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7. Ship of the Month - cont'd. secured a great start, though sufficient to baffle a pail brigade. "Instead, the badly ruined hull alone remains of the brilliant craft which for years, with the steamer PERSIA, were among the objects which Garden City people have pointed to with no small degree of pride. Had it not been for the arrival of the fire engine from St. Catharines, the damage to the boat would have been more serious indeed. To the eye from the outside, the boat is entirely burned away down to the gunwale, and in more places than one, the ravages of the fire are found below, and in the forecastle fire raged fiercely after the blaze on the main deck had been controlled and was being stamped out, and as late as five o'clock a big tongue of flame was pouring out of a hole in the port side of the boat below the gunwale, from the fore­ castle, showing the fury of a furnace which still raged in there. "But the arrival of the assistance is what stayed the progress of the fire and the people of the village should feel indebted not only to the fire department for having sent the engine out, but to the men who, soaked to the skin in their own clothes, faced the fire and braved - among even worse dan­ gers the chances of rheumatism and other ailments in their endeavours to save property and to stay the ruthless destroying hand of the fire monster. "The OCEAN, which was commanded by Capt. J. V. Trowell, of Toronto, arrived at Port Dalhousie on Tuesday, and went to the dry dock to receive repairs to her hull before laying up at Toronto for the winter season. The repair work included the renewal of a few planks. The work was progressing Friday after­ noon, when the fire occurred. "The alarm was first given by a French Canadian deckhand about 2 o'clock. Capt. Trowell was below the boat in the dry dock superintending the work up­ on the ship's bottom when the alarm was given. One of the captain's first actions was to rush to the assistance of the stewardess, Miss Snell, of To­ ronto, who was in the pantry at the time. The fires were rapidly spreading towards the forward part of the boat. When alarmed by the captain, Miss Snell made a hurried retreat, and almost blinded by the smoke, reached an exit, where she was assisted to the bank. She was forced to leave in her ca­ bin dress without a hat, and like nearly all the others, lost all her clo­ thes. Some thoughtful man placed his overcoat around her as she was brought from the boat. Though there were several narrow escapes, no one was serious­ ly injured, only man who suffered was one of the firemen, James Roulette, of Montreal. A brother fireman entered his room in the stern of the boat near where the fire started, after his clothes. After the man entered the room, the flames burst out around it afresh, and Roulette dashed through the flames after his comrade. His hair was singed and his face somewhat burned, although not seriously. His friend escaped unscathed, however. "The cause of the fire is a mystery. It started near the engine room in the rear and very near it, not at the lamp room. The lamp room is tinned throughout and Capt. Trowell cannot imagine how a fire could have started there. In reply to a "Standard" representative, Capt. Trowell said that it was quite impossible for spontaneous combustion from oily rags in the lamp room to have caused the fire, which must have originated in some other way. What that other way may be is beyond the comprehension of any person about the boat or connected with the shipyard. The members of the crew gazed upon the burning vessel with dazed surprise. The majority of them are from Quebec province. "When it was seen that the boat was doomed, water was let into the dock and flooded it as high as the depth would permit. The planks which had been re­ moved from the boat's bottom allowed a quantity of water to enter the hold this way, assisting in preserving the lower planking of the boat. The steam­ er was entirely light, not an atom of freight being aboard. So light was the bow that forward between decks, twenty-five tons of coal had been piled as ballast to keep down the bow. This took fire and burned fiercely, throwing out an intense heat. It burned down through the main deck and fell into the