A Novel Ladder

A ladder is made to be walkeá on, fat a traman ladder is a novelfcy, and lometJtnes a grand novelty. Snch a lad der came into reqnisition in New York not very long ago. But, after all, though the act was novel, the actor was but one in the long line of men and women who in life's emergencies are alwaya on hand to exhibit that spirit of oourageous self forgetfulness which makes the looker on feel that there is something grand left in hnmanity yet. It was but the old story of a tenement house on fire and a small crowd of frightened escaping teuants. Thsy came down the fire escapes in desperate haste, before the firemen arrived npon the scène, but between the last rung of the ladder and the ground was a drop of ten feet. The light, flimsy ladder swayed beneath the weight of the most I Bome tenant, who stood irresoluto, frightened to take the big drop and unable to return, for above was an ever increasing weight of human beings pressing downward. It was a moment of peril, and it threatened to be one of catastrophe. But just then the janitor stepped forward, self possessed and self, forgetful. Standing on the stoop, he reached up and found that his arms could just grasp the end of the shaky ladder. "Olimb over me," he cried and stood his ground, holding on to the flimsy ladder, while nieu, women and children scrambled overhim to a place of safety. By means of that human ladder they