant
the ladders and fire-escapes. The fire-trumpets
roar out stentorian orders—the red shirts
fall into line—rock, rock, go the steel bars
that force up the water—up leap the men with
the hooks and axes—crash, crash, lop, chop, go
the axes at the partitions, where the fire smoulders.
Now, spirt up in fluid arches, the blue
white jets of water, that hiss and splash, and
blacken out the spasms of fire; and as every
new engine dashes up, the thousands of
upturned faces turn to some new shade of reflected
crimson, and the half-broken beams give way at
the thunder of their cheers.