Show Reply tqNr Ellerbecb SALT LAKE CITY June 8 1885 EDITOR DEMOCRAT Will you please insert this article in your paper in refutation refuta-tion of an article published in this mornings morn-ings Herald Mr Ellerbeck in that article says or infers that the members of the Salt Lake City Fire Department are both incompetent incompe-tent and imbecile Past experience proves that they are neither one nor the other as the fire record of this city will prove that they ate as efficient as any department de-partment of a similar organization in the United States In the second part of his article he states some glaring untruths such as that when the firemen arrived at the fire it was but 3 very small affair Perhaps it would require the whole city to burn down to be a fire of any magnitude mag-nitude in the estimation of so great a man The facts are that the fire must have been burning for half an hour before the alarm was given as not only the candy store was in flames but Rumells and George A Meears places were a mass of flames above the ceilings The places having iron roofs made it almost impossible to get at the fire In the latter part of his article he says that many of the crowd who were there said that a man with a bucket of water could have put the fire out and he says it was just about true Why did not Mr Eller beck or one of that crowd take a bucket of water and put it out 1 Many of his statements a published are untrue as can be proved by competent compe-tent witnesses Respectfully JABCZ W TAYLOR |