property, greatly impressed the bystanders. It was with difficulty they were restrained from rushing in, after the flames had burst out at the door. In addition to the value of what they thus saved, was a considerable insurance.

of terror was made a carnival of lawlessness and crime!

On the second night after the conflagration, a couple of gentlemen observed a stout Irish woman walking up Pearl street, near the corner of Wall street, with what was evidently a ponderous bundle under

ties to exercise their skill in plundering, did not neglect the present most fruitful The extent of and tempting occasion. their depredations, and the number of robbers who committed them, were commensurate with the extent and character of the conflagration. More than ninety robbers were taken in the act of carrying away property during the night of the fire; and the ensuing day, some two hundred more were arrested for having in their possession property which was stolen from the fire. The scenes at the police office, growing out of these criminal practices, were of a kind that beggared description, — the squalid misery of the greater part of those who were arrested with their ill-gotten spoils, the lies and prevarications to which they resorted to induce the magistrates not to commit them to prison, their objurgations and wailings when they found they must relinquish the splendid prizes they had seized during the raging of the fire and the accompanying excitement. The numbers in which these persons were brought up for examination, by the police and military, exceeded anything of a similar kind on record. For three days and nights, every place capable of affording detention. was crammed with these unhappy culprits

sometimes as many as one hundred being in confinement at the same moment. Hundreds were discharged without any other proceedings than merely taking from them their plunder; and, indeed, but very few of the whole number, even those who had pillaged to a very large amount, could be convicted in a court of justice, in consequence of the impossibility of identifying, by the necessary legal proof in such cases, the property stolen. But thus it was the night

observing her, she immediately commenced singing, with the usual maternal tone and accent, Hush-a-by, baby,' etc. The gentlemen thinking that the poor baby was quite worrisome, offered their aid to quiet its infant restlessness. 'Oh, bless your honors, she's asleep now,' was the response. The gentlemen still persisted in having a peep at the blooming little cherub. She resisted-but manly tenderness could not be overcome thus. On opening the cloak, they found that the dear little creature, in the terror of the moment, had actually changed into an armful of the richest silk and satin goods, slightly burnt at the ends. The affectionate mother was immediately secured and put beyond the reach of any similar maternal trials.

It is supposed that a thousand baskets of champagne were broken and destroyed, the tops being unceremoniously knocked off, and the contents drank up by the crowds surrounding the fire or working. An immense quantity of baskets of champagne were to be seen floating in the docks, and cheese and provisions were profusely scattered about. Had it not been. for the civic patrols formed in several of the wards, property to a much greater amount would have been pillaged. The United States marines, too, in a large body, under official command, formed a complete chain of sentinels, all along South street, from the Fulton ferry to Wall street, and up Wall to the Exchange; they kept their post, with bayonets fixed, all night, and proved a terror to the hordes of thieves hovering around. Nevertheless, in addition to the inevitable robberies after the ordinary methods, vast quantities of merchandise were carried off in boats, during the long nights, and

One of the most remarkable developments of crime, in the midst of these scenes of terror and disaster, was the case of the man caught in the act of setting fire to the house at the corner of Stone and Broad streets. It is scarcely possible to conceive, that there could exist such a fiend as this in human shape, without supposing him to be either a maniac, or drunk with liquor. It would seem, however, to have been done with design-and that of the most diabolical nature,-when it is considered that the fearful apprehensions of the whole of that part of the city were directed to this point, lest the fire would cross it and reach the Battery.

On the determination, finally arrived at, to check the onward march of the fire by blowing up the buildings with gunpowder, the fate of the city was believed to hang. The material with which to carry out this plan was, as already observed, obtained with difficulty, but it was used effectually when once secured. Nothing could be more characteristic than the entire sang froid with which the sailors of Captain Mix's party carried about, wrapped up in a blanket, or a pea-jacket, as it might happen, kegs and barrels of gunpowder, amid a constant shower of fire, as they courageously followed their officers to the various buildings indicated for destruction. Stung with the cold, the hardy fellows never for a moment quailed in the performance of their duty. So inclement, indeed, did the weather continue, that many of the firemen were compelled to take the fine blankets saved from the flames, and, cutting a hole through them, convert them into temporary cloaks; in this attire they were seen the ensuing day, dragging home their engines, many of the poor fellows being so exhausted by fatigue and bitten by the cold, that they were well nigh asleep as they walked. One entire company, thus accoutered,-thinking the best way of dealing with their troubles was to make light of them,-had artificial wreaths and bunches of artificial flowers,

up from the wreck of matter scattered beneath their feet; in this garb, they left the scene of their protracted toil, presenting a very singular contrast with their begrimmed faces and jaded appear

ance.

The striking advantage of railroads (then in their infancy in the United States), especially at a season when everything is locked up in ice, was never more emphatically demonstrated, than in the prompt arrival of fire engines from Newark, N. J., nine miles distant. The same locomotive that early on Thursday morning carried out the news of the great fire, brought these engines on their platform. within an hour afterwards to the city. Their services were eminently useful. The noble conduct, too, of the Philadelphia firemen, won for them deserved praise. Immediately on the receipt of the intelligence from New York, four hundred of them organized themselves and started to go on. Unfortunately, by the breaking down of one of the cars on the railroad, a large number of them were obliged to go back, but some arrived early on Saturday morning, and the remainder followed with as little delay as possible. They reported themselves immediately on arrival, and having stations assigned them amid the ruins, went to work with great spirit and effect.

The appearance of things on the day after the fire, was such as to impress itself, ineffaceably, upon the memory. It required but a slight stretch of the imagination, for the beholder to feel as though he were in the vicinity of Pompeii, with Vesuvius sending up its lurid glare close at hand, throwing a melancholy light over the deserted ruins. Just here arose a large and ragged pile, where the corners of four stately buildings still stood up by mutual support; there towered grandly a solitary chimney; yonder stood the frowning fragment of a vast wall; a little farther, was the front of a half block, the windows gone,- reminding one, in the dim distance, of the vacancy and desola

tion of a castle; in the midst, there loomed up half a dozen cold-visaged granite pillars, standing as though they were grim and solitary sentinels, stationed there to frighten the plunderer from his ill-sought booty. But here is the grandest ruin of all-the Exchange! with its huge pillars rent and torn from top to bottom, and the massy architraves, like the antiquated temples of Carthage and Palmyra, still tottering upon their capitals! So vast was the barren waste, that an uninterrupted view was afforded from Wall street to the East river, and thence to Coenties slip; a prospect of awful grandeur, as far as the eye could reach.

front. A screen of four columns and two antæ, each thirty feet high, and three feet four inches in diameter above the base, composed of a single block of marble, extended across the front of the portico, supporting an elegant entablature of six feet in height, on which rested the third story, making a height of sixty feet from the ground, and the cupola which crowned the structure was also sixty feet high.

The principal entrance to the rotunda and exchange room was by a flight of marble steps, with a pedestal at each end. The vestibule was of the Ionic order, from the little Ionic temple of Illyssus. The exchange room, which was the rotunda, measured seventy-five feet long, fifty feet wide, and forty-two feet high. In the center of this splendid rotunda was erected, by the liberality of the New York merchants, the statue of Alexander Hamilton, sculptured by Ball Hughes. This fine work of art was about fifteen feet high, including the base on which it was elevated, and chiseled from the whitest marble.

After a long and critical official investigation, as to the origin of this fire, the

conclusion arrived at by the citizens' committee, was, that a report like an explosion of a gas-pipe was heard in the store No. 25 Merchant street, to proceed from No. 28, and soon after the flames seemed to have been enkindled on the first floor, and shot up with the rapidity of light

ning through the scuttles in the several floors to the upper story and through the roof. The fire, therefore, must have been produced by the bursting of a gas-pipe, and the distribution of the gas, until it came in contact with the coal in the stove or grate, by which it was ignited.