“ But the volunteer firemen of New York are as zealous and courageous as the soldiers of the Revolution, while paid firemen would evince the slothfulness and cowardice of the British in that memorable contest. Any man contending for liberty, and his wife and children, can easily rend to fragments three cowardly mercenary combatants, and a volunteer fireman of New York, panting for deeds of valor, and the love and respect of his fellow men, can effect more than half a dozen paid lazzaroni, who go to their perilous task as slaves go to the field. ”

“ And now, firemen, be vigilant, or you are lost. You are surrounded by spies and internal foes, who talk in favor of the Volunteer System, and yet in ambush are toiling unceasingly against it. The Fire Department swarms with these hypocrites, who are mostly politicians, and employed to stab your Volunteer System by the chief robbers of the politicians, who desire to strangle the rights of the people, and rob and oppress them with taxation, through two such overshadowing political organizations as the Fire and Police Departments. ”

“ For years the press of New York has disgusted and insulted the firemen, by striving to make the people believe that the police were more efficient at fires than the firemen; and most of these puffs are written at Matsell’s and the Captains’ offices. We now begin to see the motive of this, which was two-fold. First, to make the police system popular with the people—and it has required an immense deal of puffing to make it even tolerable with the people. And, secondly, to prepare the people for another police organization in the form of a paid fire department. ”

“ She strives to smile, and casts tender glances, and looks down into our soul, for a deliverer. Our eyes reflect the fondest hope, and as she beheld this cheerful word, on the surface of our vision, she sweetly smiles, and presses our palm with tenderness and love. And then she breathes patient words of her afflictions, and touching soliloquies, and sings plaintive verses, and eclipses the sad Ophelia, when moaning for Hamlet, or scattering withered flowers, or on the rosy margin of the glassy brook, where she meets a watery grave. ”

“ And if we had another powerful political organization, in the form of a paid fire department, or Napoleonic Fire Brigade, that would harmonize in its action with the police department, and with the leading politicians, and with the press, and with the insurance and other corporations, what would become of the right of practical suffrage in the city of New York? It would exist only in name.
With power equally distributed among the nations of Europe, there would be no cause for war. Nicholas thinks he can resist all Europe in arms: hence the present war. ”

“ The press would blot out Alfred Carson, because he dared attack them, and silence their base libels on his good name; the corrupt politicians would bury yourselves and Carson in one common ruin, because you have driven their Aldermanic cronies back to their dreary abodes of reflection and remorse, and the biting neglect of meritorious citizens; and the insurance companies have secretly united to destroy you, because you and your predecessors have been so kind and true to them and their ancestors for one or two centuries. ”

“ I reside near Newark, New Jersey. My husband’s name is Samuel S. Doughty, (who was Street Commissioner of the City of New York in 1844 and ‘45,) and is very wealthy, and has erected a mansion that will compare with any in New Jersey. We have spacious grounds, and gardens, and orchards, and horses, and carriages, and all that can render us happy in the evening of our days, and yet we are very miserable. A dark cloud hovers over our magnificent abode, that we fear will soon belch the elements of destruction, and overwhelm us all in one common ruin. ”

“ Firemen of New York, and other citizens, are you prepared to incur these perils? If not, arise and resist the superhuman efforts to disgrace and destroy you! Grasp and hold with giant strength the little you have left of the right of suffrage;—cling, with undying firmness and affection, to your noble organization ”

“ A paid fire department is the ostensible cry of the press; but your chastisement is their leading motive, because you have clung like brothers to your Chief, against their maledictions. Their first object is to render you obnoxious with the people. ”

“ Not by honorable means, but by branding you indiscriminately as thieves, even while some of you are imploring, in the name of a humane God, to be extricated from burning ruins, and when the thrilling cries of your deceased comrades could be heard in their editorial closets; and, when extricated, (some dead, and others apparently in their last gasp,) these editors send you, editorially, to the hospital or to Greenwood, as a gang of worthless thieves. ”

“ A paid fire department, composed of a limited number of hired mercenaries, could not protect this city so effectually as a voluntary system. It could be done in the cities of Europe, where the habitations are composed of bricks, granite, marble, and other substances impervious to fire, but not in New York, where almost every edifice is a pile of shavings, or combustible matter. Moreover, hired civilians are the same as hired soldiers. ”

“ I have a sweet, and intellectual, and generous-hearted daughter, whose rare conversational powers, and vocal and instrumental music, cheered us in other days, who has been chained to a couch of illness more than two years. So disconsolate is her heart, that she will not permit her rosy and curly children to enter her apartment, nor a solitary mortal, save myself and husband. ”

“ But read, Firemen, read, and unite to a man against all who would destroy the Volunteer [4] Fire System of New York, which is the best ever devised since the forests and Indians yielded to civilization and freedom. ”

“ Some of our leading and most honorable statesmen will tell you that the city of New York controls the national conventions of either party, and the national politics, through half a dozen bloated political scamps, located in this city and Albany. ”

“ And for miles around the residence of the Doughtys, invalids have been rescued from early graves by this supernatural physician, who recently was compelled to conceal himself from the regiments of skeletons who applied for his magic skill and medicines, which is the only reason why we do not disclose his mighty name, lest his patients waste him to the mournful realms of Greenwood, where his slender frame will soon repose forever. ”

“ And the editors prognosticate no more thefts if the firemen are only paid good fat salaries, and are called brigadiers, or brigade firemen. These brigadiers must come direct from Heaven, if there be not, here and there, a devil among them. Louis Napoleon elected himself Emperor through his fire brigades, and other similar organizations; and Matsell, backed by a large portion of the press and the politicians, may have some mischievous game in view, for he is in his shirt sleeves for a fire brigade.—Brigadier Matsell! ”

“ The American eagle might fall to-morrow from his projecting cliff, never to rise. Rome ruled, and finally destroyed the Roman Empire. So with Athens and Alexandria, and other ancient cities. Paris, through political organizations, rules France. ”

“ I’m not prepared to die, and dam the Temperance Societies, where life and death and decayed kidneys are involved.” He then went to the Astor House, and got a quart of the purest gin, and told us to drink freely of it, which we did, and soon felt so happy that we arose from our bed, and went to Mitchell’s Olympic Theatre, where the sweet Mary Taylor was placarded for the Child of the Regiment, and Mitchell for Jem Bags. ”

“ Plympton’s together, until we got cured. I told Terry that if we did all that, we would so thoroughly inocculate each other with the itch, that all the doctors of the globe could not wrench it from our blood, and that we would transmit the itch to our posterity for ten thousand years, and then it would not be entirely out of the system. ”

“ Mrs. Briggs sent for us, and we personally responded on the following day, when we told her that we were [11] chasing Matsell night and day, and could not spare the time to visit Newark invalids; nor did we desire to, as we were not a practical physician, and if we assumed the awful responsibility of treating chronic piles and worms, if a patient died while under our care, we might be arrested for murder, and be tried by a jury packed by Dick Connolly, as County Clerk, and be condemned and hung. ”