lawn attached to his mansion. Nay, even the
heir to the throne has donned the fireman's
helmet, and ridden on the engine to the scene
of a conflagration. In a recent fire on a small
scale at Marlborough House, the royal fireman
mounted on the roof, and did his duty. A fire
levels all distinctions. More than one despotic
king and emperor on the Continent has shown a
relish for this kind of volunteer service, lending
a hand, ordering the lazy, encouraging the timid,
rewarding the brave, and doing hot battle to save
a cottage.

The insurance companies, we have said,
wish to get rid of the cost and responsibility of
maintaining the engines and the brigade. It is
known that there is twice as much uninsured as
insured property in the metropolis. The engine-
men direct their gallant services equally to all
houses and buildings, small and great, insured
and uninsured. What is the consequence? The
companies do their best to extinguish fires in
twice as many buildings with which they have
no interest, as in those which are properly
insured. If the brigade-men allowed a fire to
blaze away because the house was not insured,
what a public commotion there would be! And
yet the companies get no thanks for their
unpaid service. There is no official recognition
whatever of the brigade by any governmental,
parliamentary, municipal, or parochial authorities.

The London Brigade has received only a few
augmentations in its strength during many years
past, and is now too weak for the requirements
of so vast a city. The companies refuse to
strengthen it, because the non-insurers would
get the lion's share of the benefit. Three years
ago they addressed the Home Secretary on the
subject; they pointed out that there is no such
anomaly in any other city in Europe or America,
announced their intention of discontinuing their
fire-engine establishment as soon as it could be
done without public inconvenience, offered to
transfer their establishment to some well-constituted
public body on easy terms, suggested a
small house-rate of a farthing or a halfpenny in
the pound to defray the annual expenses, and
expressed their willingness to render aid in
every way towards the development of the new
scheme. A committee of the House of Commons
in the same year, supported these
recommendations, and named the Commissioners of
Police as a fitting body to be entrusted with the
work. In the years 'sixty-three and 'sixty-
four the matter was well talked over; and now
we have an act (lately passed) which defines
what is to be done. The Metropolitan Board
of Works, and not the Commissioners of Police,
are to have the management. On the first
day of next year the new order of things will
begin. The board are to build or buy new
fire-engines and fire-escapes, or to buy up those now
existing, whether from companies or societies,
at their discretion. They will form a brigade
of their own, and will pension off such of the
brigade-men (if any) as they do not want. They
may establish fire-engine stations at as many
parts of the metropolis as they choose, and may
make all necessary contracts with water
companies and telegraph companies. They may
draw up a scale of salaries, gratuities, and
pensions for those employed by them in these
duties. They may make arrangements with
parishes for a transfer of parish engines and
men. The government is to contribute ten
thousand a year, on account of so many of the
government, establishments being in the
metropolis. The fire insurance companies are to
contribute thirty-five pounds for every million
sterling of property insured by them, as an
honorarium for the new brigade's extinguishing of
fires in insured property. The remaining expenses
are to be defrayed by an additional halfpenny in
the pound on the poor-rates. For the good working
of the statute, intimate relations are to exist
between the new brigade, the police, and the
insurance companies, in all that relates to
property under fire. Lastly—a hint to those who
neglect the chimney-sweeper—a chimney on fire
will entail a penalty of twenty shillings on the
owner or occupier of the room to which the
chimney may belong.

A FEW SATURNINE OBSERVATIONS.

HERE is a gentleman at our doors, Mr. R. A.
Proctor, who has written a book upon that planet
Saturn, and he asks us to stroll out in his
company, and have a look at the old gentleman. It
is a long journey to Saturn, for his little place
is nine and a half times further from the sun
than ours, and his is not a little place in
comparison with our own tenement, because Saturn
House is seven hundred and thirty-five times
bigger than Earth Lodge.

The people of Earth Lodge made Saturn's
acquaintance very long ago; nobody remembers
how long. Venus and Jupiter being brilliant
in company, may have obtruded themselves
first upon attention in the evening parties of
the stars, and Mars, with his red face and his
quick movement, couldn't remain long
unobserved. Saturn, dull, slow, yellow faced, might
crawl over the floor of heaven like a gouty and
bilious nabob, and be overlooked for a very little
while, but somebody would soon ask, Who is that
sad-faced fellow with the leaden complexion, who
sometimes seems to be standing still or going
backwards?

He was the more noticeable, because those
evening parties in the sky differ from like parties
on earth in one very remarkable respect as to
the behaviour of the company. We hear talk
of dancing stars, and the music of the spheres,
but, in fact, except a few, all keep their places,
with groups as unchanging as those of the guests
in the old fabled banquet, whom the sight of
the head of Medusa turned to stone. Only they
wink, as the stone guests probably could not.
In and out among this company of fixtures
move but a few privileged stars, as our sister
the moon and our neighbours the planets. These
alone thread the maze of the company of statues,