Morning journal and courier., 1888-01-04

The board of fire commissioners met last evening and received the applications of Henry s. Douglass and Arthur J. Friend for positions on the force. They were ordered OF els. A petition for hydrant at the cor- ner of Richard and Wolcott streets was re- ferred with power. The regular bills were approved.
 PromeRading the Bridge for Health New York Letter to the Philadelphia Ledger. It is curious to see to what an extent tht East river bridge has become public sani tarium, so to speak. It is no uncommon thing for physicians to prescribe for dyspep tic patients, or for lack of appetite, 8 walE four hours, as infallible remedy, and al certain hours of the day there is abundant evidence that the prescription is acted upon. A veteran policeman who has had his beat on the New York side ever since the structure was thrown open to the public, and who is evidently close observer of men and man. ners, as we'll as a philosopher in his way, said to ne this morning:
 "You can easily tell 'em by their quick, jerky gait and their pale faces. They don't walk leisurely like folks that are in robust health, but spin along as if their lives de- pended on making fast time. Here comes one of them now"
 
 ual spun past with chest expanded, both arms going like windmill, his eyes looking upward, evidently resolved upon making the most of his time and getting out of the bridge all the exercise it could be worked for.
 "He 1has been doing this thing for a year or more now, and I think it's doing him a heap of good. At first he was awful dismal, and looked as if he hadn't friend in the whole world, but now, as you see, he nods as he passes and has pleasant smile on his face. If he keeps on guess another years practice will cure him."
 The thing, however, it would appear, sometimes works the wrong way. "An old lady that lives on Brooklyn Heights, not far from Plymouth church over there," my in- formant went on to say, "tried the long walk twice day for something that ailed her, and as she went along she always had a pleasant good morning or good afternoon. She said she thought it was better than the mind cure and it didn't cost anything. But am sorry to say one day she was caught by a sudden fall of rain right at the middle of the bridge Git is a mile and an eighth long you know), and as she had no umbrella and there was no shelter handy, she got wet through and that was the last of her. was told af- terward that she had chill when she reached home and it ran into pneumonia, concluding with funeral at Plymouth in less than . week from the time I last saw her. If she had stayed away from the bridge I dare say she would have been living yet.
 But there is another class of pedestrians who do not belong to the dyspeptics, nor to the valetudinarians, but who have become quite an attractive feature of these New York and Brooklyn walking matches. I al Jude to the fashionable young ladies' board ing schools, who give their pupils, fifteen or twenty at a time, "eonstitutional' across the bridge, usually just after breakfast every Saturday morning. But I am told that, as the photographers for the illustrated papers are making then the subjects of professional attention, the practice is falling into dis favor.