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Show OLD FIREMAN NOW A MONK. There wap an interesting gathering in New York the other day of the members of the two volunteer iirn companies who took care of the city's conflagrations in the days when there was no regularly organized fire department. depart-ment. All the survivors of the old band responded to their names except one, the old foreman of one of the companies, and inquiries brought out the fact that the , missing member is today a Brother in the Passionist monastery mon-astery at Hoboken, N. J. Brother Bonaventure, Daniel Kelly of the old days, was a great favorite with the lads who ran with the Mechanics. Me-chanics. He was a quiet man, never looking for trouble in the days when most of the young bloods ioved a fight better than a dinner, and fought fair, too; but he was considered a bad man to take liberties with. One night when the Mechanics were racing to a fire and a member of a rival company raised a trumpet to 1 strike Kelly, it is said by the annalist of that, day that Kelly, took the oflend- 1 er across hip knee and spanked him in I a style that an old-time school master might have envied.:: Kelly was made foreman of the Mechanics Me-chanics in 1S59. and served with distinction dis-tinction until the volunteers were disbanded dis-banded in 1S65. For a year after that .'. he w as psen about the old haunts, where the severe and almost ascetic purity of his life made him a marked man, and where he was beloved for his simple goodness and his charity. Then Kelly disappeared from the Eleventh ward and in time was forgotten, for-gotten, for although kind to all. he had no close personal friends. That was thirty-nine years ago.' A few months ago one of the boys who ran with the Mechanics chanced to visit the monastery." He asked to be shown through the place, and was put in charge of Brother Bonaventure. As the stranger was about to leave the building and was ' thanking the Brother for his kindness, the latter held out his hand with a smile and said: .. - "So you've forgotten mc, Jim. Don't you remember when we .'both ran with the old Mechanics Hope over yonder across the river?" Then indeed the visitor, recognized in the monk the foreman' of "Company 17, the quiet, soft spoken man who was ever ready to take desperate chances at a fire, and whose arm was strong and fist heavy -w hen- defending the right. |