"ladder and receiver" and a "leveller." The former was a primitive kind of fire-escape, consisting of a ladder "long enough to reach from the ground to the chamber windows" and of a sliding box attached to the ladder and operated by ropes. In the accompanying description he emphasizes "the expedition and security with which persons and articles may be transported to the ground from the chamber windows of a house on fire or in danger." The leveller was an implement for destroying buildings by tearing out the posts, sills, and beams. Models of both inventions were deposited with the Massachusetts Historical Society, but it does not appear that the contrivances were ever put to a practical use.1

One of the most surprising of the anecdotes in Mr. Dearborn's Directions is that in the ninth section: — "A house was once destroyed by a rat running away with a lighted candle for the sake of the tallow, and conveying it into a hole filled with rags, and inflammable matter." No one can fail to admire the address and agility of the rat and to wonder who was present to observe his feat. Mr. Joseph Willard refers with much pertinency to the peril of Judge Sewall's household, as set forth in his Diary for "Midweek," July 13, 1709, where a similar exploit is conjecturally ascribed to a mouse:

Midweek, July, 13. 1709. N. B. Last night, between 2 or 3 hours after midnight, my wife complain'd of Smoak; I presently went out of Bed, and saw and felt the Chamber very full of Smoak to my great Consternation. I slipt on my Cloaths except Stockings, and run out of one Room into another above, and below Stairs, and still found all well but my own Bed-chamber. I went into Garret and rouz'd up David, who fetch'd me a Candle. My wife fear'd the Brick side was a-fire, and the children endangered. She fled thither, and call'd all up there. While she was doing this, I felt the partition of my Bed-chamber Closet warm; which ́ 1 Sprague, pp. 45-46.

made me with fear to unlock it, and going in I found the DealBox of Wafers all afire, burning livelily; yet not blazing. I drew away the papers nearest to it, and call'd for a Bucket of Water. By that time it came, I had much adoe to recover the Closet agen: But I did, and threw my Water on it, and so more, and quench'd it thorowly. Thus with great Indulgence GOD saved our House and Substance, and the Company's1 Paper. This night, as I lay down in my Bed, I said to my Wife, that the Goodness of God appeared, in that we had a Chamber, a Bed, and Company. If my Wife had not waked me, we might have been consumed. And it seems admirable, that the opening the Closet-Door did not cause the Fire to burst forth into an Unquenchable Flame. The Box was 18 inches over, Closet full of loose papers, boxes, Cases, some Powder. The Window-Curtain was of Stubborn Woolen and refus'd to burn though the Iron-Bars were hot with the fire. Had that burnt it would have fired the pineshelves and files of Papers and Flask and Bandaliers of powder. The Pine-Floor on which the Box stood, was burnt deep, but being well plaister'd between the Joysts, it was not burnt through. The Closet under it had Hundreds of Reams of the Company's Paper in it. The plaistered Wall is mark'd by the Fire so as to resemble a Chimney back. Although I forbad mine to cry Fire; yet quickly after I had quench'd it; the Chamber was full of Neighbours and Water. The smell of Fire pass'd on me very much; which lasted some days. We imagine a Mouse might take our lighted Candle out of the Candle-stick on the hearth and dragg it under my closet-door behind the Box of Wafers. The good Lord sanctify this Threatening; and his Parental Pity in improving our selves for the Discovery of the Fire, and Quenching it. The Lord teach me what I know not; and wherein I have done amiss help me to doe so no more! 2

Mr. Dearborn shared the prejudice of his age against "segars." He enquires whether "the greater frequency

1 Probably the Society for Propagating the Gospel.

2 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 5th Series, VI, 257-9.

of fires in the United States than in former years, may not be ascribed in part to the more general use of segars by careless servants and children?" and adds "There is good reason to believe a house was lately set on fire by a halfconsumed segar, which a woman suddenly threw away to prevent being detected in the unhealthy and offensive practice of smoaking." It was no new thing for women to smoke. Mrs. Rowlandson's interview with King Philip, when he politely offered her a pipe, will be described in a later chapter, and we shall see that she declined his courtesy because she had overcome her former appetite for tobacco.1 But the cigar, being still something of a novelty, was regarded with peculiar disapproval by the more staid and conservative members of the community. At almost the very moment when Mr. Dearborn was penning his cautionary Directions, the General Court of Massachusetts was busy with an Act to Secure the Town of Boston from Damage by Fire (1798). This act forbade carrying fire through the streets, except in a covered vessel, as well as smoking, or having in one's possession "any lighted pipe or segar" in the streets or on the wharves. The penalty was fixed at two dollars, or, if the offense was committed in any ropewalk, at from five to one hundred dollars. These provisions were really but a modification of a much older law. In 1638 the General Court ordered "that no man shall take any Tobacco within twenty Poles of any House, or so near as may endanger the same." To "fetch fire" from a neighbor's when one's own hearth was cold was a regular thing in the days of the troublesome flint and steel. It even passed into a proverb. One who made a hasty visit was said to be "in as great a hurry as if he had come to fetch fire." So in Chaucer, when Troilus

1 See p. 370, below.

2 Acts of 1798, chap. 27, sects. 6, 7.

3 Laws, edition of 1672, p. 146.