TREATMENT OF THE MONTREAL FIRE BRIGADE.
WHAT we are about to place before our readers is not in the especial interest of either fire insurance or the companies, but simply of common humanity.
Occasionally, even in Montreal, whispers have reached us of cruelly to animals, but the fire on St. James street in this city on Saturday, January 21, 1888, revealed an amount of brutality towards those who protect our lives and property from the devouring Itames which, we venture to say, is seldom displayed even by a savage despot, and certainly never in any community laying the slightest claim to civilisation or Christianity. Letting alone that grand doctrine of " Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you,” our city fathers have shown themselves utterly devoid of that “ One touch of nature which makes the whole world akin,” when we consider that those who have charge of the city finances, rather than risk their positions as aldermen by insisting upon sufficient taxation to provide a needed number of firemen, with the equipment and commisariat department necessary for the requirements of Montreal and the climate we are subject to, prefer to curry favor with the electors by niggardly parsimony, which renders almost the entire brigade unfit for service for several hours, and leaves a city of 200,000 inhabitants totally unprotected against the ravages of fire, save for borrowed assistance afforded by the brigades of one or more private corporations.
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