The fire lowers, and is all but subdued,
though still every now and then a floor gires
way with an earthquake crash, and into the
still lurid dark air rises a storm of sparks like a
hurricane of fire-flies. But suddenly there is a
crowding together and whispering of helmeted
heads. Brave Seth Johnson is missing; all the
hook men and axe men are back but he; all the
pumpers are there, and all the loafers are there.
He alone is missing.

Caleb Fisher saw him last, shouts the captain
to the eager red faces; he was then breaking a
third floor back window with his axe. He thinks
he is under the last wall that fell. Is there a
lad there will not risk his life for Seth? No!
or he would be no American, I dare swear.

He! hei!! hei!!! hei!!!!

Up they tear through choking smoke, spars,
and still dangerous fire, over bridges of
half-burnt beams, half-brittle charcoal. They reach
the tomb of smoking bricks, they dig as if the
life of each were depending on it—hooks, axes,
bleeding hands, everything but teeth.

Hei! hei!! hei!!! hei!!!!

Click-shough go the shovels, chick-chick the
pickaxes. A shout, a scream of

"Seth!"

He is there, pale and silent, with heaving chest,
his breast-bone smashed in, a cold dew oozing
from his forehead. Now they bear him to the
roaring multitude, their eyes aching and
watering with the suffocating gusts of smoke. They
lay him pale, in his red shirt, amid the hushed
voiceless men in the bruised and scorched helmets.
The grave doctor breaks through the
crowd. He stoops and feels Seth's pulse. All
eyes turn to him. He shakes his head, and
makes no other answer. Then the young men
take off their helmets and bear home Seth, and
some weep, because of his betrothed, and the
young men think of her.

Such are the scenes that occur nightly in New
York. The special disgrace of the city is the
incessant occurrence of incendiary fires. Yet
accidental fires are exceedingly numerous, for
wood is still (even in New York) the predominant
building material, in consequence of the
extraordinary cheapness of wood fit for building.
The roofs, too, are generally of tin, and
not tile or slate, and this burns through very
quickly. Moreover, the universal stove
(derived from the Dutch, I suppose) occasions a
great use of flue pipes, and these are buried
among wood, and are, even when embedded in
stone, dangerous.

Unfortunately, our Sir John Dean Pauls, our
Robsons and Redpaths, our Hudsons and
Laurences, have all parallels in America. Between
different degrees of putridity and different
shades of carrion, it were loss of time to
discriminate. We all know what Dr. Johnson said
when he compared one scoundrel to a rotten
egg, and another to a bad oyster. Fraudulent
bankrupts are very numerous in New York
where trade rushes on with feverish speed
and the merchant you dine with to-day in
a marble palace in the Fifth Avenue, is perhaps
to-morrow chalking the ends of cues in a
Bowery billiard saloon. Dishonest adventurers
go into trade, merely to get credit, enough to
go deeply in debt, then "bust up, and slope
for 'Texas," or a cruise amonst the Mormons.

The burnable houses of New York present
an irresistible temptation to the fraudulent
bankrupt who is insured in excess. The
second week I was in New York there was a
detected case quite in point. A ready-made
clothesman in Manhattan-street was taken up
for burning down his house. The only witness
was a raw but well-intentioned country boy
from New Jersey, who had been kept by Vanderput
(yes, that was his name) to wait in the shop.
He deposed to his master, a Dutch Jew,
repeatedly offering him bribes to help burn down the
place. This boy, in a good stupid way, blurted
out the whole truth. All the clothes had been
secretly removed from the shop; there was no
doubt about it; he had seen them go off in the
cart towards one of the ferries. Nothing had
been left but old oilskin coats, and rags dipped
in naphtha and turpentine. The case was clearly
proved, talked of on 'Change as a sign of trade
rottenness for a day or two, and then forgotten.

Once, I was spectator of a New York fire,
and, indeed, all but fell a victim to it. It
happened after this manner. The fifth day I
was in New York, I determined, having seen
several of the theatres and attended some election
meetings and concerts, that I ought to go
to Barnum's—special exhibition of the city, a
prominent pile of building, covered by day with
pictures of zoological wonders, and by night with
starry festoons of lamps. There were the live
"sea lions" to attract me, and the relics of
Washington, and the " mud fish," and the sea
anemones, and the collection of coins, and,
above all, the theatre, where they were now
playing the Story of Joseph and his Brethren:
a mystery play, intended to attract country
people who entertain conscientious objections to
the profanities of the ordinary drama.

I determined to go, so I threw down the flag
of a newspaper—the Olive Branch, a most
pro-slavery paper—on the table of the hotel
reading-room, tossed off my last dessert-spoonful
of brandy-and-ice, and set my face towards
Barnum's, it being past eight o'clock. It was a
calm, mellow night, and the stars were
telegraphing to each other with winking diamond
sparks, and forming themselves into
in the star language, uninterpreted yet by
mortals. Presently the poop lamps of
Barnum's hove in sight, and the clash and braying
of the brass band in the balcony over his door
became audible.

Now, Barnum is as well known in America
as the President, and people at New York clubs
laugh over his last joke. They delight to relate
his different humbugs: his prize photographic
exhibition of American beauties, his woolly
horse, his sham buffalo hunt, his spurious
Washington's nurse, his aged dwarf boy Tom
Thumb, his plough drawn by elephants, and
other enormities. Besides, Barnum is specially