XIX.
 

sOTHING can be more conducive to the feeling of secu-
Jrity which should pervade a community with regard to
) the means available for extinguishing conflagrations than
veil organized and disciplined fire department. Is it
not, then, to be wondered that Brooklyn, after having experienced
the insufficiency of the old volunteer system and witnessed the success
which attended the workings of the paid Department in New York,
should look forward with much satisfaction to the permanent estab¬
lishment of the new fire regime in their midst ?

During the session of the Legislature of i867-'68, most strenuous
efforts were made by Mr. Joseph Reeve and other prominent Repub¬
lican politicians of Brooklyn to get a paid Department bill through,
but without success, when, as a sort of compromise between reorgan¬
ization and the volunteer rule, a Board of Estimates and Disburse¬
ments was appointed by act of the Legislature, which took the power
of supervision in all matters of expenditure for the Department out
of the hands of the Common Council, in which body the matter had
heretofore been vested. The Board of Estimates and Disbursements
was composed of the mayor, street commissioner, comptroller, and
the chief engineers of the Eastern and Western districts. While they
remained in power they managed to expend more than $100,000,—
a great increase in the expenditures over the years preceding,—and
this proved a strong argument for presentment by the advocates of
a paid Fire Department in the Legislature of 1868—'69.