Twice Congress had passed laws
especially to empower the then Secretary of the Treasury, John Sherman,
to give him a medal for distinguished gallantry in saving life. The
Life-Saving Society had also given him its medal, and so had the Police
Department. There was not a complaint in all his record against him
for any infraction of duty, and he was sober and trustworthy. He was
entitled to his promotion; and he got it, there and then. It may be
worth mentioning that he kept on saving life after he was given his
sergeantcy. On October 21, 1896, he again rescued a man from drowning.
It was at night, nobody else was in the neighborhood, and the dock from
which he jumped was in absolute darkness, and he was ten minutes in the
water, which was very cold. He was fifty-five years old when he saved
this man. It was the twenty-ninth person whose life he had saved during
his twenty-three years' service in the Department.
The other man was a patrolman whom we promoted to roundsman for activity
in catching a burglar under rather peculiar circumstances. I happened to
note his getting a burglar one week. Apparently he had fallen into the
habit, for he got another next week. In the latter case the burglar
escaped from the house soon after midnight, and ran away toward Park
Avenue, with the policeman in hot chase.
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