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I 
 
 A 
 
 PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA 
 
 NEW-YORK CITY. 
 
 CORNELIUS MATHEWS. 
 
 NEW- YORK : 
 
 JOHN S. TAYLOR, 17 ANN-STREET. 
 
 1853. 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by 
 JOHN S. TAYLOR, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States 
 for the Southern District of New- York. 
 
 JOHN J REED, Print., 
 16 Spruce-Street. 
 
SUB-DIVISIONS. 
 
 Introduction...... ........ 5 
 
 Walk Preliminary 10 
 
 Disadvantages of Being Born a New-Yorker.... 16 
 
 Broadway * 30 
 
 Phineas T. Barnum, Esquire 38 
 
 The Happy Family 50 
 
 Way-Sidr Histories...., 55 
 
 Little Trappan • .*.. 56 
 
 The Hairless Horse 66 
 
 Disbanded Lamp-Posts 69 
 
 The Horse-Radish Enthusiast 73 
 
 A Short Excursion *.« 78 
 
 The New York Fireman 92 
 
 A Grand Pageant 102 
 
 A Director of Pageants 107 
 
 The Sempstress --• .'.09 
 
Abdurd Calculations 120 
 
 The Bowery 124 
 
 The Uproarious Young Gentleman 137 
 
 '* Tickets for Greenwood." 143 
 
 Mrs. Always 152 
 
 Seeing the Bear Dance 159 
 
 Chatham-Street 161 
 
 Reforming the World by Wholesale 170 
 
 Our Festivals 173 
 
 On the Road 181 
 
 The Newsboys 1 182 
 
 The Crystal Palace 195 
 
 Bird's-Eye View of the City 203 
 
THE 
 
 PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA 
 
 OF 
 
 NEW-YORK CITY. 
 
 In the little canvass I propose to open before 
 you, ladies and gentlemen, I have attempted 
 to paint a home picture. The seven colors of 
 the rainbow have been pretty freely used, I 
 may say, quite exhausted, by previous artists : 
 there is little more to be clone with them. We 
 have had panoramas of the Thames, of Cali- 
 fornia, the Mississippi, the Holy Land, gor- 
 geous with all the tints of the palette. What, 
 then, is left to me, that I too invite you to a 
 panoramic exhibition ? There is a single un* 
 
b INTRODUCTION. 
 
 employed color, common writing-ink, and for 
 a pencil, the old, familiar, and easy-motioned 
 grey goose-quill. With the aid of these, and 
 your kind indulgence, I shall endeavor to body 
 forth something for your entertainment, by 
 unrolling before you the streets and characters 
 of a great city, which I have studied from my 
 boyhood — each high -way and by-way of which 
 I may say that I know, as familiarly as the 
 dog-eared pages of Robinson Crusoe or the 
 Pilgrim's Progress. In an hour or two we 
 will accomplish lengths and breadths of this 
 town w T hich it would take you, unaided, twenty 
 years, more or less, to traverse. In this Pen 
 and-Ink Panorama, you w T ill have a street per- 
 spective ; a sketch of character ; we shall oc- 
 casionally stop and visit an interior ; it may 
 be a place of amusement, a reading-room, a 
 little quaint old school : by way of relief and 
 landscape to our gallery, we may take an ex- 
 cursion out of town, up the North River, or I 
 across the East, to a suburban burial-place. I 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 invite you, ladies and gentlemen, to bear me 
 company. You must be content, I give you 
 notice, to see objects for the time through my 
 glasses — which, for your sakes, I keep as 
 bright and clear as I can. 
 
 Do not think time wasted if I loiter, even at 
 a penny show, or pause to meditate by an an- 
 cient lamp-post. Do not despise the home- 
 spun dresses in which my characters appear. 
 
 It is true that this panorama, now about to 
 unroll, relates to these common streets. But, 
 I pray you, are not these very streets tho- 
 roughfares for those creatures of divine make, 
 men and women, as good, as kind, as friendly, 
 and noble as any that walk the earth ? I for 
 one avow plainly that I love New York — and 
 I will seek to make you love it, too, even with 
 all its cares and troubles, and wicked people, 
 and bad ways. 
 
 I sometimes fancy that there is no city in 
 the world like this very New York of ours, 
 that there never has been and never will be. 
 
8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In one of these suppositions, at least, I am 
 probably right. There is no living rival or re- 
 semblance to our metropolis, in many of its 
 peculiarities and characteristics. "Whether 
 hereafter any city just like it will spring into 
 existence, no one, except the happy mortal 
 who carries the spy-glass of prophecy, can 
 possibly foresee. I love to go back into old 
 history, and to fancy that it has in times past 
 had a twin-brother, as is curiously illustrated 
 in more than one trait and usage, which iden- 
 tify old Rome (which was at its height of pow- 
 er and glory a couple of thousand years ago) 
 with modern New York ; proving that human 
 nature is very nearly the same, whether under 
 the toga, worn with so much dignity by the 
 Roman Senators, as we see on the stage, or 
 under the dress-coat made by Mr. Snip-Snap, 
 the Broadway or Bowery tailor. For in- 
 stance, we know r it is the fashion of our popu- 
 larity-seeking politicians on election day, to 
 make their appearance in the neighborhood of 
 
► INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 the polls in a fusty hat and shabby coat, to se- 
 cure the sympathy of their humbler fellow- 
 citizens. This is an old " dodge," and was 
 played by candidates for office, with the Ro- 
 man populace ; those self-sacrificing patriots 
 beating our own, by allowing their beards to 
 grow, and emptying a pan of ashes upon their 
 heads, to make them look destitute and ple- 
 beian. That the Roman cobblers, who were 
 great demagogues, were accustomed to lead 
 the mob about for the purpose of getting 
 themselves into work by wearing their shoes 
 out, we have high authority for believing. 
 Our New York politicians, on the other hand, 
 know a trick worth two of that — they inflame 
 the people, and hurry them off at a high trot 
 to a church, a flour store, a printing office, and 
 run them out of breath so that they may have 
 the satisfaction of filling their bellies with east 
 wind, in an empty and boisterous harangue. 
 Like occasions breed like results ; and our at- 
 tention is often called to this parallel between 
 
10 WALK PRELIMINARY. 
 
 two great cities of ancient and modern times, 
 by proceedings like those of a late meeting on 
 the affairs of Cuba, in the Park, in which fig- 
 ured Captain Rynders — 
 
 Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. I do not 
 intend to become either personal or political. 
 Now to the raising of the curtain, for a view 
 of the promised entertainment. That you 
 may plainly understand the humor in which 
 this panoramic exhibition is got up, before we 
 enter upon the grand scenes, let us take a 
 short 
 
 WALK PRELIMINARY. 
 
 Has it ever happened to you, my friends, to 
 go into the streets at an unusual hour, at a 
 time, I mean, different from your customary 
 routine, earlier or later, when the city has not 
 arrived at or is past that state of development, 
 in which you are generally accustomed to see 
 it ? You must know, if you take any note of 
 Huch things, that each hour of the twenty four 
 
WALK PRELIMINARY. 1 1 
 
 in a metropolis has its peculiar dress and un- 
 dress, as much as a fine lady — who may be, 
 early in the morning, a housewife out of curl — 
 somewhat later a tidy receiver of calls — then a 
 well-attired promenader — afterwards in dinner 
 costume — and again operatically apparelled. 
 Having occasion, on a late morning, to make 
 a journey into the city a couple of hours be- 
 fore my usual time of appearance, so different 
 was its aspect, everything seemed to me more 
 like a dream than a reality. I scarcely knew 
 myself to be in New York. There were no 
 merchants abroad — no women — none of the 
 old familiar faces. I seemed to have lost my 
 reckoning, and in the dreamy humor brought 
 on in this change of the scene, everything 
 seemed new, peculiar, strange, and somewhat 
 fantastical. The horses in the early omnibuses 
 I regarded as toy-horses, not the oat-fed trot- 
 ters of the middle of the day ; the omnibuses 
 I regarded as toys ; and the drivers, up there, 
 as a sort of mandarins or queer kind of ghosts. 
 
12 PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 I remember looking upon such of the horses 
 as pricked up their ears and galloped briskly, 
 as being a little out of their heads, in taking a 
 pride in drawing the stages : while such as 
 drooped and ambled along, appeared to me to 
 have a greater stock of common sense, and a 
 much more correct appreciation of the busi- 
 ness they were engaged in. The blank streets 
 stretched away, like the avenues of Venice or 
 far-off Thebes in the cosmoramas at the Mu- 
 seum, and one or two prompt maid-servants 
 in the windows looked as if they were at work 
 by sunrise, in Bagdad. I suppose it is the 
 power of so voluntarily stepping out of the 
 familiar round and regarding things about us 
 in a novel light, pretty much as an intelligent 
 spirit or angel might, which the world has 
 agreed to call genius. By familiarity we lose 
 the sense of objects about us — they cease to 
 be men, houses, streets, and become mere ma- 
 terial forms — differing a little in height, color, 
 or shape, but having no appreciable character 
 
WALK PRELIMINARY. 13 
 
 or distinguishableness, one from another. In 
 the humor to which I refer, a young man who 
 walked before me in the ordinary sack of the 
 season, and with the common beaver hat and 
 black leather gloves, did not seem to me, as 
 no doubt he was, a clerk or shop-tender on his 
 way to the store or counting room — but some- 
 thing queer, curious, inexplicable. The absur- 
 dity of his dress, which was not in the least 
 degree absurd, seen at the usual hours and in 
 the accustomed connection with other things, 
 came upon me like a revelation. I could not, 
 for a moment, regard him as any relation of 
 mine ; but kept contemplating him for a long 
 distance, as some strange, outlandish creature, 
 newly landed. After him, from a cross street, 
 my eye encountered another spectacle in a 
 roundabout of cloth, with a tin kettle at the 
 end of his arm ; a workman, no doubt, on the 
 way to his job. Nothing ever seemed more 
 ridiculous — so belittled and disturbed my idea 
 of a hitman being, as to believe that this grown- 
 
14 PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 up creature — for I noticed that his short-cut 
 locks were grizzled — should have gone on or 
 come on, as I am sure he had, from the be- 
 ginning of his manhood to this grey time of 
 life, doing nothing but wear a roundabout and 
 carry a tin can in his hand. I never felt more 
 forcibly in my life that man is a fallen creature, 
 and that Adam had something to answer for. 
 It is not worth while to trouble you further 
 with the speculations of the morning, except 
 to say, that when you are tired of books from 
 their everlasting similitudes and wearisome 
 repetitions — if you would have a novelty of 
 sensation, stir out of bed an hour earlier than 
 usual or tarry from it an honr later in a walk 
 down Broadway — and you will have inter- 
 chapters and original episodical views, equal 
 to our best living writers of fiction. 
 
 It is in this very spirit, taking the city by 
 surprise and unaware of our eye of observa- 
 
INCIDENTAL. 15 
 
 tion, that we are now venturing fortn. And 
 what kind of a panorama is it that (after all 
 these preliminaries of expectation) I now call 
 your attention to? To what new region, Mr. 
 Panoramist, do you invite us with so clamor- 
 ous a tinkle of the bell ? There are several 
 unexplored quarters to w T hich you might be 
 taken. For instance, there is China ; we have 
 no panoramic painting of that. There is the 
 great Desert of Sahara — a very fine subject; 
 and two or three hundred more remote pro- 
 vinces of the Earth. Turning my back upon 
 all these, will you believe, will you not laugh 
 in my face, when I announce that I have se- 
 lected as a subject, this very hurry-skurry, 
 hum-drum, hodge-podge, harum-skarum City 
 of New York ? 
 
 It is, as I have acknowledged, a plain, home- 
 spun subject, and it has its difficulties. So 
 peculiar, variable and shifting — such is its mis- 
 cellaneousness and the constant change of its 
 aspect, by the infusion of new material from 
 
16 PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 all quarters, that it is no easy matter for a Na- 
 tive to keep his foothold and point of observa- 
 tion ; in fact, and not to the matter 
 in the least, I might as well at the outset avow 
 plainly, in this respect, 
 
 THE DISADVANTAGES OF BEING BORN A NEW 
 YORKER. 
 
 A delightful humorist (a noble-hearted Eng- 
 lishman by the way) once presented to the 
 world a capital and conclusive paper on the 
 inconvenience of being hanged ; and, prompt- 
 ed by my own experiences, I shall be able to 
 establish, I am pretty sure, that one might as 
 well be hanged as 
 
 This is broaching the matter too bluntly; 
 I must approach the grand Quod Erat De- 
 monstrandum with a little preparation. It 
 will not do to state, in so many words, that it 
 would have been more comfortable for one to 
 have been born a Carribean, with a privilege 
 of wielding a club in his own defense ; or a 
 
A DISADVANTAGE. 17 
 
 Choctaw, with the inalienable natural right of 
 cleaving my enemy's skull with a tomahawk ; 
 or a Hindoo, with idols of one's own to wor- 
 ship, and not imposed on me by other nations, 
 although they might be of wood ; or, in a 
 word, anybody else, or anywhere else, than a 
 free republican citizen of this vast confede- 
 racy. I propose to begin at the beginning, 
 and to show, in my own simple history, the 
 utter absurdity of being born an American ; 
 that in the creation of an American, Nature 
 intends a huge joke ; or, to sum up all in brief, 
 that it may be fairly doubted, if not entirely 
 demonstrated, whether, properly speaking, 
 there is any such place as America. I am wil- 
 ling to admit that the title " America" does 
 appear in various geographies, gazetteers, and 
 other publications of a like kind : also, that 
 there is a certain considerable superficial space 
 marked off in many, perhaps in all of the 
 maps or atlases in common use, which passes 
 also under that designation ; but whether 
 
18 PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 there is any distinctive country, with its own 
 proper customs, habits, and self-relying usages, 
 answering to that name, or any such charac- 
 teristic creature, representing such customs, 
 habits, and usages, called American, will ap- 
 pear or not, ladies and gentlemen, when we 
 have advanced a little further in the subject. 
 
 I was first led to entertain doubts in this 
 way. It was the custom of my father — peace 
 to his memory ! — to have me accompany him 
 to the shop of the barber, where he submitted 
 every other day to his quarterly shaving. In 
 these visits, it happened, not rarely, when the 
 shop was well attended with customers, that 
 I, a lad perhaps some five or six years of age, 
 was prompted to mount a chair, and recite or 
 improvise a brief oration on some current sub- 
 ject arising at the moment ; and my success 
 was often so considerable that I received an 
 honorary gratuity of a sixpenny piece — which 
 altogether inspired me with the feeling that 
 native talent was held in high esteem among 
 
DISADVANTAGES. 19 
 
 my countrymen. This opinion I cherished 
 and held fast till my tenth year, when my mind 
 was disturbed by the unusual commotion in 
 the same shop at the announcement of the 
 death of the British Premier, George Canning, 
 and the appearance, shortly thereafter, in an 
 honorary gilt frame, of a colored head of the 
 said Canning, assigned to the most conspicu- 
 ous position on the wall. This shock was fol- 
 lowed up with a pair of boots, purchased for 
 my juvenile wearing, which I heard named 
 Wellingtons, and which, vended as they were 
 freely in my own city here of New York, I 
 learned were so named in honor of a distin- 
 guished general who had spent his life in fight- 
 ing the battles of the English Government. 
 
 As I grew in years, evidences thickened 
 upon me. To say nothing of Liverpool coal, 
 Kidderminster carpets, and such indoor impor- 
 tations, I found the same shadow crossing my 
 path in the public streets, laid out by the same 
 native corporation. I struck out to the east, 
 
20 PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 and found myself rambling in Albion Place; 
 I wandered to the west, and landed in Abing- 
 don Square ; I pushed for the north, and came 
 square upon the snag of London Terrace. 1 
 used to rub my eyes, and wonder whether I 
 was in the New World or the Old ; and w T as 
 afflicted with the uncomfortable sensation of 
 the man who went to sleep in the mountains, 
 and waking up after a twenty years' nap, 
 opened his eyes under a republican govern- 
 ment, although his slumbers had begun under 
 a royal rule. Mine was merely reversed : I 
 fancied I had slept backwards to the good old 
 times of George the Third, and w T as surprised 
 to miss the statue of that excellent king from 
 its old post of authority in the centre of the 
 Bowling Green, next to the Battery. 
 
 When I had grown up to be old enough to 
 take an interest in books, I found the same 
 happy delusion still maintained. I put out my 
 hand, as I suppose boys do in other countries, 
 to seize upon some ballad, history, or legend 
 
DISA DVANTAGES. 2 1 
 
 connected with the fortunes of my own peo- 
 ple ; and I found twenty busy gentlemen zeal- 
 ously filling it with English publications. — 
 Whatever my humor might be, to laugh or 
 cry, for a glimpse of high life or low, for 
 verse or prose, there was always one of these 
 industrious gentlemen at my side, urging on 
 my attention a book by some writer a great 
 way off, which had no more to do with my 
 own proper feelings or the sentiments of my 
 country, than if they had been Persian or 
 Patagonian — only they were in the English 
 language, always English. I said to myself, 
 as I began to consider these matters, I'll take 
 to the newspapers ; surely these, as belonging 
 to the country, published in the country, and 
 by men like myself, must make me ample 
 amends for being practised upon in the bound 
 books : 1 will read the newspapers. Never 
 was boy, thirsting after patriotic reading, more 
 completely duped. One after the other, here 
 were police reports, with slang phrases that 
 
22 PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 certainly never originated in any of the courts 
 or prisons of the New World ; elaborate ac- 
 counts of prize-fights and cricket matches, and 
 what not of that sort ; and withal, such an out- 
 pouring of disagreeable associations, that the 
 shadow fell upon my spirit again, and I was 
 more than ever clear upon the point, that who- 
 ever had the naming of this quarter of the 
 globe in the maps and gazetteers, had clearly 
 committed an egregious mistake in calling it 
 America : he should have named it Little Bri- 
 tain. 
 
 In spite of these discouraging convictions, I 
 saw that the people about me were given to 
 laughter, and, in a way of their own, had some- 
 thing of a relish for merriment. I have it at 
 last, I said to myself: they let these heavy 
 dogs of Englishmen name their streets and 
 edit their newspapers ; but when they come 
 to anything elegant, sportive, and cheerful, 
 they take the matter into their own hands. I'll 
 go to the Museum and see what the Ameri- 
 
DISADVANTAGES. 23 
 
 cans, my fellow-countrymen, are about there. 
 Will you believe it ?— as I live, the first object 
 I encountered in the hall was the cast-off state 
 coach of Her Majesty, Queen Adelaide, so 
 blocking up the way that I made no attempt 
 to advance further ; but, turning on my heel, 
 I determined to indemnify myself at one of the 
 theatres. I struck for the nearest, and, as if 
 in conspiracy with the state coach, the first 
 notes I caught from the orchestra were c( God 
 Save the Queen," played with great energy by 
 the musicians, and vigorously applauded by a 
 portion of the audience. I tried another house 
 immediately, where I was entertained during 
 my short stay, by an old gentleman in a wig, 
 (unlike any other old gentleman I had ever 
 seen in my life,) who was denouncing some- 
 body or other, not then visible, as having con- 
 ducted himself in a manner altogether unwor- 
 thy an " honest son of Britain !" There was 
 still another left to me — a popular resort — 
 where flaming bills, staring me in the face 
 
24 PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 every time I passed, had promised abundant 
 " novelty suited to the times." I have you at 
 last, methought ; you cannot escape me now ; 
 this is the theatre for my money. What was 
 my astonishment, on entering and possessing 
 myself of one of the small bills of the evening, 
 to discover that they had taken one of -those 
 new books I had come away from home to 
 avoid, and made a play of it : it was really too 
 much partridge by a long shot. There was 
 not a mouthful of air, it would seem, to be had 
 for love or money; the moment I opened my 
 mouth, wherever it might be, at home or 
 abroad, for health or pleasure, these busy die- 
 tarians were ready with their everlasting par- 
 tridge, to gorge me to the throat. 
 
 Where was the use of repining ? Time heals 
 all wounds of the youthful spirit. I grew to 
 man's estate. Now (said I, chuckling to my- 
 self at the thought,) I will set this matter right. 
 These men mean well ; they would give just 
 what you desire, but, poor fellows, they havn't 
 
DISADVANTAGES. 25 
 
 it to give. That (I continued to myself,) is 
 easily settled ; I will take an American sub- 
 ject, (allowing, for the nonce, that there is such 
 a place as America:) I will represent a man 
 of character, a hero, a patriot. I will place 
 him in circumstances deeply interesting to the 
 country, and to which the republican feeling 
 of the country shall respond with a cheer. 
 No sooner thought than done. The play was 
 written : an American historical play. With 
 some little art a hearing was procured from 
 one of these gentlemen — a stage manager, as 
 they call him. I stuffed him, that all the pipes 
 and organs of his system might be in tune, 
 with a good dinner ; which he did not disdain ; 
 although I may mention that the greens were 
 raised in Westchester, and the ducks shot on 
 the Sound. I announced the title and subject, 
 and proceeded to read : during this business 
 he seemed to be greatly moved. At the con- 
 clusion of the MS. I found my manager in a 
 much less comfortable humor than at the table.. 
 
26 PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 In a word, with ill-concealed disdain, he pro* 
 nounced the play a failure, and wondered that 
 anybody would spend his time on subjects so 
 unworthy the English Drama, as little provin- 
 cial squabbles like those of American History, 
 He was right : American History is not a suit- 
 able subject for the English Drama. With 
 doubts still thickening in my mind whether 
 this was America, I paid the reckoning, thrust 
 my play in my pocket, and hurried home, 
 anxious to consult some authentic chronicle, to 
 make sure whether there had been such an 
 event as the Revolutionary War. Such an 
 event was certainly there set down, at consi- 
 derable length, and one George Washington 
 was mentioned as having taken part in it. The 
 printed book I read from was called the His- 
 tory of the United States ; but from all I 
 could see, hear, and learn, daily, about me, the 
 United States, so referred to, was decidedly 
 non existent, at least so far as I had yet pushed 
 my researches. 
 
DISADVANTAGES. 27 
 
 But I did not, even now, altogether despair. 
 I said again, Perhaps I am limiting myself to 
 too humble a range of observation ; why 
 should I confine, myself to the city of New 
 York, Empire City though it be, and capital 
 of this great Western Continent ? I will change 
 the scene ; I will go a journey ; I will strike 
 for Bunker Hiil : if I find that, all is safe. Bos- 
 ton is not at the end of the earth, nor is one a 
 life-time in getting there. I found Bunker 
 Hill : I could not easily miss it, for there was 
 a great pile of stones, a couple of hundred feet 
 high, which a blind man could not have missed 
 if he had been traveling that way. You are 
 mistaken, young man, (I again addressed my- 
 self, as I contemplated the granite pyramid :) 
 there has been a Revolutionary War: the 
 American Colonies fought it, and after a 
 severe struggle, great waste of blood, treasure, 
 and counsel of great men, they severed them- 
 selves from the Mother Country, and they 
 were free ! The little grievances which have 
 
28 PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 irked you, such as names of streets, play-houses, 
 and such trifles, are scarcely worthy of your 
 consideration : politically, you are free. You 
 have your own political institutions, with which 
 no stranger can intermeddle : what more could 
 you ask ? 
 
 I w 7 as hugging myself in this comfortable 
 conviction, pacing proudly in the shadow of 
 Faneuil Hall, that venerable cradle of our 
 boasted Independence, when a boy placed in 
 my hand an " extra sheet," from which I 
 learned that a steamer had just arrived from 
 England, and had that moment landed, on the 
 very w r harf of Boston where the tea was 
 dumped, an emissary, apparently authorized 
 by the Mother Country, for he was a member 
 of the British Parliament, who had come to 
 resume in due form, the old political authority 
 of the Mother Country, and to direct us, ex 
 cathedra, in the regulation of those very politi- 
 cal concerns of which we fancied we had ac- 
 quired the exclusive control by fighting through 
 
DISADVANTAGES. 29 
 
 that old Revolutionary War. You see, my 
 dear friends, it was all a mistake : the whole 
 thing is a cunningly devised fable ; there w T as 
 no such man as George Washington, (face- 
 tiously represented as the father of his coun- 
 try ;) and there is no such country us America. 
 The sooner we reconcile ourselves to the facts, 
 the more comfortable we shall all be. Chris- 
 topher Columbus, in the order of Providence, 
 was a grand mistake — 
 
 Even out of this new dilemma, desperate as 
 it seems, there is a little magic fellow of a fan- 
 tastic temper who can perhaps help us. Fancy 
 is the young gentleman's name. We will in- 
 vite him to go along with us through New 
 York City, and he may be able here and there,, 
 (for he has the power,) to beguile us into the 
 belief that there is something worth looking 
 at in this Domestic Panorama. In truth 
 
30 PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 it is that lively person that has had, I believe, 
 most to do in getting up the speculation ; and 
 for the time being we must all become, for pro- 
 fit's sake, dealers in fancy stock. "Which shall 
 be the first division of our Picture ? 
 
 BROADWAY. 
 
 This is Broadway, ladies and gentlemen. A 
 wonderful highway, is it not ? Old and know- 
 ing, and what stories it could tell of the sights 
 and the people it has seen and known ? 
 
 If we were out of temper we could rail at 
 you, Broadway, by the hour. What scamp of 
 high or low degree ! — what hard-hearted 
 woman of fashion — what knavish politician — 
 what pompous man of wealth — small official — 
 blackleg — what painted bawd, or smooth-faced 
 hypocrite — what idealess dandy or sickly girl 
 of sentiment — in a word what form of folly 
 or crime have you not lent yourself to — made 
 much of? Giving the benefit of your sunshine 
 and promenade-side to every one of them in 
 
BROADWAY. 31 
 
 their newest gloss. Oh, the villains thou hast 
 entertained, Broadway ! The men of pretence ! 
 newly arrived Viscounts ! returned exquisites ! 
 celebrities, notorieties, infamies of every color 
 and degree ! And yet, turning to the other 
 side of the ledger, there is a large credit for 
 thee, for thou hast shown us the great-bearded 
 Turk, John Chinaman, the Choctaw in his 
 blanket, prophets, long-haired reformers, and 
 whatever else of strange and wonderful in char- 
 acter, the world could furnish. Thou hast the 
 first of everything — of a General returned from 
 victory — of a night procession with its flaming 
 torches — the long funerals — it is you that 
 open wide your arms and give a welcome to 
 great men from every quarter of the land. No 
 matter what the complexion of their politics ; 
 it's all the same to you You look with an 
 equal pride, an equal smile of satisfaction upon 
 Webster, and Jackson, on Scott and Clay. 
 Has any man ever undertaken to estimate the 
 notabilities, who have been irretrievably swal- 
 
32 PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 lowed up in its ever flowing wave ! Of a few 
 of the humbler we can recollect within the few 
 past years, that dietetic phenomenon, the gin- 
 ger-bread man, who, in spite of the energetic 
 buttoning of his coat to the throat, and the 
 enormous strides he was used to take, was 
 overtaken and submerged. And Posthlewaite 
 Page, the mighty calculator of the functions 
 of A in the tap of a beer-barrel, as affecting 
 the sidereal system, where is he ? And Nazro, 
 that modest inculcator of Hebrew at 100,000 
 doubloons per lesson? The long-bearded man 
 with the inexhaustible long nine ? And the 
 white-wash man ? Alas ! these have all per- 
 ished from the sight ! 
 
 Strange to say, although this mighty medium 
 for the exhibition of all that is singular and 
 eccentric, Broadway cannot claim a single pe- 
 culiarity for itself. There is not a single fea- 
 ture by which you can define it — no one qual- 
 ity by which it is distinguishable from the com- 
 monest street. You can say of it, it is a great 
 
BROADWAY. 
 
 33 
 
 sheet of glass, through which the whole world 
 is visible as in a transparency. In fact, rest 
 you content in New York, and making a pil- 
 grimage from time to time to this thoroughfare, 
 I will engage, you shall see in due succession, 
 whatever your heart is set on. The world will 
 come to you, from every part, in Broadway. 
 You have heard, perhaps, of an elephant in 
 Siam of exceeding size, wonderful docility, the 
 temper of an angel — you would give a finger 
 to have a sight of him : one day a trumpet is 
 blown, you prick up your ears and making for 
 Broadway behold " Siam," just arrived, and 
 marching in state at the head of a caravan. 
 
 The celebrated Musical College of La Scala, 
 Milan, is in high enthusiasm with the singing 
 of Signorina Luni. Shall we ever hear her ? 
 will her countrymen part with her ? You fear, 
 never. A turn of the wheel, and the Signorina 
 is seen through a coach-window, taking her first 
 drive in America, in Broadway. So of dancers, 
 jugglers, lords, marchionesses, panoramas, cos- 
 
34 FEN- AND INK TANORAMA. 
 
 moramas, dancing birds. In questions of 
 apparel, Broadway has an equal variety and 
 preference ; if there's a peculiar hat born and 
 and worn in Bond-street, London ; a new re- 
 volutionary blouse in Paris ; an extraordinary 
 pair of trousers in Berlin ; or a special style of 
 beard among the Persians ; or Russian whis- 
 kers, or Itoman moustache — in its season, and 
 when each has attained its ripeness — look for 
 it in Broadway, and you shall find it. The 
 whole world, once in the course of its life, 
 flocks to Broadway ! And yet nothing sticks. 
 There is not in all Broadway a memorable 
 building — (shall we except Trinity Church and 
 Mr. Stewart's Dry Goods Store ?) — not a mon- 
 ument — not a sight worth the seeing ! It s 
 chief characteristic is that all things shall be 
 brought to a certain well-bred and immovable 
 level. Mark the passengers : not as the people 
 in other democratic precincts, scrambling 
 freely about, dashing to right and left, taking 
 across the way at an angle — but all moving in 
 
BROADWAY. 35 
 
 a right line, to the right up, to the right 
 down. 
 
 All dressed in about the same decent habili- 
 ments, all carrying heads up, and observing the 
 decorum of the street with due gravity and 
 steadiness. Broadway never, or rarely, has its 
 gentlemanly propriety disturbed by the rush 
 of a fire-engine, or a drove of cattle, or the 
 tramp of a target excursion. 
 
 For real life, and the display of numbers, 
 Broadway is in full force through Sunday, and 
 with an increased power on Sunday evening. 
 It is then that the nice dressing of New-York- 
 ers is to be seen in the highest perfection — a 
 solid mass from Grace Church to the Battery 
 — a perfect Mississippi, with a double current 
 up and down, of glossy broadcloth and unblem- 
 ished De Laines. An army on the march to 
 battle could not move with stricter precision — 
 a procession of monks and nuns bound convent- 
 ward, with more sacred gravity. New York 
 in Broadway, on that day, makes a mighty 
 
36 PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 sacrifice to solemnity, requiting itself a little in 
 the evening by stepping aside into the shops 
 and gardens, and revelling in innumerable ice- 
 creams. 
 
 It is above all other streets, localities, and 
 positions, the test of respectability. If you can 
 touch your hat to fifty people in Broadway, 
 your character is " o. k.," — you are an estab- 
 lished man. But beware of " cuts." They are 
 dealt about in that thoroughfare with an awful 
 profusion. If you are in doubt about yourself, 
 if you are under a cloud, if your hat is rusty, 
 or your coat u going," if you have been para- 
 graphed as having failed, or as involved in any 
 little unfortunate matter, shun Broadway as 
 you would a fire. You will be shot down on 
 your first appearance like an outlaw. You will 
 not have a minute's mercy allowed you. You 
 will not pass ten steps before some kind gentle- 
 man, suddenly oblivious of your countenance, 
 will bring home to you painfully a sense of 
 
BROADWAY. 37 
 
 your miserable condition. Till Fortune be- 
 friend you, sneak through the side streets. 
 
 There are hundreds and thousands in New 
 York who cannot live out of Broadway : who 
 must breathe its air at least once in the day, or 
 they gasp and perish. They are creatures of 
 conventionality, whose chief enjoyment in this 
 world, is to have certain hats touched to them 
 every day of their life in Broadway. This is 
 their morning's anticipation, their evening's 
 reminiscence; and when, at length, they find 
 this world and its affairs closing upon them, 
 they call a confidential friend to their bedside 
 and whisper in his ear, as they are goiiig, " Let 
 the funeral go through Broadway !" 
 
 This is the American Museum, la-dies and 
 gentlemen, spitted at the fork of the City Park. 
 Did you ever hear of a gentleman named Bar- 
 num ? Perhaps you would like to know a lit- 
 tle more ? Well, I shall therefore treat you 
 forthwith to 
 
38 PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 AN AUTHENTIC ACCOUNT OF P. T. BARNUM, ESQ. 
 
 It is a favorite notion of ours, that artists, 
 soldiers, and poets — the learned professions 
 and the legislatures — do not exclusively pos- 
 sess all the best talent of the world. Sustained 
 by observation of men in the various walks of 
 life, we do not hesitate to assert that no small 
 share of what is called genius is engaged in 
 the every-day business of buying and selling. 
 Without intending to stimulate their vanity 
 and prompt them to cherish an undue idea of 
 their own importance, we point to the men 
 most conspicuous before the world for business 
 enterprise — whatever its sphere — and ask 
 wmether these individuals are not strongly 
 marked in the career which they have respect- 
 ively shaped out for themselves, as Daniel 
 "Webster, Michael Angelo, or my Lord Byron ? 
 To test the question fairly, we would take them 
 in pursuits which are not at all heroic in their 
 
PHINEAS T. BARNUM, ESQ. 39 
 
 nature, and where nothing but a native energy 
 and originality in scheming, could have secured 
 success and a large return. Mr. Barnum, for 
 instance, of the Museum, began with a few 
 shells, and two or three stuffed animals ; he is 
 now known and recognized all over the world. 
 Another, from the humble starting point of a 
 mere confectionery, like Mr. H. Wild, sets out 
 on a brilliant course of achievement in panorama, . 
 poetical handbill, and sugared statuary, (all of 
 which centres round his business,) of which 
 that modest beginning seems scarcely capable. 
 Has any one read Mr. Bartol, the shade paint- 
 er's admirable treatise on landscape and the 
 beautiful, as applied to the proper decoration 
 of window screens ? Take these alone, for the 
 present, and they are but leaders among many 
 like them ; and we confidently ask, what but an 
 originality of character as unquestionable as 
 that shown by men of genius, recognized by 
 the world, could have wrought so much from 
 so little ? It is true they have been wise — in 
 
40 PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 this, wiser than the Grecian Hero — in securing 
 the Press for their historian. Here they con- 
 stantly announce their mighty schemes, record 
 their victories, and secure the transmission to 
 the latest posterity, of the wonders they are 
 doing, and meaning to do. Change their dress 
 — put cocked hats on their heads — an army 
 behind, or an audience before them, and you 
 would have in Barnum, Wild, and Bartol, a 
 Napoleon, a Byron, and a Demosthenes. It is 
 dress and circumstance only, that make the 
 difference between these, our worthy fellow- 
 citizens, and the most renowned men of past 
 
 Every community, in the natural course of 
 events, demands an individual who shall take 
 upon himself all sorts of extraordinary achieve- 
 ments in the way of public amusements : who 
 will advertise largely in all the newspapers ; 
 set great banners flying from the house-top ; 
 display enormous pictures of whales and giants; 
 who will catch intolerable anacondas ; and 
 
PHTNEAS T. BARNUM, ESQ. 41 
 
 nurse unwonted fat boys up to the highest mark 
 of heft and rotundity; who will crowd the 
 streets, and distract the walkers therein, with 
 transparencies and musical vans : in a word, 
 every great community needs a Barnum : and 
 New York is fortunate in having him. And 
 we hold it as utterly impossible for Barnum to 
 have become Barnum without a genius for it, 
 as for Captain Post to bottle Horse-Ea dish with- 
 out corks. There was a touch of the melo- 
 dramatic — a fine effect — connected with this 
 eminent gentleman's origin; for he was born at 
 Bethel Village, in Connecticut, which w 7 as burnt 
 by the British in the War of the Eevolution. 
 Young Barnum, however, had no hand in the 
 fire. There is a big Elm tree, by the old Earm 
 House, of an exceeding bright green ; and 
 Barnum, in his later prosperity, having re-pur- 
 chased it, it is now the residence of Mrs. 
 Barnum, the elder, the mother of E. T. The 
 proprietor of the American Museum, was born, 
 as might have been expected, next door to the 
 
42 PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA 
 
 Fourth of July : to wit, on the 5th of that 
 month, in the year 1810. 
 
 "When about fourteen years of age, being at 
 the time in receipt of a couple of dollars a 
 month as clerk in a store, and holding his fath- 
 er's due bill for some eleven dollars, the estate 
 proving insolvent, young Barnum was com- 
 pelled by the executors to pay out of his later 
 earnings for the very shoes he wore to his fath- 
 er's funeral. An extraordinary example of the 
 stony-heartedness of executors, and the "No- 
 you-don't-put-me-down" power of young 
 genius. 
 
 We next find Barnum, fall fourteen years 
 of age, clerk in the store of a fellow-townsman 
 at Brooklyn ; when, after snuffing the roguery 
 of the neighboring metropolis of New- York for 
 a couple of years, he returned to Danbury, 
 where, with a fast developing faculty for some- 
 thing on a grander scale, something pictorial, 
 like stage-scenery, he at once opened a Confec- 
 tionery and Fruit Shop — passing from that 
 
PHINEAS T. BARNUM, ESQ. 43 
 
 rapidly to a Dry Goods Shop, with calicoes of 
 tremendous patterns ; (with a little parenthesis 
 here, at the age of seventeen, in groceries :) 
 and when all the Danbury world is wondering 
 what Barnum will do next, he flies in a light 
 wagon to New- York, and gets married ; sorely 
 against the consent of his excellent mother, for 
 Phineas is yet without the dollars necessary 
 for the proper maintenance of a household. 
 
 It is but a little while that private life can 
 hold such a spirit ; it is always bursting to get 
 out — and when in '30 and '31a great religious 
 excitement came into Bethel, Barnum was 
 there, and rose up, like one man, against what 
 he conceived to be its unheard-of enormities. 
 Rushing to the press, with characteristic im- 
 petuosity, he demanded to be allowed to enter 
 his protest in the county paper — in a case 
 where a man had brained his children, (upon a 
 supposed commission from Heaven,) and his 
 wife jumped out of a window, because she was 
 not willing to regard herself as included in the 
 
44 PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 said commission. The local Journalist set 
 down his foot, and flatly refused : Barnum 
 lifted up his — he did not kick the cowardly 
 local Journalist — but walked away, and made 
 immediate preparations to publish an opposi- 
 tion paper. With a thundering motto from 
 Thomas Jefferson, the new " Herald of Free- 
 dom" loomed upon the horizon, in a short fort- 
 night from the insolent and diabolical refusal 
 of the local Journalist to right Barnum. The 
 Herald was conducted by young Phineas three 
 years, in the course of which period he fell into 
 a furious libel quarrel with the venerable Judge 
 Dagget, which occasioned the immurement of 
 the fearless champion of popular rights in a 
 gloomy dungeon. He lingered there the allot- 
 ted time, when he was called for at the prison- 
 door by some 15,000 people, or so — borne to 
 the very Court House where he had been (per- 
 haps) ignominiously sentenced, where he de- 
 livered, (it is said) one of the most masterly 
 
PHINEAS T. BAPwNUM:, ESQ. 45 
 
 vindications of the Freedom of the Press, 
 which has ever been heard in Bethel. 
 
 Immediately after this triumphant vindica- 
 tion of the Eights of the People, Barnum (still 
 young, and in the very prime of his powers,) 
 engaged in the sale of Lottery Tickets, in which 
 he was known to clear $1000 a day, by sub- 
 agencies alone. He made an immense hit by 
 the sale of one of the great Prizes ; which, in 
 the joyful enthusiasm of the moment, prompted 
 him to entertain his fellow-citizens at a grand 
 public dinner, where he offered them a splendid 
 opportunity to realize fortunes, by disposing 
 of five hundred dollars worth of tickets in ac- 
 commodating lots. All this time, however, he 
 informs us, he hankered after caravans, wild 
 beast shows, and public exhibitions generally. 
 He was fearfully stirred up whenever he fell in 
 with one of the large-sized circus handbills, and 
 could not sleep for several nights. Much as 
 he had accomplished — hard as he had fought 
 in the dry-goods shop — in the vindication of 
 
46 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 the freedom of the press, and in the sale of lot- 
 tery tickets, (and all this before he had at- 
 tained his 30th year !) Mr. Barnum had not 
 yet had an opportunity to appear before the 
 world in his real character ; the most success- 
 ful contriver and caterer of public amusements 
 that ever has lived or ever will live in all the 
 rolling ages of time. His head was teeming — 
 this was in 1836 — with all sorts of brilliant con- 
 ceptions and daring designs, when one day, 
 traveling along the borders of Western Ken- 
 tucky, somewhere back of Louisville, on the 
 look-out for wonders, he came upon a miserable 
 little old hovel, with a miserable little old 
 woman in it, all by herself. This little old 
 woman was black, and with a decision stri- 
 kingly characteristic of the man, Mr. Barnum 
 promptly made up his mind to two points, that 
 she was about one hundred and fifty years old, 
 and had been the nurse of Washington. Being 
 clear on these two points himself, his next step 
 was to satisfy the public. Having taken his 
 
ESQ. 47 
 
 determination to do so at all hazards, he pur- 
 chased the little old black woman from a gentle- 
 man who appeared to be her owner ; her name 
 was Joyce Heath, and this was the name 
 which Mr. Barnum had inserted in the bill of 
 sale he drew upon parchment, (the original 
 must have been lost or mislaid,) to the father 
 of George Washington. To take away the 
 suspicion of any fraud or deception on his 
 part, Mr. Barnum steeped the parchment in 
 tobacco juice, and smoked it for some time over 
 a slow fire, which gave it the appearance of an 
 ancient deed. To heighten the effect, Mr. 
 Barnum employed a small boy, by the day, to 
 open and fold the parchment, so as to convey 
 the idea of its having been frequently handled 
 in the course of the century during which it 
 had been in existence. The hearty welcome 
 with which the aged and venerable nurse of 
 Washington was received, wherever she ap- 
 peared, cannot be forgotten. Mr. Barnum 
 was regarded as a great public benefactor, and 
 
48 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 took in large sums of money at the doors of 
 all the public exhibitions where the venerable 
 Joyce appeared. The throngs of people who 
 everywhere attended the interesting conversa- 
 tions she held on religion with learned divines, 
 and her very many satisfactory interviews with 
 men of great scientific insight, satisfied her that 
 she was somewhere about one hundred and 
 fifty years old. Mr. Barnum was satisfied, 
 (every deduction being fairly made) that she 
 could not have been at that time less than 
 sixty ; a most careful post-mortem examination 
 by an eminent surgeon, in the presence of some 
 fourteen hundred anxious witnesses, singularly 
 enough sustained this view of the age of Mrs. 
 Heath. It would give us vast delight to dwell 
 upon the after course of Mr. Barnum, from 
 this brilliant starting point ; his purchase of 
 steamboats, of the grand contest presented and 
 matured by him, between the celebrated Signor 
 Vivalla, and Boberts, the native plate-spinner ; 
 his connection with a circus company, with 
 
PHINEAS T. BARNUM, ESQ. 49 
 
 Diamond, the flower of negro dancers, (who 
 bloomed and blossomed under the auspices of 
 Barnum,) of his agency for the United States 
 for Sears' Pictorial Bible, the great sign of 
 which, lately to be seen at the corner of Beek- 
 man and Nassau streets, in this city, is of Bar- 
 num's own devising ; of his establishment of 
 the American Museum on its present popular 
 foundation ; of the wonderful, mysterious, and 
 imposing triumphs of Barnum with Tom 
 Thumb ; his grand climax in the late engage- 
 ment of Jenny Lind ; his enlargement of the 
 Museum to an entertainment of the first class, 
 which is open at this time — these are matters 
 blazoned every day in the newspapers, where 
 this man of restless activity and untiring in- 
 vention, keeps the public on the alert, allowing 
 them not a moment's peace, but opening their 
 eyes every morning to something new, some- 
 thing more wonderful. There is but one 
 Barnum, and the world (we are satisfied,) will 
 never live to see another. 
 
50 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 Spare a moment to visit the American Mu- 
 seum. What have we here ? 
 
 THE HAPPY FAMILY. 
 
 An ingenious old fellow, by the name of 
 iEsop, has happily embodied a History of 
 Human Nature and its chief motives and pas- 
 sions, in a series of fancy-scenes where birds 
 and beasts are the principal characters. No- 
 body ever pretended that YEsop was an actual 
 witness to these conversations, or that they 
 ever actually occurred. The modern succes- 
 sor of the old fable-maker, who is to be found 
 at the American Museum at all hours, day and 
 evening, " without extra charge," has pushed 
 the scheme a step further, and brings directly 
 before us in a large wire cage, the entire com- 
 pany of performers. AVe have observed the 
 young man closely, and have attentively sur- 
 veyed his collection, and if we are not grossly 
 mistaken, Barnum's iEsop is quite as sly and 
 deep as his ancient predecessor. He is evi- 
 
THE HAPPY FAMILY. 51 
 
 dently a man of satirical disposition, and in 
 visiting the country at this time had a motive 
 which any man may discern with half an eye in 
 his head. He has a little moral to enforce 
 (aside from wages,) and he has skilfully chosen 
 his time. If we have read the graphic an- 
 nouncement of the small bills aright, and if our 
 eyes — which are generally true to us on such 
 occasions — have not egregiously deceived us, 
 in the inspection which we made on a late 
 afternoon, you all, free citizens of the United 
 States, are interested in the exhibition of the 
 hundred trained animals and birds of the 
 most diverse characters ; yet all to be 
 found, in singular association, in the same 
 inclosure. 
 
 When we mention that in this country a 
 Presidential Election is always approaching, 
 and call your recollection to the strange inter- 
 mingling of parties, the odd combinations of per- 
 sons, and the pie-bald and party-colored appear- 
 ances which present themselves in every direc- 
 
52 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 tion, suddenly associating " on terms of lasting 
 friendship and amity" — you will understand at 
 once that this Happy Family of birds and 
 beasts at the Museum is but a type of the 
 political condition of the country. 
 
 Here we have them all in a cage, Whigs, 
 Democrats, Free Soilers, Webster men, Hards, 
 Softs, Scott men, Lot men, Free and Inde- 
 pendent, Tide-Waiters, Natives, Liberty men, 
 Higher Law and Lower Law, Eegulars and 
 Irregulars — each one by his representative. In 
 this singular assemblage, says our modern 
 iEsop — we follow his announcement literally — 
 are to be found bear, racoon, opossum, mon- 
 keys, squirrels, cats, rats, dogs, rabbits, guinea 
 pigs, hawks, owls, parrots, pigeons, partridges, 
 blackbirds, (genuine Free-soilers, no doubt,) 
 and others in great variety. 
 
 And for a graphic picture from the hand of 
 a master, of the delightful aspect of a nomina- 
 ting convention, just on the eve of passing 
 their " unanimous resolve." This Happy 
 
THE HAPPY FAMILY. 53 
 
 Family, continues the small bill, although op- 
 posed to each other — born enemies — neverthe- 
 less live together as happy as a bride and 
 bridegroom during the honey-moon. The weak 
 are without a fear, and the strong without a 
 disposition to injure. Several monkeys and 
 other animals are constantly performing a 
 variety of strange and laughable manoeuvres, 
 and you see the game dog caressing squirrels; 
 rats and cats in friendly intercourse ; hawks 
 doing the amiable to young pigeons ; and owls 
 brooding over mice as lovingly as if they were 
 juvenile owlets, fresh from the shell. It is (in 
 conclusion,) the most extraordinary instance of 
 the annihilation of antipathies for the common 
 good, and must be witnessed to be appreciated. 
 
 "While the Museum is as lively as it can be 
 with its wonders, let us step forth and take 
 note of one or two little histories which w 7 e en- 
 counter by the way-side. 
 
54 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 It does not require a long journey in this 
 mighty metropolis of ours — with its thousand 
 currents dashing hither and thither — to come 
 upon some little rill or offsetting stream of 
 life, which shall distinguish itself from the rest, 
 and engage the attention. There are little his- 
 tories by the way-side, quite as well worth 
 reading as the great volumes of national poli 
 tics and commerce. 
 
 Strolling along at leisure in the welcome 
 sunshine, we begin by espying, seated in the 
 sun, upon a druggist's shop-step, a little fellow, 
 sound asleep, with his head resting on the 
 handle of a basket. His face is as calm as 
 the late Nicholas Biddle's, when it approached 
 most nearly the blandness of a " summer morn- 
 ing.'' It is in the heart of Broadway, and the 
 omnibusses rattle by unheeded: the church 
 bells ring, elegant women, and quick-moving 
 men glide by — and even high above all, (an- 
 other strange sight for Broadway, too,) an old 
 woman raises her voice, " Yher's your good 
 
WAY-SIDE HISTOraES. 55 
 
 'East !" He sleeps unmoved, and seems by 
 his smiling looks to have pleasant dreams. God 
 bless the child, whatever his future fortunes 
 may be ! 
 
 And here we have, resting on the curb of 
 St. Paul's church-yard, opposite the gay Mu- 
 seum, a pale woman in black, holding her head 
 upon her hands and sitting mournfully and 
 closely veiled. Ah ! what a history of sorrow 
 and heart grief is there ! Not in one chapter, 
 hastily written, soon begun, and soon ended — 
 but a long, wearisome story — told by day, told 
 by night, on Sabbath and week-day, in fast and 
 feast — alone, and in the crowd — at home, and 
 far away. The spectre, who is the historian 
 of her troubles, follows her still, keeps at her 
 back, is in her eye, in her mind — it is the image 
 of her Lost Virtue, a fearful apparition, which 
 no earthly power can lay, and which will only 
 fade from her view (and then, forever, let us 
 hope,) with the closing light of the world ! 
 
56 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 Up the street we go ! 
 
 Fancy suggests to us just here, to step inW 
 that high -shouldered building on the corner of 
 Leonard-street, in remembrance of an odd 
 little friend of ours, a notable New-York char- 
 acter, recently deceased. Gently cross the 
 threshold, and lay aside the hat, in memory 
 of 
 
 LITTLE TRAPPAN. 
 
 Tenderly let us deal with the memory of the 
 dead — though they may have been the hum- 
 blest of the living ! Let us never forget that 
 though they are parted from us, with a recollec- 
 tion of many frailties clinging about their mortal 
 career, they have passed into a purer and bet- 
 ter light, where these very frailties may prove 
 to have been virtues in disguise — a grotesque 
 tongue to be translated into the clear speech 
 of angels when our ears come to be purged of 
 the jargon- sounds of worldly trade and seltish 
 fashion. While we would not draw from house- 
 hold concealments into the glare of general 
 
LITTLE TRAPPAN. 57 
 
 notice any being whose life was strictly private, 
 we may, with unblamed pen, linger for a mo- 
 ment, in a hasty but not irrespective sketch, 
 over the departure of one whose peculiarities 
 — from the open station he held for many 
 years — were so widely known, that no publi- 
 city can affront his memory. Thousands will 
 be pleased sorrowfully to dwell with a quaint 
 regret over his little traits and turns of char- 
 acter, set forth in their true light by one who 
 wished him well while living, and who would 
 entomb him gently now that he is gone. 
 
 Whoever has had occasion, any time, for the 
 last ten years, to consult a file of newspapers 
 at the rooms of the New York Society Library, 
 must remember a singular little figure which 
 presented itself, skipping about those precincts 
 with a jerky and angular motion. He must 
 recollect in the first half-minute after entering, 
 when newly introduced, having been rapidly 
 approached by a man of slender build, in a 
 frock coat, low shoes, a large female head in a 
 
58 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 cameo in his bosom, an eye-glass dangling to 
 and fro ; and presently thrusting into his very 
 face a wrinkled countenance, twitchy and pe- 
 culiarly distorted, in (we think it was) the left 
 eye. This was little Trappan himself, the 
 superintendent of the rooms, and arch-custodian 
 of the filed newspapers : who no doubt asked 
 you sharply on your first appearance, rising on 
 one leg, as he spoke : 
 
 " Well, sir, what do you w T ant ?" 
 This question was always put to a debutant 
 with a sternness of demeanor and severity of 
 tone, absolutely appalling. But wait a little 
 and you will see the really kind old gentleman 
 softening down, and meek as a lamb, leading 
 you about to crop of the sweetest bunches his 
 garden of preserves could furnish. It was his 
 way only : and, while surprised into admira- 
 tion of his new T suavity, you were lingering 
 over an open paper which he had spread before 
 you with alacrit}', you were startled into a 
 fresh and greater wonder, at the uprising of a 
 
LITTLE TRAPPAN. 59 
 
 voice in a distant quarter, shouting, roaring 
 almost in a furious key, and demanding with 
 clamorous passion — 
 
 " "Why the devil gentlemen couldn't conduct 
 themselves as gentlemen, and keep their legs 
 off the tables !" 
 
 Looking hastily about, you discover the little 
 old man, planted square in the middle of the 
 floor, firing hot shot and rapid speech, in broad- 
 sides, upon a doubled-up man, half on a chair, 
 and half on the reading-table — with a perfect 
 chorus of eyes rolling about the room from the 
 assembled readers, centering upon the little 
 figure in its spasm. Silence again for three 
 minutes, and all the gentlemen present are 
 busy with the afternoon papers, (just come in) 
 when suddenly a second crash is heard, and 
 some desperate, unknown mutilator of a file — 
 from which an oblong, three inches by an inch 
 and a half is gone — is held up to the scorn, con- 
 tumely, and measureless detestation of the civi- 
 lized world. The peal of thunder dies away, 
 
60 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 and with it the spare figure has disappeared 
 at a side door, out of the Reading Room into 
 the Library : but it is not more than a couple 
 of minutes after, that the Reading Room tal 
 are alive with placards, bulletins, and announce- 
 ments in pen and ink, variously requiring, im- 
 ploring, and warning frequenters of the room 
 against touching said files with unholy hands. 
 These are no sooner set and displayed, than 
 the irrepressible Superintendent is bending 
 over some confidential friend at one of the 
 tables, and making him privately and fully ac- 
 quainted with the unheard of outrages which 
 require these violent demonstrations. 
 
 And yet a kind old man was he ! We drop 
 a tear much more promptly — from much nearer 
 the heart — over his lonely grave, than upon 
 the tomb of even men as great and distin- 
 guished as the City Aldermen, who once wel- 
 comed Father JIathew among us with such 
 enthusiasm. Little Trappan had his ways, and 
 they were not bad ways — take them altogether. 
 
LITTLE TRAPPAN. 61 
 
 He cherished his ambition as well as other men. 
 
 ■i 
 
 It was an idea of his own — suggested from no 
 foreign source, prompted by the movement of 
 no learned society — to make a full, comprehen- 
 sive and complete collection of all animated 
 creatures of the bug kind taken within the 
 walls and in the immediate purlieus of the 
 building, (for such he held the edifice of the 
 New York Society to be par excellence.) This 
 led him into a somewhat more active way of 
 life than he had been used to, and involved him 
 in climbings, reachings-forth of the arms, rapid 
 scurries through apartments, in pursuit of flies, 
 darning-needles, bugs, and beetles, which, we 
 sometimes thought, were exhausting too rapidly 
 the scant vitality of the old File-keeper. He 
 however achieved his object in one of the rarest 
 museums of winged and footed creatures to be 
 found anywhere. We believe he reckoned at 
 the time of his demise, twenty-three of the 
 beetle kind, fourteen bugs and one mouse in 
 his depository. In one direction he was foiled. 
 
62 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 There was a great bug, of the roach species, 
 often to be seen about the place — a hideously 
 ill-favored and ill-mannered monster — which, 
 with a preternatural activity seemed to possess 
 the library in every direction — sometimes on 
 desk, sometimes on ladder, tumbling and roll- 
 ing about the floor — and perpetually, with a 
 sort of brutish instinct of spite, throwing him- 
 self in the old man's way, and continually 
 thwarting his plans. And he was never, with 
 all his activity and intensity of purpose, able 
 to capture the great bug and stick a pin 
 through him, as he desired. This, we think, 
 wore upon the old man and finally shortened 
 his days. It is not long since that the little 
 superintendent yielded up the ghost. We 
 hope some friend to his memory will succeed 
 in mastering the bug, and in carrying out the 
 (known) wishes of the deceased. 
 
 This curious and rare collection was, how- 
 ever, but a subordinate object in the ambition 
 of the bite excellent superintendent. It was a 
 
LITTLE TRAPPAN. 63 
 
 desire of his — the burning and longing hope of 
 his life — to found a library which should be 
 in some measure worthy of the great city of 
 New York. With this object in view, he made 
 it a point to frequent all the great night auc- 
 tions of Chatham-street, the Bowery, and Park 
 Eow : and he scarcely ever returned of a night 
 without bringing home some rare old volume 
 or pamphlet not to be had elsewhere for love 
 or money — which nobody had ever heard of 
 before — and which never cost him more than 
 twice its value. He seemed to have acquired 
 his peculiar taste in the selection and purchase 
 of books from that learned and renowned body, 
 the trustees of the Society Library, with which 
 he had been so long associated. It has been 
 supposed by some that he was prompted 
 in his course by a spirit of rivalry with the 
 parent institution. There is some plausibility 
 in this conjecture, for at the time of his death 
 he was pushing it hard — having accumulated 
 in the course of ten years' diligent devotion of 
 
64 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 the odd sums he could spare from meat and 
 drink and refreshment, no less than three hun- 
 dred volumes, pamphlets, and odd numbers of 
 old magazines. We suppose, in acknowledg- 
 ment of a generous emulation, it is the inten- 
 tion of the Trustees to place a tablet to his 
 memory on the walls of the Parent Institution. 
 
 There is a single other circumstance con- 
 nected with the career of the deceased super- 
 intendent scarcely worth mentioning. It is 
 perhaps, too absurd and frivolous to refer to 
 at all : and to save ourselves from being held 
 in light esteem by every intelligent reader, and 
 impelling him to laugh in our very face, we 
 shall be obliged to disclose it tenderly, and 
 under a generality. 
 
 A character so marked and peculiar as Little 
 Trappan, (Old Trap, as he was familiarly 
 called,) could have scarcely failed to attract 
 more or less, the attention of the observers of 
 human nature. They would have spied the 
 richness of the land, and dwelt with lingering 
 
LITTLE TRAPPAN. 65 
 
 pleasantry on his little traits of character and 
 disposition from day to day. And it would 
 have so happened that among these he could 
 not have escaped the regard of men who made 
 it a business to study, and to describe human 
 nature in its varieties. For instance, if Little 
 Trappan had been, under like circumstances, 
 a denizen of Paris, he might, probably, long 
 before this, have figured in the quaint notices 
 of Jules Janin; Hans Christian Andersen 
 would have taken him for a god-send in Stock- 
 holm : Thackeray must have developed him we 
 can readily suppose, with some little change, in 
 one of his brilliant sketches or stories. 
 
 Then what a time we should have had of 
 it ! Such merry enjoyment, such peals of hon- 
 est laughter, over the eccentricities of little old 
 Trap ; such pilgrimages to the library to get 
 a glimpse of him f such paintings by painters 
 of his person; such sketches by sketchers; 
 such a to-do all round the world ! But it was 
 his great and astounding misfortune to belong 
 
66 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 to this miserable, wo-begone, and fun-forsaken 
 city of New York, and to have fallen, as we 
 are told, (though we know nothing about it) 
 into the hands of nobody but a wretched 
 American humorist, who, it is vaguely re- 
 ported, has made him the hero of a book of 
 some three hundred and fifty pages — as in a 
 word — New York is New York^Little Trap- 
 pan, Little Trappan — and the author a poor 
 devil native scribbler — why, the less said about 
 the matter the better ! We trust, however, 
 his friendly rivals, the trustees of the library, 
 will be good enough to erect the tablet ; if not 
 they will oblige us by passing a resolution on 
 the subject. 
 
 And now, ladies and gentlemen, if you 
 please, we will stroll up the street. 
 
 "What have we announced here with such a 
 display of body, legs, and tail, on a canvas 
 which covers the whole house-side ? " The 
 
THE HAIRLESS HORSE. 67 
 
 Horse without any hair on his tail !" A friend 
 of ours asserts, (we have never seen the wonder 
 for ourselves,) that he has had a private inter- 
 view with this horse without any hair on, w T ho 
 is stabling for the present, in Broadway, near 
 Houston-street, next door to that prime house 
 of entertainment, " The Eldorado." (We 
 strongly suspect our friend has been indulging 
 at that house.) He asserts that he had it direct 
 from the horse himself, that he is naturally pro- 
 vided with as good a coat of hair as any decent 
 beast that lives. That he w 7 as taken in his 
 youth and shaved to the very hide, with the 
 hope that the hair would never come back 
 again ; that it does come back, and will keep 
 coming back ; but as the proprietors were de- 
 termined to have a " hairless horse," they gave 
 out that they had one ! The consequence 
 is, (continued the' horse, as reported by this 
 gentleman,) I have no peace of my life. To 
 keep me clean-shaved, I am followed about 
 wherever I go, by a regiment of barbers, who 
 
68 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 are constantly at me with their razors and 
 tweezers, so that I am half the time flayed alive. 
 These fellows are now behind that little screen 
 you see there, and the visitors' backs are no 
 sooner turned than they rush out, lather me 
 from snout to tail, and commence peeling me 
 with their razors. Don't believe a word of it. 
 I am (in spite of the handbills) a humbug ! a 
 catchpenny ! and not a natural curiosity ! Nor 
 am I a hairless horse, caught in South America 
 by the celebrated Indian Crossman, whom you 
 can now see in Broadway, third door above 
 Houston-street. Nor is this animal most beau- 
 tiful to look at, and perfectly broke — without 
 any hair — and looks like India rubber. I have, 
 it is true, been seen by thousands of ladies and 
 gentlemen ; but they have not — not one of 
 them — expressed their surprise and satisfac- 
 tion. The owner has not been offered six 
 thousand dollars, and refused it. 
 
 So much for the report of our curious friend. 
 He has evidently been misled by that wicked 
 
DISBANDED LAMP-POSTS. 69 
 
 horse, who is, no doubt, a long-headed fellow, 
 and wishes to get the sympathy of the public, 
 and to secure more oats, and perfect liberty to 
 run at large. He is hairless, for we have seen 
 him with our own eyes, and there's not so 
 much as an eyelash about the brute. 
 
 As we may have a night scene or two before 
 we are through our panoramic pilgrimage, and 
 remembering that the moon is not always to be 
 depended on, I dropped in the other morning 
 upon the General Superintendent of Lamps for 
 the City and County of New- York. While 
 waiting in his office, we cast our eye into the 
 yard, and discovered a great heap of disbanded 
 wooden lamp posts — thrown out of use by the 
 introduction of gas and the employment of iron 
 posts. Such, said we, moralizing to ourselves., 
 are the mutations of fortune : to-day, the 
 Whigs are in power, and have all the good 
 
70 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 gifts in their possession ; to-morrow it is the 
 Democrats ; one hour the rich merchant carries 
 his head high, as did these old lamp-posts, 
 above the surrounding crowd — the next he is 
 laid low with the common herd of the bank- 
 rupt; beauty shines, like these, to-night, and 
 when the morrow comes, she pales in age, and 
 is extinguished forever ! 
 
 "We did not, however, stop with these reflec- 
 tions, but set ourselves upon thinking of the 
 various stations these dead lamp-posts had oc- 
 cupied in their time. How some had gloried 
 in the glitter and throng of Broadway, while 
 others had led a retired life in remote streets ; 
 of the different scenes they had witnessed — 
 from early evening, when the wan sempstress 
 hies homeward, on through the night, as revel 
 grows high and general. Some we fancied, 
 from a peculiar twist of the neck, had been 
 more observant than others. There was one — ■ 
 a rusty, ragged, much-decayed gentleman — 
 we were quite sure, had been a citizen and 
 
DISBANDED LAMP-POSTS. 71 
 
 looker-on upon affairs^ here in our island, as far 
 back as the time of the old Kevolutionary war ; 
 and we imagined, if he could but once speak, 
 he would be able to tell strange stories of plots 
 and counterplots, of secret dispatches read by 
 his pale light, and rebel patriots and tory gen- 
 erals gathered about his base. 
 
 There was another, on which we thought we 
 discovered traces of crimson stains, partially 
 w 7 orn away or sunk into the w^ood. Ha ! — 
 thought we — this fellow has seen a murder; 
 and then we ran back, in our mind, to the time 
 of Johnson, who, it will be remembered, stab- 
 bed Murray, in an alley. He may, staggering 
 into the street, have clutched with his blood- 
 spotted hands, this very old lamp-post for 
 support. 
 
 A sudden turn was given to our reflections 
 by seeing some fifty of these decayed gentle- 
 men borne away on a cart, which immediately 
 set our fancy in motion, to conceive whither 
 they were going. Out of fashion and laid low 
 
72 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 in the favor of the world, they were doubtless 
 retiring to the suburbs of the town, there to 
 set up for a season, to give light and comfort 
 to the villagers — to watch and wait — to light 
 and to be extinguished — till the advancing 
 w T ave of civilization should once again sweep 
 them from the earth, and bear them away still 
 farther and farther westward, till, one day, 
 we may chance upon some of these, our old 
 acquaintances, illuminating the streets of San 
 Francisco, on the furthest borders of the 
 Pacific ! 
 
 But let us get on apace with our Panorama ! 
 Who is this that slouches past us, in rusty 
 hat, dusty dress, and a dead cigar rolling like 
 a dismasted spar from one side of his mouth to 
 the other ? Small of person as he is, that is 
 one of the most eminent of New- York notabili- 
 ties — in a word, and in your ear, that is 
 
THE HORSE-RADISH ENTHUSIAST. 73 
 
 THE HORSE-RADISH ENTHUSIAST. 
 When we were first told that there was a 
 man in this city who had devoted himself to 
 the interests of the humble, though high-flavor- 
 ed plant known as the Horse-Radish ; that he 
 believed in it ; had studied its qualities, and 
 had given his life, from earliest youth, to its 
 culture and circulation, we were, we confess, 
 entirely incredulous. We had never seen the 
 man and had some reasonable doubts of his 
 existence. "We made diligent inquiry for his 
 whereabouts — and were told that he kept his 
 strong-hold and headquarters somewhere on 
 the East River. Struck by the strangeness of 
 the character described to us, and determined 
 to settle, once for all, the question of his exist- 
 ence or non-existence, we resolved on a pil- 
 grimage of discovery in that remote section of 
 the metropolis. Selecting a sunshiny morning, 
 and appropriating to ourselves a seat in a Dry 
 Dock stage, which would carry us, we were 
 
74 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 told, somewhere in that vicinity, we set ou 
 full of hopes and doubts as to the result of our 
 venture. In a half hour's ride, and a walk of 
 a quarter more, we found ourselves in the front 
 of a building, ornamented with a painting at 
 full length of a gallant sailor with hat in hand, 
 supporting a banner, spread to the breeze, 
 inscribed " A little more Horse-Eadish — 
 Captain Post ;" and underneath in broad, un- 
 mistakable capitals, " Our Motto — Eough and 
 Keady — Our Country, Horse-Kadish and 
 Liberty." Of course our curiosity was not a 
 little aggravated to get a view of the man, 
 who could thus in a broad expansive spirit, 
 identify the diffusion of Horse-Radish with 
 free institutions and the welfare of his native 
 land. Besides the main picture we found a 
 flag with similar devices flying from every win- 
 dow and loop-hole of the house ; and in the 
 open door of the main hall we espied a four- 
 teen pound gun planted with a point blank 
 range towards the entrance. " This man," we 
 
 
THE HORSE-RADISH ENTHUSIAST. 75 
 
 said to ourselves, " certainly sets a high value 
 upon the plant he has taken under his protec- 
 tion, since he appears to be prepared to protect 
 it at the hazard of his life." On the proper 
 inquiry we were ushered into a large back 
 room, and as we found, into the presence of 
 Captain Post himself, whom we discerned in 
 the centre of a great swarm of small bottles 
 with sealed tops, and holding in his hand an 
 enormous root of the species of Radish in which 
 he deals. Captain Post, to our pleased sur- 
 prise, addressed us in the most affable and 
 familiar manner, and from the first moment of 
 our introduction to him, treated us as a friend 
 and equal. There was a glow of satisfaction 
 on his countenance, which was explained when 
 we learned that the root he then had in his 
 hand, was known to be the largest ever grown 
 in America, and that ithad been raised directly 
 under his own eye. Captain Post, in person 
 is of small build, about the mould of the late 
 Emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, 
 
76 THE TEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 and has a good deal of the quickness of eye 
 and vivacity of countenance which distinguish- 
 ed that eminent general. 
 
 He has also, in his movements, a good deal 
 of the rapidity and decision of character which 
 marked Napoleon ; often getting a couple 
 of dozen of the grated Radish into bottles be- 
 fore breakfast ; and dispatching ten or twenty 
 dozen to the down-town hotels in the course 
 of the day. He takes a great interest, as might 
 be perhaps expected, in our chief public houses, 
 and speaks of the Astor House, American 
 Hotel, and others of the larger ordinaries as 
 one who wishes them well. That he does, is 
 shown in the fact that he furnishes them con- 
 stantly with Horse Radish, (a hundred small 
 bottles apiece per week,) at a reasonable ad- 
 vance on the manufacturing prices. In his 
 domestic circle, and in all the intercourse of 
 private life, Captain Post is much more amiable 
 and gentle of deportment than we could hope 
 to find one who spent the better part of his 
 

 THE HORSE-RADISH ENTHUSIAST. 77 
 
 time — his most laborious and thoughtful hours 
 — in the preparation and bottling of so stimu 
 lating an article of diet — he is about thirty-five 
 years of age, and has a long life of public use- 
 fulness before him. When we consfaer closely 
 the nature of his business — we will learn how 
 much he has to do with our dearest interests 
 " For," as he properly says, " this yer city of 
 York would be sure to go to sleep if I didn't 
 prick it up with the grated Radish, reg'larly." 
 There is no doubt that something — if not a 
 great deal — of the extraordinary activity of our 
 citizens in business, which has made them 
 famous all the world over, is ascribable to the 
 piquant and lively qualities of Captain Post's 
 admirable preparation. It is regarded by per- 
 sons who have given attention to the subject, 
 as decidedly the liveliest, and most wholesome 
 Horse Radish that comes into market. As 
 Captain Post is constantly visited by great 
 numbers of strangers from all parts of the 
 country — curious to see a man who has im- 
 
78 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 parted so extraordinary a celebrity and inter- 
 est to what many have regarded as a very 
 humble esculent — a mere weed — we may men- 
 tion, definitely, that he is to be found on the 
 corner of j£venue C and Sixth-street — most at 
 leisure — at about three in the afternoon, (when 
 the main bottling of the day is through with,) 
 and that persons arriving in carriages will find 
 it to their convenience to set down with the 
 horses' heads towards the new reservoir of the 
 gas company at the foot of the street. 
 
 The sun begins to decline a little upon our 
 picture. We have had something of a tramp 
 up and down, and I think that here, ladies and 
 gentlemen, we may fairly treat ourselves to a 
 short -holiday, and make an excursion of an 
 hour or two into the country, for the sake of 
 fresh air. The w r eather is delicious ; and by- 
 the way, before we set out let me tell you that 
 
A SHORT EXCURSION. 79 
 
 capricious as it seems, New York furnishes a 
 singular evidence of the constancy of Nature. 
 Examining the other day some old books and 
 records relating to the early history of our 
 island, we found set down to its credit the self- 
 same weather and climate which belong to it 
 at this day in the good year of eighteen hun- 
 dred and fifty-three. The same soft days of 
 sunshine and summer creeping in upon the 
 bleakness, and no doubt causing the Indian 
 dames and warriors to skip along the heights 
 and ridges, pretty much as do our fine ladies 
 and exquisites on the promenade side of Broad- 
 way. Even in the human nature of this island, 
 some would say two hundred years of war, 
 steam, and trade, had wrought no considerable 
 change ; that in their essential qualities the 
 men and women are the same; that the paint 
 used by the squaw was only got out of the 
 earth with her own hand, while that employed 
 by the modern fine lady is procured from the 
 store with her purse ; that the Indian-chief 
 
80 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 dandy strutted in a blanket, while his Broad- 
 way rival disports in a swallow-tail; and that 
 if they were all (according to the old familiar 
 illustration,) shaken in a sack together, the old 
 sachem who had spent the prime of his life in 
 scalping his neighbors, would have quite as 
 good a chance of coming out first, as the Wall- 
 street broker who devotes himself to the shav- 
 ing of notes. 
 
 And now we will set forth to enjoy part 
 of 
 
 4N AFTERNOON NOT FAR FROM NEW YORK. 
 
 Who knows when he tosses a copper in the 
 air, whether it shall come down a naked " One 
 Cent," or the bountiful goddess of Liberty ! 
 A great poet has said there are but two mo 
 ments in the life of a pearl-diver — the one, 
 when he plunges, a beggar — the other when 
 he rises, a prince ! But who can promise him 
 self when he sets forth on an excursion of 
 pleasure, that he shall bring back anything but 
 
A SHORT EXCURSION. 81 
 
 an aching bead, weary limbs, and a memory 
 too tenacious of sandy roads, and a bad inn? 
 
 There is a fortune in small things as well as 
 great ; and as we push our course for a little 
 way-side ferry on the North River, who would 
 have assured us that we were to be gratified 
 in the slightest degree, beyond the ordinary 
 run of travellers, and the lean chances of mor- 
 tality ? To-be-sure, there is something hope- 
 ful in coming, whilst tarrying under the awn- 
 ing, upon a candy dealer with his basket, who 
 presents a marvellous and highly colored re- 
 semblance or copy of a distinguished Ameri- 
 can author — suggesting to us, in his basket of 
 knick-knacks and small comfits, a happy parody 
 of the dainty trifles with which his great ori- 
 ginal has titivated the public any time these 
 twenty years. The Hudson River, too, may 
 be set down at any time of day or night, as a 
 pretty sure card. You may hug yourself con- 
 fidently on its waters with securing two or 
 three cabinet pictures, a well executed land- 
 
82 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA 
 
 scape, and light and shadow of scenery near 
 by and far off, not to be esteemed meanly. 
 Aboard the boat, bound in due course for 
 Fort Lee, up the river, we encounter baskets 
 with spring-lids, in possession of sundry heavy- 
 whiskered descendants of David, and which it 
 is a sworn thing store something with a relish, 
 from the awful eyes with which they are re- 
 garded by the crew of boys and girls of the 
 bread and butter age, who hover about, and 
 who, whatever the crisis of affairs in the navi- 
 gation, never once lose sight for a moment of 
 the handles. No incident, so far, worth record- 
 ing, till we approach Bull's Ferry, when, lo ! a 
 long red streamer is discovered flying from a 
 pole planted directly at the door of the public 
 house at the landing ; as we near it, we read 
 on the streamer " Ned Buntline's Own" — and 
 spreading himself on the verandah we dis- 
 cover a broad-chested man in a blue frock coat, 
 with a military undress air — and lying, just off 
 the shore, abreast the tavern, a yacht, with 
 
A SHORT EXCURSION. 83 
 
 another penon with a like inscription — from all 
 of which we understand that a well-known city 
 editor has taken possession of the neighbor- 
 hood and holds court at the ferry, as the bar- 
 ons of old at a castle of strength. Here, we 
 are informed, he keeps his state, and makes 
 merry with a crew of roysterers, on land by 
 day, and in cruises by night. FalstafF and his 
 route of followers come to life again ! What 
 matters it whether we are of his inclining or 
 not ? Whether we approve his organ of opin- 
 ion in the city as orthodox or not ? We look 
 upon the thing as it is. And here is a bit of 
 fun under our very noses, in the heart of the 
 busy nineteenth century, which teaches us 
 something if we will take the trouble to look 
 at it with our own eyes. A city editor has 
 pitched his stronghold on the Jersey shore, and 
 letting grow his fiery beard, snaps his fingers 
 at the town, and puts at scorn and defiance, all 
 the puissance of tip-staves, courts, and posses. 
 We are, however, bound up the river, and 
 
84 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 haven't the time allowed us to stop if we would. 
 With a good head of steam (the captain has 
 mounted a new hat this morning, and feels 
 bound to do something extraordinary,) we pass 
 in the awful repose of its shut-up and deserted 
 inn, Tilletudlum the classic ; though why it is 
 called Tilletudlum, rather than the village of 
 Tompkinville, or the village of Small Beer, or 
 Puddle-come-bung, we find laid down in none 
 of the current guide books. Fort Lee at last, 
 and the pick-nickers with their baskets ashore, 
 mounting the acclivity they pitch themselves 
 in the shade, directly in the lee — before the 
 very door of the public house — for which there 
 is no charge — and proceed to entertain the 
 landlord with the sight of one of the best en- 
 joyed banquets we have ever known. The 
 landlord comes to the door once or twice and 
 grins strangely, goes in, in haste, and presently 
 an outcry is heard in the upper chamber — 
 known by its peculiar character to belong to 
 the landlord's oldest son undergoing a u lam- 
 
A SHORT EXCURSION. 85 
 
 ming," The pick-nickers hold on their course 
 and laugh louder than ever. They propose to 
 leave the crumbs on the lawn, that it may not 
 be forgotten that they have been there. There 
 is a company of dancers from the city on the 
 other side of the house, who are perhaps 
 dancing to the same purpose. 
 
 We have seen something, but not all yet — 
 we might sit a long afternoon, with our cigar, 
 under the awning, watching the sloops that 
 come and go, speeding past, like dreams, with 
 their spread sails — but the cigars we have with 
 us are of that temper which will neither light 
 nor go out — neither tobacco — nor weed — nor 
 stick — utterly, hopelessly, and irrecoverably 
 impracticable, and such as it is the delight and 
 glory of sinful dealers to sell, with a hope or 
 perhaps inward consciousness that they are to 
 be attempted remote from civilized life, and all 
 prospect of relief; and that distant woods and 
 solitudes shall be made vocal with long, loud, 
 
86 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 and unrestrained curses in acknowledgment of 
 their wicked craft. 
 
 We must tramp it back, part of the way at 
 least, by the woods. It is discussed whether 
 to Tilletudlum or Bull's Ferry, and is pre- 
 sently concluded that no power of foot could 
 attain the lower landing before the boat would 
 shoot by. To Tilletudlum then in a gentle 
 jog — when to our horror off goes the bell, 
 which we supposed had a half hour at least to 
 spare and keep quiet in — and we are forced to 
 push on at a bouncing pace or lodge in the 
 woods. In a breathing space we sit down in 
 the solitude of that village, or rather villa of 
 mighty name : and have the satisfaction of 
 noticing the steamer lying quietly at her wharf, 
 not having, in spite of all her notification, stir- 
 red a peg as yet. She comes along bye-and- 
 bye, and when w r e are once aboard, w T e suppose 
 she is bound to New-York. No such thing. 
 She espies a hat and petticoat on the hill — 
 more hats — more petticoats — and the road as 
 
A SHORT EXCURSION. 87 
 
 far as you can see, is alive with trampers, 
 (another party of pick-nickers from the back 
 country who have been startled in their revelry, 
 and are making for the boat for dear life.) At 
 the head of the line, watched anxiously in his 
 mighty paternal struggle, a middle-aged gentle- 
 man in white breeches is espied, dragging on 
 with the speed of an Eclipse and the energy 
 of a Hercules, a wicker-wagon by a pole. It 
 is his first-born, and to do the poor man jus- 
 tice, he toils down the slope like a giant. All 
 hands in the boat are assembled at the rails to 
 welcome him in, should he reach the boat in 
 time ; but modest, as worthy — (lost sight of 
 for a moment at a toil -gate on the road) — he 
 has resigned the pole to a female hand, and 
 tries to look about, as he comes aboard, as if 
 he had no connection with the wicker- wagon 
 whatever. 
 
 It is now discovered, as they infuse them- 
 selves among the old assortment of passengers, 
 that the new-comers are rather distinguished 
 
88 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 people ; and that they embellish the boat, be- 
 sides their own delightful and tonnish persons, 
 with sundry triangles, banjos, and tamborines, 
 and a strong suspicion spreads about that 
 they are from East Bowery, in their primitive 
 estate. The presumption is raised that they 
 may be sometimes seen in the pit of the Bow- 
 ery Theatre, and that they are original read- 
 ers of the cheap weeklies. They are at least so 
 markedly peculiar in dress and appearance, as 
 to color the company wherever they mingle 
 with it. At first — the boat is under way — 
 they are in a wonderful state of commotion, 
 moving uneasily about, pushing and pulling 
 each other freely, and indulging in a good deal 
 of vigorous horse-play. The young ladies of 
 the party go forward on the upper deck, where 
 they encounter a spanking gale — which with 
 the dilation of dress and coy development of 
 form it occasions, brings on a decided increase 
 of merriment in the party. At length, and all 
 
A SHORT EXCURSION. 89 
 
 at once, as if it were a sort of rocket shot into 
 the air, a cry is raised, u Let's have a dance !" 
 
 With precious little delay and still less cere- 
 mony, an impromptu committee clears the deck, 
 setting aside old women, and certain spare 
 young men of the " aristocratic quarter," who 
 are somehow on board, along with the stools, 
 as if they were no more to them than so much 
 dumb furniture in the way. The banjo and 
 triangle take up their station against a post in 
 the centre : two sets are formed and away 
 they go. Free as air — zig-zag, with a dash 
 and a fling — with more muscle expended in one 
 shuffle than in a whole evening of a fashionable 
 party — the young women half mad with zeal, 
 they never stay at a single dance, but go right 
 on, like a strong-chested reader, without minding 
 colons, or periods, or ends of sentences — from 
 one dance to another without taking breath. 
 
 11 Hallo ! There he is ! That's him !" " No, 
 that ain't Neddy." "Yes it is!" "/know 
 him !" and the dance is broken up in a hurry, 
 
90 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 and all parties rush to the rail. The broad- 
 chested man of Bull's Ferry, in the military 
 undress, has come down from his post on the 
 verandah, and is standing under a broad- 
 brimmed hat on the wharf. " Three cheers for 
 Neddy I" Three cheers are given which evi- 
 dently throw the gigantic Edward into a doubt 
 — he don't know whether they mean it or not 
 — (the East Boweryites are fast practical 
 jokers,) he slides off his hat, smiles sideways, 
 and compromises the matter with a waive of 
 his hand which may express " Much obliged, 
 gentlemen !" or u No you don't !" just as you 
 please to interpret it. 
 
 Vigorous dances again without number, then 
 negro songs attempted with doubtful success. 
 A man-boy of the party with a crippled brown 
 linen coat, and a hat of the kind generally 
 worn by circus-men in their private character, 
 undertakes a complicated melody, referring to 
 one Tucker, fails, and withdraws down stairs, 
 slightly chop-fallen and a good deal laughed at. 
 
A SHORT EXCURSION. 91 
 
 Other singers, with various fortunes, occupy 
 the time, when presently Brown Coat returns 
 and whispers to one of the party, the news, what- 
 ever it is, spreads as if by electric telegraph, or 
 faster — and the male portion of the company 
 rise as one man, and rush below stairs. " Fight " 
 proved to have been the magical summons — 
 but it was merely a fetch of the Brown Coat, 
 in revenge for his own misfortune. They were 
 down there and they wouldn't go up for noth- 
 ing — so they all take a drink at the bar. 
 
 The ship most surely tossed must and may 
 reach a port — and steamboats will get to the 
 wharf, if you will have patience. Having in a 
 single afternoon travelled twenty-two miles by 
 water, and two by land — having seen and con- 
 templated an indefinite range of scenery — hav- 
 ing discovered at least four distinct varieties of 
 character of the human species; havinglearned 
 something new (as in the case of the Hebrew 
 pic-nickers and the impracticable cigars,) of the 
 artful selfishness of men, and (in the case of 
 
92 THE PEN-AND-INK TANORAMA. 
 
 the landlord's son,) of the unjust distribution 
 of rewards and punishments in the world — with 
 a vast deal more which the intelligent observer 
 must fathom and disclose for himself — we have 
 come to the conclusion that open a door wher- 
 ever you will, whether it be closet or parlor, 
 you are sure to come upon a store of strange 
 sights, which will pay you well for the trouble 
 of turning the knob. 
 
 In town again, w 7 ith eyes sharpened by our 
 holiday — let us follow our panorama as it 
 moves along. Ladies and gentlemen, you have 
 probably seen several historical paintings, and 
 read a number of historical romances in your 
 time with profound admiration ! Will you be 
 good enough to look this way at 
 
 THE NEW YORK FIREMAN. 
 Mark the picture before you. It is the 
 
THE NEW YORK FIREMAN. 93 
 
 morning of a wide and fierce conflagration. 
 The clouds are dull and sullen — the streets 
 are bare. There is no pomp of banners, no 
 music of chivalry, but a band of worn-out men 
 are dragging on their faithful engine, grimed 
 and sooty. At their head marches the fore- 
 man, his leathern cap cased in ice of the frozen 
 water, his breast with a mail of the same qual- 
 ity, rope in hand, his trumpet hanging listlessly 
 at his side. And so they pass on wearily and 
 slowly, for they have not seen sleep nor known 
 pause in their contest with the elements for 
 two days' space. And now tell us, where in 
 history or romance is to be found a picture of 
 self-devotion and modest manliness, of forti- 
 tude and courage like this ? No knight return- 
 ing from the field, no victor-chief from battle, 
 with gorgeous pennons and the plaudits of his 
 people, presents to us a spectacle which more 
 keenly touches our sympathies, and prompts 
 us more readily to acknowledge the nobility 
 of our nature, than the sight of these brave 
 
94 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 Firemen, returning to their homes in the weary 
 morning. 
 
 In the famous Middle Ages, ladies and 
 gentlemen, there was a man who separated 
 himself from society, put his head in a steel 
 cask, his body in a steel jerkin, and his feet in 
 stirrups, and? pricked forth through Europe, 
 with his lance, to rescue damsels, quell drag- 
 ons, and do the work of righteousness gener- 
 ally — at his own charges. This ancient cheva- 
 lier for a long time lived in history, an example 
 of pure benevolence and disinterested virtue, 
 without a successor. In fact it was not till the 
 Nineteenth Century, and in the city of New 
 York, that one having anything like rival claims, 
 w r as to be found. This more recent night- 
 errant encases his head in a leathern cap, his 
 body in a red flannel shirt, and with turned-up 
 trowsers and heavy boots, rushes forth, on 
 foot, to do execution, without hire or reward, 
 on that fiery dragon Combustion itself The 
 only pure specimen extant, of the unadulter- 
 
THE NEW YORK FIREMAN. 95 
 
 ated man of benevolence of modern times, and 
 the present mixed state of society, is the Fire- 
 man. What motive has he ? — what motive 
 can he have, (unless pure madness,) in rushing 
 from his bed at midnight, snatching at his 
 clothes, tumbling down stairs, and in a half 
 distracted condition pulling foot for the engine- 
 house, tearing open its doors, hustling out the 
 machine, and seizing the rope, hurrying away 
 at the rate of ten miles an hour, shouting him- 
 self hoarse by the way, " Fire — F ire — Fire ! 
 Fire ! Fire !" — throwing himself like a sala- 
 mander into the very thickest of the raging 
 element — and in a couple of hours walking 
 home to bed, sweating like a porpoise ? 
 
 We look upon a Fireman, in his disinterest- 
 ed integrity, as all that survives uninjured 
 from the golden age of Man, a truly noble 
 character, despite his errors. To-be-sure some 
 little remains of mortal frailty hang about the 
 Fire boy. People of a censorious turn have 
 said he loves a smasher — rather stiff. He is 
 
96 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 seen often in company with a strong-flavored 
 long-nine. He cocks his hat upon his head in 
 a manner a little irksome to the strictest taste. 
 He sometimes chews : and, perhaps, occasion- 
 ally swears a little. It is one of the peculiari- 
 ties into which he has no doubt fallen, from 
 being pitched in the midst of the corrupt civi- 
 lization of our times, that he hangs about 
 corners at night, in gangs; and that somehow 
 or other he slides with a marvelous rapidity 
 into a " muss" or row. He even alleges that 
 he must be indulged in one of these, now and 
 then, or he will " spoil." But in the great, 
 manly virtues — which the stony-hearted Nine- 
 teenth Century has little faith in — of doing an 
 immense amount of work for no pay — he " can't 
 be beat." 
 
 The number of houses, churches, theatres, 
 hotels, buildings of every name and kind be 
 has saved, without receiving a farthing of their 
 rents or revenues, without being in the slight- 
 est degree concerned in their title, no man can 
 
THE NEW YORK FIREMAN 97 
 
 count. The Fireman's personal graces are per- 
 haps not in all cases quite equal to his goodness 
 of heart. His knowledge of the Fine Arts 
 may be rather limited — his acquaintance with 
 Music being confined to the ring or roar of the 
 City Hall Bell, and the jingle of the Hose Cart 
 — for Pictures he may chiefly devote himself 
 to the back-board or tail of the " machine" — - 
 and as to Statuary, he has perhaps never given 
 the slightest heed to more than one specimen, 
 and that is the wooden Fireman with the 
 trumpet in his mouth, (always a blowing,) over 
 15 in Chrystie-street. His carriage of his person 
 in the street is peculiar — rather abroad, and in 
 the style of movement sometimes of a heavy- 
 footed Buffalo. This is an eccentricity all the 
 inculcations and elegant directions of Mr. 
 Parker at Tammany Hall have never been 
 able to qualify. It belongs to the race, and 
 will we suppose, last with it. 
 
 " Clear the way there ! What do you mean 3 
 eh ! stopping the street, old feller ?" 
 
98 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA* 
 
 " None of your lip, leather head — I've cum 
 on the track first — d'ye give away !" 
 
 " Boys, stand by." 
 
 Pop — smash — crash — blood — two men down 
 — a club flying about — bang— whose down 
 now? Who swung that slung shot? I see 
 you, Bill Peterson. Bang again — crash — four 
 men carried off badly wounded. And the two 
 machines separate and sullenly make their way 
 home. 
 
 This is considered by many persons a neces- 
 sary variety in the course of a Fireman's life; 
 a fight at least every three months. The 
 machine represents the head of the clan, and 
 the bitterness is often as desperate between 22 
 and 45, as the feuds between the old Scotch 
 clans, or the fiercest Indian tribes on our bor- 
 ders. They are handed down from one gen- 
 eration of firemen to another; if the machines 
 can't head each other in getting to a fire, or 
 " overflow" them there in a fair contest, they 
 must have a fight on their way back. 
 
THE NEW YORK FIREMAN. 99 
 
 The Firemen — the genuine Firemen — we 
 believe, generally belong to the two sides of 
 the city, rarely to the centre ; if anything the 
 East side has the decided preponderance, and 
 furnishes the richest specimens. He rarely 
 leaves the city, and has never been seen farther 
 out of town than Hoboken. No persuasion, no 
 temptation could lure him out of sound of the 
 Hall bell. When he ceases to hear that, he is 
 a dead man. You may bury him. 
 
 On Sundays he often mounts a heavy horse, 
 (one of his boss's — the butcher,) and sets forth 
 on the Third Avenue. Sometimes he gets 
 possession of a gossamer sulky, and doesn't 
 allow himself to be challenged to a trial of 
 speed more than once without responding. He 
 took a drink at starting from town — at the end 
 of the race he drinks again. To acquire steadi- 
 ness in aiming the pipe at fires, the Firemen 
 often form themselves into target companies, 
 and parading the streets in a half-uniform, with 
 a target borne aloft by a small black boy, they 
 
100 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 seek some suburb where they practice at the 
 mark, and returning, display the target (the 
 negro boy rolling his eyes with awful rapi- 
 dity, as if he had fired all the shots,) 
 pierced to the very centre with holes. There 
 are those who have no faith in these apparent 
 perforations — who regard them as having been 
 made strictly in accordance with the laws of 
 mechanics — and not of projectiles — by the 
 augur, not by the ball. There is a class of 
 people who consider these Firemen's target- 
 parades, as an assumption, a make-believe 
 altogether, an artful concession to the military 
 spirit of the times. Some say they are not 
 real Firemen who partake of them, but pre- 
 tenders : that no real Fireman would so far 
 degrade himself as to wear the livery of a mere 
 soldier, &c, &c. We believe Firemen have 
 fired at the target and hit it. Others are wel- 
 come to their own opinion. As it is the glory 
 of the hero to die on the open field of battle, 
 it is the ambition of a Fireman to fall at a fire. 
 
THE NEW YORK FIREMAN. 101 
 
 It is then only that he dies truly and in char- 
 acter. Then the fire-bells are muffled and 
 rung dolefully, the machines put on crape, the 
 companies are marshalled in solemn array to 
 the funeral, the engineers with their trumpets, 
 the City Aldermen in attendance with their 
 staves of office, enwreathed in black. It is only 
 in such a death that the community is once 
 in a while, taught to feel that in every Fire- 
 man it has a hero, who is ready at all times to 
 yield his life for the safety of the orphan and 
 the widow — who is willing to perish that 
 society may sleep in peace. May his leather 
 cap be immortal, may its bright gloss never be 
 dimmed, and may his patent-leather belt be 
 still resplendent as Orion, with al^the virtues ! 
 
 Cross the city due East : in that direction 
 lies a mighty region, through which our pan- 
 oramic painting should roll like the Mississippi, 
 but it is checked in its flow by 
 
102 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 A GRAND PAGEANT. - 
 
 Every now and then — at least as often as 
 twice in the year — there comes a sunshiny 
 day upon this great city, when one, wandering 
 into the remote settlements of the town, will 
 observe, from an early hour in the morning, a 
 peculiar and mysterious quiet brooding over 
 the streets. He will feel that this is, in some 
 way, but he cannot tell exactly how, connected 
 with a bay nag with a demi-pique saddle, and 
 holsters and shiny housings, standing by the 
 walk in a by-street, held in the bridle by a 
 vagabond black boy, with other boys of the 
 two orders lingering about. "Wherever the 
 philosophic observer goes, he finds similar 
 horses, trappings, holders, and groups, which 
 seem to belong to the day, and to be spon- 
 taneous, like so many mush-rooms of the early 
 spring. The crop multiplies with the clock, 
 and gets presently to be pretty thick in all the 
 by-ways of the town ; and begins to take a 
 
A GRAND PAGEANT. 103 
 
 bristling form in lines of troops ranged against 
 house walls and along curb stones. And now, 
 following these, w T hich are the faint streaks in 
 the East preceding the broad glory of the day 
 — there is an obvious set of the tide of the city 
 towards a central line. The occasion is clearly 
 a pageant ; from a crapy feeling in the air it 
 must be a funeral pageant. The main line of 
 the procession is Broadway ; and, like a great 
 magnet, as it lies along the city, it draws the 
 population from remote streets, first one by 
 one, scattering along; then the drums begin 
 to beat at the quarters — troops hurrying to- 
 wards the Park — on foot — horseback — and in 
 omnibuses, with their bayonets thrust into the 
 air out of the windows and back-door. More 
 people making for Broadway ; enterprizing 
 boys climbing the trees in the Park ; the great 
 platform filling ; red, blue, and gray companies 
 of citizen soldiery rapidly assembling — General 
 Sanford on horseback, calm and decidedly ele- 
 giac of feature — Mr. Mace's show-hearses, with 
 
104 THE FEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 six horses apiece, and some eighteen or twenty 
 black and white plumes, have entered the great 
 gates — with a sensation in the crowd — various 
 gentlemen in citizen's dress, with long sticks 
 in their hands, are seen emerging from the 
 Hall and ranging themselves on the upper plat- 
 form. The coffin with the heroic remains of 
 the patriot- warrior are brought down the steps 
 from the Governor's Room — where the brave 
 General, alive in an admirable portrait by Kel- 
 logg, is looking upon himself dead and changed 
 in the coffin which is directly under his eye — 
 the vast crowd receive them in silence. With 
 wailing trumpets on the move into Broadway, 
 and now look — look with all the eyes you have t 
 Saw you ever such streams of people — such 
 flocks — lanes — crowds — groups. On foot, in 
 trees, on stoops, in areas, the windows, balcon- 
 ies, house-tops, alive with faces, and smiling 
 or looking forth tenderly from the crapen ban- 
 ners and hangings with which the houses and 
 hotel-fronts are darkened — so many lovely 
 
A GRAND PAGEANT. 105 
 
 faces, that you wonder from what populous 
 and hidden paradises they have stolen upon 
 the light of common day in Broadway. You 
 know that they are in some way related to the 
 habitual dwellers in these houses — that they 
 are either townspeople or acquaintances who 
 have made an interest in time for a look-out on 
 the Pageant. On it moves — the mournful 
 music keeping before — and telling a mile away 
 that it is coming. Of all sad things in the 
 whole solemnity, the saddest being the horse 
 of the deceased hero, walking slowly along in 
 the line with all his mountings, but riderless. 
 We cannot fail to observe as it passes on, some 
 shows and exhibitions — here, as in other places 
 ■ — of the fantasies of sympathy and grief: 
 Among them we have a small liberty pole dis- 
 played from one window wound in crape : in 
 another a bust — supposed to be the late Gen- 
 eral — with a wreath of flowers and a black 
 band or ribbon about the neck. With an im- 
 mensity of people not to be counted — all civil, 
 
106 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 temperate, and decorous, the well-behaved 
 Pageant flows on, till it reaches one of the 
 customary turnings of the current and passes 
 into the Bowery — where we find another 
 whole city of people, in windows, on walks, 
 stoops, posts, house-tops, more curious than 
 the others — and sharing more (we believe, in 
 their simple souls, in the feeling proper to the 
 occasion. — with more grief for the dead, and 
 more wonderment for the living Captains and 
 Colonels in their cocked hats on horseback. 
 
 By the time the ceremony has returned to 
 the Park, the heart of the people has calmed, 
 and they quietly ebb back to their own homes. 
 They have had their holiday, and holiday they 
 will and must have, under some pretext or 
 another. The appointed orator recites before 
 a great multitude the Funeral Eulogy — the 
 lights come slowly out upon the darkness, and 
 all again is peace — the peace of Liberty to 
 the living — the peace of blest Immortality, let 
 us hope, to the dead I 
 
A DIRECTOR OF PAGEANTS. 107 
 
 For the further ordering of these popular 
 displays, does a new officer, not in our present 
 catalogue of city magnates, seem needed ? 
 
 A DIRECTOR OF PAGEANTS. 
 
 Of late years, the passion for holidays and 
 holiday shows has started into a vigorous 
 growth, which must be approved of as a re- 
 lief to the monotonous business-habits of the 
 community. With the impulsiveness which 
 urges them in everything they engage in, our 
 people now rush as eagerly into sight-seeing 
 as a few years ago they hurried the other way. 
 There is, however, unhappily, a want of tern 
 perance and discretion in the employment of 
 this newly-awakened energy, which robs even 
 enjoyment of half its beauty and enjoyability. 
 Without considering the when, the how, the 
 where, our citizens at one time celebrate the 
 Fourth of July, for example, by cramming 
 themselves in churches to hear anniversary 
 orations, then by cramming themselves into 
 
108 THE PEN-AND-INK- PANORAMA. 
 
 booths to eat roast pig and imbibe lemonade ; 
 at another time it's all steamboat and railroad 
 car, and nobody left in town to admire the mili- 
 tary. So with regard to public pageants. 
 There appears to be no method nor order in 
 these enthusiasms. The displays are generally 
 mere swarms or medleys of people. There is 
 neither beginning nor end to the procession. 
 Odd Fellows, soldiers, Common Council men, 
 sailors, students, firemen, societies of mechanics, 
 societies Hibernian and Italian, consuls, bishops, 
 all hurried one after the other in confused suc- 
 cession with an extraordinary interspersion of 
 all sorts of flags, banners, poles, tressels, badges, 
 pyramidical symbols, and crapes of every 
 length, quality, and character. Instead of 
 being harmonized into a complete whole, every 
 thing and every body seems to be left free to 
 consult his own taste or no taste ; and the re- 
 sult is, that the pageants of the city, which 
 might have proved a soothing and agreeable 
 spectacle, send home the thousands who stand 
 
THE SEMPSTRESS. 109 
 
 for three hours in the pelting sun watching its 
 progress, weary and dissatisfied. As pageants 
 of this kind have become one of the customs 
 of the country, we think no better provision 
 could be made for their successful execution, 
 than the appointment of some man of taste to 
 their Directorship. A reasonable salary al- 
 lowed to such an office would be money well 
 spent. 
 
 Let us leave pageants and spectacles. "Who 
 is this little, brisk, tidy, pretty-faced figure 
 that glances across our path, before we plunge 
 into the great stream of the Bowery ? 
 
 THE SEMPSTRESS. 
 
 Is it a sin to be young? to have good teeth ? 
 a graceful carriage ? intelligence, and ease, if 
 not absolute elegance of expression ? In a 
 word, to have all lady-like qualities of youth, 
 
110 THE PEN- AND INK PANORAMA. 
 
 beauty, and person, (except a hundred dollar 
 Cashmere, and a rich husband's bank account 
 to draw upon at pleasure) ? Of how many per- 
 sons describable like this, does our Christian 
 reader suppose the question is discussed in this 
 Free Land, in this Eepublican City, every 
 morning, whether she shall take her meals with 
 the family or after them ? "We cannot tell him 
 the hundreds — they may even count them by 
 thousands. And in how many is the question 
 decided against the young, fair, and accom- 
 plished beneficiary ? Three out of every four, 
 we will venture on our lives. It is this for a 
 woman to get a living by honest handiwork in 
 America, and it is this to be called a Semp- 
 stress ! Now we would like, without invidious 
 hostilities between rich and poor, to ascertain 
 where, how, and how efficiently the line is 
 drawn by which the laborer is separated from 
 her mistress. 
 
 Which shall beget a larger soul — to be born 
 the pale daughter of a nabob, talked non- 
 
THE SEMPSTRESS. Ill 
 
 sense to by hireling nurses from infancy, con- 
 ducted straight from the parlor to the fashion- 
 able boarding-school, (stopping to see or know 
 nothing of humanity or nature by the way,) 
 there shut up with a hundred or more of like- 
 faced, pale creatures, to hear the twangling of 
 a piano for an hour, the parroting of French 
 adverbs for another, the pirouetting of a pair 
 of thin French legs for another ; to go from 
 this at eighteen to talk to coxcombs and drink 
 light wines at parties till midnight or two next 
 morning — or, being the child of a dusky, 
 strong- working mechanic, talked with as a 
 thing of sense, by a mother who must use her 
 wits to bring the day about; to be pitched in, 
 head foremost, (not to speak profanely,) at a 
 Public School, among several hundred bust- 
 ling girls, to make her way as best she can, in 
 her native force of character; to be put to 
 work, and to count how much it comes to pei 
 day and per week, at sixteen years, when she 
 (fuits school ; to buy books for her own read- 
 
112 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 ing ; to live on all her holidays in the open air, 
 in a pic-nic on Long Island, or an excursion 
 down the Bay, or a singing anniversary of one 
 of the churches, of which she is a director. 
 Which of these is most likely to be a woman ? 
 to have a heart and soul ? an intelligent judg 
 ment ? an observant eye ? We know very 
 well how the fashionable young lady, coming 
 of age, disposes of herself. She marries a 
 broken-down foreign Count, and in about ten 
 years' bitter experience has " all the nonsense 
 taken out of her;" or, if she escapes that, lives 
 an inanity, and begets inanities to the end of 
 time. Let us look a little more closely into 
 the career of our Sempstress. 
 
 The Sempstress generally lives in some two- 
 story wooden tenement in East Bowery, (that 
 is, the region lying on the eastern side of that 
 great thoroughfare,) with her mother, aunt, 
 grandmother, or sometimes with a fellow Semp- 
 stress. She has a room, often a few flowers in 
 pots at the window, a colored print of " Paul 
 
THE SEMPSTRESS. 113 
 
 and Virginia" in a frame against the wall, and 
 perhaps a bird — the bird rarely, for there may 
 be no one to look after him during the day, 
 while she is absent at work. She subscribes 
 to one of the Magazines with fashion-plates, and 
 often invades the small hours after her return 
 from her task, hanging in breathless suspense 
 over the romantic adventures of Sir Philip de 
 Grey ; or weeping, as if she would break her 
 heart, over the loves and crosses of a certain 
 "William Hamilton, an excellent youth, and 
 Clara Howard, a young lady of peerless 
 beauty. We state, with some reluctance, that 
 our noble-minded Sempstress has a rather un- 
 due admiration of the roan palfrey which 
 figures freely in the novels of Mr. James. 
 On Sundays, endowed in her best hat and 
 gown, our young lady makes her way for the 
 nearest Methodist church — of which, nine times 
 out of ten, she is a member — and there her 
 voice is heard in praise and thanksgiving 
 among all ; for she is not a little proud of her 
 
114 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 voice, and she is not ashamed, like the tine 
 lady, to be heard singing aloud in the presence 
 of her Maker. She puts silver in the plate 
 oftener than Dives. 
 
 But what is the course of her daily, work-a- 
 day life ? In the morning she rises betimes. 
 If she works for the down-town shops, she pre- 
 pares breakfast and dispatches it promptly. It 
 may be a couple of eggs, a piece of fish, and a 
 cup of coffee; but we'll engage, at all hazards, 
 there's a pickle somewhere on the table. She 
 then takes from the great heap on the chair 
 and disposes over her left arm, a sufficient pile 
 of pea-coats, or cheap waistcoats, or summer 
 pants, or whatever the goods just then in re- 
 quest, to break the back of a small mule. 
 With these she makes for the Bowery, ponder- 
 ing as she goes with all the power of thought, 
 a most important question. Whether, firstly, 
 she can afford a sixpence in an omnibus ride 
 on the present job ? Secondly, whether she 
 shall take the ride down or up ? for remember 
 
THE SEMPSTRESS. 115 
 
 she is to come back freighted with an equal 
 weight of luggage from the shop. The omni- 
 bus is coming — she gives it a glance — spies 
 John Harrison, the young printer, going down 
 to work — and that settles the point. If she 
 carries down no work, made at home, she may, 
 being a cap-maker, or something of the sort, 
 be seen with nothing but a small parcel, (a slice 
 of bread and meat,) and returning there is a 
 presumption that some friendly John Harrison 
 or other, will providentially appear at a corner 
 where she must pass, and accompany her home. 
 If she is a house-seamstress, she takes it a little 
 more leisurely, and encumbers herself no far- 
 ther than with a pair of scissors and a thimble. 
 Her arrival is generally the cue for a good 
 deal of whispered conversation through the 
 house. " How late Miss Smith comes to work ?." 
 " Half the day is gone already !" " We shall 
 make a precious time with the dress at this 
 rate — it will never be ready !" It being taken 
 for granted, invariably, that the sempstress 
 
116 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 is an enormous swindler, and that her showing 
 herself at that hour is a deliberate fraud. The 
 day's work over, she begins to make a motion 
 for departure, by gathering up the odds and 
 ends, sticking the needles in the cushion, 
 sheathing her scissors, &c, at which the mis- 
 tress alw T ays expresses vast wonder and aston- 
 ishment. 
 
 « Why, Miss Smith, it isn't anything like 
 dark yet ; you can work a good bit yet — at 
 least half an hour." 
 
 " It's seven o'clock, by my watch /" 
 We suppose no such wonder — no such un- 
 believing horror was ever before expressed on 
 human countenance as showed itself the first 
 time a Sempstress in this city (it is something 
 like eight years ago,) announced this sentiment 
 and confirmed it by the exhibition of a real 
 little, bona fide gold watch. The appeal w T as 
 acknowledged by all the upper classes, the 
 very first circles of society, to be the most sub- 
 lime display of plebeian effrontery on record. 
 
THE SEMPSTRESS. 117 
 
 The Sempstresses, however, " still keep it up," 
 — as many of them, at least, as can afford 
 watches. 
 
 About the time her bonnet is adjusted, there 
 is as fair a presumption as there was of the 
 appearance of John Harrison in the other 
 case, that some smart young cousin, a student- 
 at-law, clerk, or something of that sort, may be 
 at the door — and, if there's moonlight, so much 
 the better. In either case, there being no re- 
 gular champion at hand, it may happen that 
 one of those lively young gentlemen, (an " over- 
 powerer," as he calls himself at the Restau- 
 rants,) with a short cane at his teeth, volun- 
 teers his services, and is saluted at once with 
 a blow in the face, perhaps, or, this is much 
 more artful, is allowed to dance attendance till 
 they come abreast of some good strong shop- 
 lights and a great throng of people, when she 
 announces, in a bold clear voice, " You had 
 better go home, you insolent puppy, and mind 
 your own business." 
 
118 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 It does sometimes happen, though this is 
 very rarely the case, that some worthy young 
 gentleman of an honest disposition is taken 
 with her beauty, and accosting her with the 
 distance and reserve which softens the impro- 
 priety of a street introduction, an acquaintance 
 ensues; and we have known happy matches 
 grow out of these chance-encounters. We can- 
 not regard them as strictly cannonical; although 
 if angels will come in this guise, may we not 
 give them welcome ? 
 
 Encompassed with all this armor of proof, 
 we can imagine another catastrophe. Let us 
 consider for a moment the other side of the 
 picture. 
 
 Suppose on some dreary, weary night, the 
 down-town worker for the shops, is making 
 her way home on foot, (without even the small 
 sixpence for the omnibus,) trade not having 
 prospered with her, or her little week's earn- 
 ings not forthcoming ; in faded frock, with 
 bonnet three fashions old, and altogether, an 
 
THE SEMPSTRESS. 119 
 
 object of pity to look on. She hears a voice 
 trilling, cheerily, and casting her eye up, espies 
 a " young lady" at the height of fashion (a lit- 
 tle beyond it,) in her dress, jewels on her hand, 
 a chain about her neck, the gaze of all the 
 people as she makes her way along. What 
 wonder if for a moment the poor plodding 
 sempstress falters in her course : if now and 
 then one drops over into the abyss. Her 
 native love of virtue was strong, it was enforced 
 by good example and proper habits — but when 
 the pressure of necessity passes a certain limit, 
 there are some in all societies who will yield. 
 Let us not, therefore, judge harshly of our fel- 
 low-creatures. It is often the chance turning 
 of a street corner which determines a career 
 of virtue or vice. We are better in garb than 
 our neighbors, but He who searches beneath 
 all disguises, will discern, under the plain attire 
 of the poor girl, who plods her weary way 
 along the city street at night fall, a spirit, noble, 
 just, honorable, and struggling gallantly against 
 manifold enemies and temptations. 
 
120 
 
 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 As we are engaged in sight-seeing, which 
 is regarded by certain very shrewd and long- 
 headed persons, as a sheer waste of time, you 
 must allow me to stop the panorama a moment 
 to say a word or two on 
 
 ABSURD CALCULATIONS. 
 
 Every now and then — and at pretty regular 
 intervals — we come in the newspapers, upon 
 an elaborate table, making known to us the 
 immense sum we might realize by foregoing 
 cigars and tobacco, or mint juleps, or theatres, 
 or something else in the small expenditure 
 line. In other words, we are told if we should 
 lay by sixpence a day, and put it out at inter- 
 est for forty years, we might come into posses- 
 sion, at the time we were about sixty or seventy 
 years old, of some twenty or thirty thousand 
 dollars. This is certainly a very agreeable 
 prospect for enterprizing young men — but it 
 has one or two little drawbacks worth noticing. 
 In the first place, the little problem we refer 
 
ABSURD CALCULATIONS. 12 1 
 
 to, requires for a successful solution, that the 
 sixpence aforesaid should be invested at com- 
 pound interest. Now, we are not acquainted 
 with any bank, broker, or other corporation, or 
 gentlemen in the money business, who have 
 made arrangements to take sums of that 
 amount on deposit. If we could find a stock 
 jobber of an extraordinary imagination — a little 
 hard up for a drink — we might perhaps persuade 
 him to accept a loan of that amount on deposit, 
 but how it is to be effected in the ordinary 
 course of dealing we are not sufficiently fami 
 liar with the market to see just at the present 
 time. In the second place the tables in ques- 
 tion (so accurately prepared) go upon the in- 
 genious supposition that man is especially con- 
 structed for a six-penny saving machine, and 
 that the gratification of his natural functions is 
 a foolish and idle perversion of the original 
 design. To save sixpence a day it is taken for 
 granted is the sole end and purpose of his being. 
 If he had been formed of wood, cast iron, or 
 
122 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 sheet tin, like a child's money-box, this would 
 be an exceedingly plausible theory — but as he 
 happens to have a heart, a pulse, a tongue, and 
 two or three other lively appliances, he is very 
 apt to forget the necessity of laying by sixpence 
 a day, and clapping an extinguisher on all his 
 faculties and enjoyments, while the investment 
 is accumulating at compound interest, in some 
 imaginary and impossible bank. 
 
 Were we disposed to deal further with our 
 profound and far-seeing table-makers, we should 
 humbly suggest that some men would like to 
 have a little return for their economy some 
 time this side of seventy, when we would sup- 
 pose, according to the Psalmist's computation, 
 that most promissory personal notes drawn 
 upon this world, are very likely to run out. 
 To have twenty thousand dollars just when 
 you don't want it is neither mercantile nor reli- 
 gious, nor even plain common sense; it is good 
 husbandry neither for the present nor the next 
 world. Thrift is very well in its way ; with. 
 

 ABSURD CALCULATIONS. 123 
 
 out economy of some kind or other, no man 
 can make sure of a day's peace or happiness ; 
 but vague and impracticable propositions for 
 saving, like these oft repeated calculations of 
 the newspapers, are likely to bring discredit on 
 everything in the name of economy. By pre- 
 senting impossible and unbusiness-like state- 
 ments, they discourage the young from the 
 very idea of prudence, and drive them abroad 
 into a still freer indulgence in the very ex- 
 penses they are meant to warn them from. 
 Figures (as a great philosopher once said) do 
 sometimes make awful blunders. 
 
 And now that we are assured we are losing 
 no money by it, let us go on with the show. 
 After a pretty long journey through many 
 scenes and sights, ladies and gentlemen, we 
 have reached 
 
124 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 THE BOWERY. 
 
 When Captain John Smith sailed up James's 
 Eiver in the early day of Virginia, while it was 
 a new country, his heart leaped within him at 
 the sight of the rich bottom-lands, the huge 
 green trees, the clear, deep waters ; but what 
 touched him most was the vast abundance and 
 variety of game flying about. The writer, the 
 sketcher of men and things, when he enters 
 the mouth of the great Bowery, at Chatham- 
 Square, is similarly affected. He is at the 
 entrance of the greatest street on the Continent, 
 the most characteristic, the most American, 
 the most peculiar: with all sorts of game, 
 plenty of high grass, so to speak, deep water, 
 and heavy timber before him. He cannot turn 
 his pen in any direction, without bringing down 
 some rare beast or strange wild fowl. At the 
 first step he has the Mastodon, (the largest of 
 known creatures,) exhibited in a transparency 
 by Dr. Beach, with music in the balcony ex- 
 
THE BOWERY. 125 
 
 tensively patronized and highly approved of by 
 crowded audiences along the sidewalk. Seeing 
 how the Hat stores swarm already, one would 
 think these Boweryites were a many-headed 
 race — something like the Anthropophagi, with 
 a difference — and wore three hats (as certain 
 gentlemen ride three horses,) apiece. Immor- 
 tal Charlotte Temple, and that profligate Bri- 
 tish officer — this little yellow house under the 
 tree at the corner was the scene of all that ! And 
 now we have the North American Hotel, with 
 the ragged wooden boy a-top, (a full length of 
 the founder as he appeared in his early for- 
 tunes,) and in its doorways, clustering like bees 
 in midsummer, the circus-riders, in highly 
 colored cravats, who perform at night over the 
 way; and standing about the neighboring 
 tavern-steps, an infinite variety of young men, 
 all well-dressed, with coats of a particular cut, 
 shiny hair, and a peculiar glazed look about 
 the eye. What is the business or calling of 
 these young men ? No mortal man has been 
 
126 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 able to discover! They are not connected 
 with the Bowery Theatre next door, nor the 
 Amphitheatre over the way even ; nor with the 
 taverns at their back. And yet they are al- 
 ways standing along these stoops day after day, 
 night after night, the supply never gives out — 
 steady, constant as the sun and stars, they come 
 out upon the face of daylight and darkness. 
 
 We begin now to appreciate how miscella- 
 neous a world the Bowery is, for at every step 
 We have taken, a new business, a new kind of 
 shop and traffic has disclosed itself: saddleries, 
 stove-shops, poulterer's stands, stage offices, 
 clothiers, grocers, druggists, jewelers, candy 
 and peanut stands, four-cent boards, &c. We 
 have counted no less than two hundred and 
 forty distinct trades carried on in the line of 
 the Bowery. What is not to be had and seen 
 there, can be found nowhere. As a general, 
 an almost universal rule, business in the Bow. 
 ery is done on a small scale, with more of an 
 eye to comfort than splendor. There are no 
 
THE BOWERY. 127 
 
 great plate-glass windows, no gorgeous jewel- 
 er's shops, no overpowering furniture establish- 
 ments. The only attempts at magnificence — 
 and these do not partake of the brilliant — are 
 in sundry clothing emporiums, stacked high to 
 the very ceiling, and hung thick along the shop 
 fronts with great Bowery overcoats, blazing 
 waistcoats, and everlasting pants — all con- 
 structed as for a race of big-limbed, and broad- 
 chested giants. Among all the numberless 
 stores and ware-rooms of that street, we can- 
 not remember a single undertaker's shop or 
 coffin -warehouse in its whole length. Life is 
 too cheerful and full-flushed in that street to al- 
 low of such an impertinence. It inclines, on the 
 contrary, to excess of enjoyment and animal 
 indulgences, and keeps itself in high tone with 
 perpetual raw oysters and stiff smashes. We 
 state from actual count, that there are no less 
 than twenty-seven oyster-houses and fifty-two 
 taverns in the Bowery — enough to keep the 
 street at fever-heat through the whole twenty- 
 
128 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 four hours. By a wise provision of nature, 
 there is no end to the sights to be seen in this 
 Bowery thoroughfare ; it is a perpetual kale- 
 idoscope : from morning till night something 
 rare and strange constantly starting up. It is 
 to the study of what passes in the street that 
 the Boweryites are mainly indebted for what 
 they get of education. They trouble them- 
 selves very little with gilt-edged annuals, Greek 
 Dictionaries, or McCulloch on Commerce. 
 They take things in the lump ; a pound of 
 sugar costs at wholesale six cents, Mr. Bow- 
 ery retails it at eight, and makes a couple of 
 cents profit. That he understands. A man 
 presents himself with a broken nose, low fore- 
 head, and a sinister cast in his eye ; Mrs. Bow- 
 ery knows him to be a villain, (although she 
 has never made the acquaintance of Iago,) and 
 keeps her grown-up daughters out of the way 
 accordingly. In their personal deportment, 
 the Bowery people are perfectly independent — 
 every man for himself. You needn't trouble 
 
THE BOWERY. 129 
 
 yourself to put a coat on when you go into 
 that street, if it is not agreeable ; no one will 
 cut you for that breach of etiquette. They 
 are as near to a primitive state, as people in a 
 great city can be, preserving their original 
 traits pretty much as they came from the hand 
 of Nature. In their unsophisticated curiosity 
 about sights, for example, the last monkey that 
 comes into the street excites as vivid attention 
 as the first. Monkeys are monkeys in the Bow- 
 ery, and have a respect and consideration be- 
 stowed on them there, far beyond any other 
 part of the city, some of the remoter regions 
 of the extreme Eastern side alone excepted. 
 
 Some have expressed a belief that the people 
 of that whole section of the city lying east of 
 Broadway are composed of different material 
 from the settlers about Fifth Avenue and 
 Union Square ; that they are an essentially 
 distinct and inferior race. This is the doctrine 
 I believe, taught in many of the fashionable 
 academies, in the best dancing-schools, and in 
 
130 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 both our Collegiate Institutions. One unmis- 
 takeable evidence that they are a somewhat 
 degraded caste is, that they pay their debts 
 much more regularly than the high-toned 
 people of the Western quarter. We do not 
 know whether this distinction, in regard to the 
 two sides of the town, is laid down in the new 
 geographies or marked in the city maps ; but 
 we are confident that there are thousands in the 
 western part of the city (grown-up men and 
 women,) who couldn't find their way to the 
 Bowery without a guide. 
 
 Is Human Life, take it altogether, happiest 
 in Broadway or the Bowery ? on the Aristo- 
 cratic or Democratic side of New York ? In 
 the one it's short-cake — substantial, but per- 
 haps a little lumpish ; in the other, fancy tea- 
 cake, with all sorts of caraway-seed and dainty 
 frost-work — with an inclination, perhaps, to 
 engender flatulency. The one looks after the 
 useful — the other the ornamental. The one is 
 especially careful to fill his belly — the other to 
 
THE BOWERY. 131 
 
 illuminate his back. Light goods, of more 
 show than substance, are for Broadway wear 
 — heavy, with a strong tendency to coarseness 
 for the Bowery. The one thinks more of the 
 homely virtues — the other of the elegant ac- 
 complishments. And yet we would not take 
 it upon our consciences to affirm that the road 
 to Heaven lies straighter through the Bowery 
 than Broadway — that the workman's tin-kettle 
 is a better provision for the journey than the 
 filagree reticule of the lady of fashion. While 
 in Broadway, (to rest a moment there,) the 
 apparel is notable for its rieatness and careful 
 arrangement, the people of the Bowery have, 
 all of them, an appearance as if they had got 
 up of a sudden and dressed in a hurry — -with 
 the exception, now and then, of a notability 
 who is known as a Bowery dandy. The style 
 of this gentleman's costume is startling and ex- 
 traordinary. Blazing colors — -stark-sl tring 
 blue for coat, brick red for waistcoat, bre >ehes 
 with a portentous green stripe, hat brushed 
 
 
132 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 up to the highest gloss, shiny as a new kettle — 
 he rolls down the Bowery a perfect Meteor, 
 before whose slightest scintillation a Broadway 
 exquisite would dwindle to undistinguishable 
 nothingness. The Broadway dandy dresses 
 snug and small, reducing his person by stays 
 and pulleys, close-fitting coats, pants, vests, 
 and gloves. The Bowery dandy would im- 
 press you with an idea of largeness, strength ; 
 he swells his chest, makes broad the brim of 
 his hat, the skirts of his coat — cuts close his 
 hair, which conveys a notion of vigor — and as 
 for gloves, his muscular, broad, brown hand 
 speaks for itself — he has never been known to 
 wear them. You see no children in Broadway 
 — the little, tricked out things in fringed panta 
 lettes, fantoccin coats, and South American 
 castors, are scarcely to be reckoned children : 
 in the Bowery they swarm and multiply — the 
 real bare-legged bread and butter-eaters ; they 
 pour down from up above, flood in from the 
 side streets — seem to spring, mushroom fashion, 
 
THE BOWERY. 133 
 
 out of the very ground. On the occasion of a 
 public procession or entree, there is no end to 
 them ; for, in this street, processions have a 
 heartier acknowledgment and reception— here, 
 as in ancient Rome, on the transit of a great 
 man, (they don't always insist on the first order 
 of greatness either,) the democracy mount the 
 awning-posts, windows, roofs— yea, to the very 
 chimney-tops with their children in their arms, 
 
 Does not the Bowery, you ask, grow torpid 
 ;md lethargic under so great a burden of sight- 
 seeing as you describe ? Indifferent — -so that, 
 at last, it is difficult, if not impossible to move 
 or startle it, by any exhibition, however pro- 
 digious ? 
 
 We confess there is something in this. But 
 if we w r ere asked what we had known to affect 
 it most strongly — what had wrought it in its 
 whole length to the highest pitch of attention 
 and wonder ? We should unhesitatingly men- 
 tion the Mammoth Ox, Daniel Lambert, which 
 came in from West Farms, in the year '40, we 
 
134 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 think it was. No ! We should make an ex* 
 ception in behalf of the Tiger, which, escaping 
 from the old Menagerie at 94, made its appear- 
 ance in the street one autumn morning, and 
 went about the better part of the day, trying 
 on hats, putting his nose in divers sugar barrels, 
 and glaring at small fat children, in good case, 
 in second-story windows. The business occu- 
 pied the attention of the Bowery for better 
 than a fortnight. 
 
 The Bowery is the main thoroughfare for 
 the country-stages, and in spite of the rise and 
 progress of railroads, a few of the old Whips 
 are to be found lingering around the West- 
 chester County Hotel, early in the morning. 
 But at this hour, the street is mainly tilled with 
 porters making for the down-town stores, then 
 after them clerks ; then the sempstresses and 
 binder's girls. All its ordinary and lawful 
 uses being disposed of, we find it quite a com- 
 mon thing, in our opinion very reprehensible, 
 for certain of our great nobs who have a sin- 
 
THE BOWERY. 135 
 
 cere respect for a shilling-piece, and who oc- 
 cupy some of the best houses in Broadway and 
 the fashionable squares, to make a convenience 
 of the Bowery when they have a small bundle to 
 carry home. They can fetch and carry here with 
 impunity, at a very small risk of encountering 
 their fashionable friends. A better class, but 
 of the same kidney — men of a benevolent turn, 
 but not indifferent to appearances, transport 
 pine-apples and other little nick-nacks to their 
 families in this manner, by hand, through the 
 Bowery. We should not be surprised if the 
 residenters one day rose against this abuse of 
 their street. 
 
 Another practice, allowable perhaps to the 
 infirmity of human nature ; down-town men, 
 whose residences lie in the West, in Waverly- 
 Place and thereabouts, on the laying over of 
 their first note at the bank, as a common thing- 
 make their way home for that afternoon, (though 
 altogether out of their way,) through the Bow- 
 ery. By this means, and it is we suppose a 
 
136 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 pardonable weakness, they avoid not the face 
 of men, but the face of those men whose good 
 opinion is their life-breath. In the first flush 
 of misfortune they dare not encounter them. 
 In truth the Bowery is very much haunted by 
 broken merchants, men in bad hats, gentlemen 
 under indictment at the Sessions ; the smaller 
 class of reporters and scribblers sometimes 
 take their " drinks" in the Bowery. If bad 
 luck, in any shape is on you, you may walk the 
 Bowery with safety ; nobody will pry into 
 your troubles, or think any the less of you for 
 a coat out at elbows. If you're just out of 
 prison they'll forgive you. In a word, it's the 
 only noble-spirited and Christian street in New 
 York! 
 
 And who is this that swaggers into the pic- 
 ture with a cock of the hat and an independent 
 roll of the shoulders ? This, ladies and gentle 
 
THE UPROARIOUS YOUNG GENTLEMAN. 137 
 
 men, is a very worthy native of this region, 
 and, therefore, I propose to make known to 
 you something of the habits of 
 
 THE UPROARIOUS YOUNG GENTLEMAN. 
 
 The uproarious young gentleman generally 
 enters a room with a " Ha ! ha ! my lads — how 
 are ye I" shakes hands boisterously all round, 
 and manages to introduce something into each 
 one of his salutations that shall, at least, re- 
 motely, justify a roaring burst of laughter. If 
 a new book is lying on your table, or a present 
 from a friend in China, he clutches it up with 
 tremendous eagerness and enthusiasm, and ex- 
 claims, " Hallo ! what have you got here !" 
 The uproarious young gentleman is good-look- 
 ing, with fat, burly countenance, and a pair of 
 commanding whiskers. He is sometimes a 
 stout clerk in a jobbing-house, oftener a junior 
 partner in a wholesale grocery, and still more 
 frequently a respectable young butcher with 
 big arms and broad shoulders, in a blue coat, 
 
138 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA 
 
 with a silk hat with a crape wound about its 
 base, and who is known familiarly as a " Bow- 
 ery Boy !" 
 
 Uproarious young gentlemen are not, how- 
 ever, confined to these three interesting classes 
 of society, but are found sprinkled in every 
 company, less rarely, it is true, as you ascend 
 the scale. To be overtaken in the street by an 
 uproarious young gentleman cannot be con- 
 sidered the most delightful event in one's life ■ 
 he invariably slaps you on the back, at the same 
 time bawling in your ear, " Ah ! my hearty, 
 which way ?" in such a manner, as if you are 
 a non resident or standing bail for an indicted 
 gentleman who has fled the county, to bring 
 your heart into your mouth. The number of 
 shoulders the uproarious young gentleman has 
 dislocated in the most public manner, cannot 
 be counted, and it would seem that he should 
 be followed as regularly by a surgeon with his 
 box of instruments and a roll of bandages, as 
 if he were a shark or a chain-shot. The chief 
 
THE UPROARIOUS YOUNG GENTLEMAN. 139 
 
 possession of this lusty young gentleman is 
 a pair of brass hinged lungs, which are never 
 out of repair, and which he keeps in fine order 
 by constant exercise at public places, by cry- 
 ing " Hey I Hey ! M in a sharp, fife-like key at 
 political meetings, to set the cheerers on ; by 
 joining a boat-club and practising horrid boat- 
 songs on the bay, in express violation of the 
 law against " disturbing the quiet of our 
 waters ;'.' and more particularly by going home 
 late at night, and bursting out directly under 
 the windows of peaceful citizens, in a voice 
 which shoots sheer perpendicular up the side 
 of the house some sixty feet, like a fizzing sig- 
 nal rocket. 
 
 The uproarious young gentleman is conspic- 
 uous at fires, and may be seen dashing about 
 in a box coat, with a red worsted comforter 
 about his neck, shouting, " Play this way — 
 more hose — and two or three boys !" By these 
 means he keeps himself in a very pleasurable 
 state of excitement, and impresses the looker- 
 
140 THE UPROARIOUS YOUNG GENTLEMAN, 
 
 on with the idea that he is an amazingly pub- 
 lic spirited individual and active young man. 
 
 If he be at a party among " pleasant sort o' 
 people that use ingrain carpets, and don't mind 
 a little fun !" and a break-down jig is sugges- 
 ted to wind up the evening with, the discreet 
 housewife slips into the basement immediately 
 under the parlor where the uproarious young 
 gentleman is going through his paces, and 
 clears the glasses and light crockery from the 
 table to prevent breakage, if the uproarious 
 young gentleman should think proper, in the 
 progress of his jig, to work his way through 
 the upper floor ! 
 
 This uproarious young gentleman appears 
 to have but one grand object in life — and that 
 is to make as much noise and pother as he con- 
 veniently can. In furtherance of this laudable 
 design, he pulls your door-bell as if he were 
 tugging at the great Tom of Moscow; his 
 knock is thunder itself ; and his cheers at the 
 theatre and bravos at the opera, a series of ex- 
 
THE UPROARIOUS YOUNG GENTLEMAN. 141 
 
 plosions which break from him as if, like voices 
 from tombs and caverns of the earth, they 
 would rend his body to obtain an utterance. 
 In ice-cream saloons he thumps the floor of the 
 box as if a convention of auctioneers were 
 there assembled practising their hammers pre- 
 paratory to an exposure of nothing less than 
 the entire planetary system to public sale, and 
 at the hotel table, he lifts his voice in his re- 
 peated calls to the waiter, as if he thought that 
 useful white or colored gentleman, had planted 
 himself on the extreme point of Cape Magellan 
 or Cape Horn, as far out of hearing as possi- 
 ble. There is, be it known, another species of 
 the genus uproarious young gentleman, which 
 may be styled the zoological young gen- 
 tleman, and whose uproar consists mainly of 
 admirable offhand imitations of various mem- 
 bers of the animal creation, for whom the said 
 gentleman entertains the warmest sympathy 
 and most profound admiration. For instance : 
 when a party is breaking up, and the young 
 
142 THE PEN-AND-TNX PANORAMA. 
 
 ladies are on the stairs with their hoods and 
 shawls on, descending into the hall, the zoolog- 
 ical young gentleman who is in their very 
 midst, suddenly, and to the great trepidation 
 of the fair creatures by whom he is surrounded, 
 breaks into a compound noise, part screech, 
 part hoot, in imitation of his friend the owl — 
 that wonderful bird having just such a round 
 bush head, and just such a pair of round star- 
 ing eyes as this uproarious young gentleman 
 himself. Shortly after, when they are standing 
 on the door-steps, bidding their hostess good 
 night, the zoological gentleman flutters his 
 arms rapidly against his sides, and utters a 
 clear, vocal cock-a-doodle-doo, in token of his 
 having engaged to wait upon the pretty young 
 lady in blue eyes and white satin, in the very 
 teeth of a desperate young man in black whis- 
 kers and six dollar beaver hat. The zoological 
 young gentleman also gives you the lion with 
 a sore throat ; a quail in a rye stubble ; and, tc 
 amuse a select company collected at Mrs. 
 
THE UPROARIOUS YOUNG GENTLEMAN. 143 
 
 Twirk's, a market sloop with its live stock en- 
 tire, pigs, poultry, boatswain, milch-cow and 
 captain. This species of the uproarious young 
 gentleman, natural historians observe is be- 
 coming more scarce every year. Tight neck- 
 stocks and a rigid system of police, are un- 
 favorable to the development of his peculiar 
 kind of talent I 
 
 Our boisterous gentleman is suddenly extin- 
 guished by a cloud. Ah, Trade! Trade ! my 
 friends, what a hold it has upon this great com- 
 mercial emporium ? What are these lying in 
 this shop-window, like so many cards for a 
 benefit-night at the Bowery Theatre, with a 
 placard announcing 
 
 "TICKETS FOR GREENWOOD." 
 
 If the faces of the present generation of 
 men bear any impress of their acts, they should 
 to a superior being or a mortal observer not 
 
141 THE FEN-AND-INK PANORAMA, 
 
 faring in their spirit, look terrible and hid- 
 eous. Calmly separating ourselves from the 
 general movement of the times in certain 
 directions — it seems to us as if the ancient 
 faith, reverence, devotion, and all conscious- 
 ness of the sanctity of life had utterly died 
 out: that all modern civilization lay loosely 
 upon the surface : that our earthly pilgrimage 
 is in truth as in metaphor, a mere day's jour- 
 ney, a hurried scamper, from the cradle to the 
 grave ; and that all were pressing to crowd 
 the vehicle of swiftest conveyance. How can 
 we doubt that it is so regarded when we find 
 in shop-windows on the common highway of 
 our city — displayed and advertised (as if they 
 w r ere the mere tokens of an ordinary excur- 
 sion) — passes to a burial-place — " Tickets for 
 Greenwood." There was a time, and not very 
 far distant, when silence was the usher to that 
 last sacred abode; when from the shade] 
 house the grievous pageant wound sadly for- 
 ward to the church aisle and the lonely vault; 
 
(< TICKETS FOR GREENWOOD." 145 
 
 to the old country homestead ; to the retired 
 family burial-place under the green tree; and 
 in consecrated earth the beloved remains were 
 laid away, for ever sequestered in their resting- 
 place as in the affections ; memorable to grief 
 and kinship — in all the agitations and chances 
 of the after-hours. But now — alas ! alas ! the 
 change — hostile systems contend for our living 
 bodies, and we are buried by corporations. 
 We live in mobs, and mob-like we throng to 
 the cemetery : as if we feared to be alone. In 
 daily proclamations : in circulars, and experi- 
 mental trips, we are invited to the newly- 
 opened grounds, as to a ball or other festive 
 entertainment. We take stock in graveyards 
 as we do in banks and railway schemes. Graves 
 are bought by the lot at a discount : so much 
 off, if several are taken at a time. We are 
 stimulated to secure the best places, the choice 
 spots, as if they were premium benches at a 
 concert, or private boxes at the opera. Oh, 
 that we have come to live in such an age ! No 
 
146 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 wonder — no wonder — the poets are dead ! 
 That men believe they know not what; that 
 they doubt everything ; and that they would 
 regulate this great world, with its mountains 
 and waters, as with a screw and lever. 
 
 It is in Mr. Berryman that our tragi-comic 
 era finds its most perfect representative and 
 development : Mr. Berryman, who, in his one 
 person, exercises the double function of Sexton 
 of the Fashionable Church and Manager of 
 Fashionable Parties : Berryman who wields in 
 one hand a silver ladle to serve oysters, in the 
 other a shovel to dig a pit for the shells : Ber- 
 ryman who dismisses, with Napoleonic rapid- 
 ity, the coaches of a grand re-union in Fifth 
 Avenue on a Saturday evening, that he may 
 rally, in a few hours of interval, at the opening 
 of the rectorate on Sunday morning : Berry- 
 man who, like the late Charles Mathews, 
 groans on one side of his face and grins on the 
 other : who makes a mock of life and death ; 
 and conjuror-like, keeps the two balls in motion 
 
" TICKETS FOR GREENWOOD." 147 
 
 in the air, heeding little — like the times he re- 
 presents — which of the two comes down first; 
 and dodging with marvellous dexterity to save 
 bis head damage from either : in the great game 
 he is playing (we speak it in no disrespect,) it 
 seems to be a matter of indifference to this 
 ready double-dealer, whether he serves to his 
 customers diamonds or spades : whether his 
 white waistcoat of rejoicing or his black gloves 
 of woe are called for. In the familiar dialect 
 of the west, he is thar' ! We are inclined to 
 believe that in the secret recesses of the soul 
 of Berryman, (as in the consideration of the 
 era, whose truest type he is,) the whole affair on 
 both sides is regarded as a huge jest : a mere 
 farce, rather broadly played, but of short dura- 
 tion : and that lying in one of these finical cof- 
 fins, or sitting at ease on one of the parlor otto- 
 mans, is only a part of the pre-arranged per- 
 formance : something done, as in the course 
 of the play, merely to help the piece along : 
 and that he looks upon these new-fangled 
 
148 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 cemeteries as no more than stage gardens, 
 with a fancy fence and canvas shrubbery — a 
 mere show and make-believe — nothing more. 
 
 If we are to judge by what we see, Death — 
 once known as the grim tyrant, the cruel 
 enemy of our peace, the invader of households 
 — is the Merry Andrew of the scene; the 
 director of Public Amusements. It is he who 
 announces with such boastful promise in the 
 daily papers, the scheme of his entertainment : 
 who invites the editors to the opening of his 
 new play-ground : who rails in his ring with 
 quaint fences: who engages a company of 
 lively directors : who has an office in Wall- 
 street : who publishes fresh catalogues of his 
 attractions in colored covers : who contrives 
 new coffins of a patent convenience, (like a Mr. 
 Rice in the Virginia Mummy,) as a rare sport 
 to get into : who takes shops of display in 
 Broadway : and he it is who has entered into 
 partnership with Mr. John Mace, in that great 
 glass warehouse, (a rival to the structure of 
 
U TICKETS FOR GREENWOOD." 149 
 
 Industrial Exhibition of 1853, up- town, n^ar 
 the Keservoir,) at the corner of Carmine 
 street. 
 
 Life ! my lively fellow — he seems to say — 
 you are not to have it all your own way. You 
 have had the good things of this world long 
 enough! My turn now, if you please: your 
 Mrs. Furbelow has had the turbans and feath- 
 ers in her drawing-room long enough — all the 
 shows and spectacles shall not belong to the 
 Bowery Theatre ; so, my dear Mr. Mace, 
 bring me out six iron-grey horses with sable 
 plumes : if there are to be balls and parties for 
 live folks — light me up, late into the evening, 
 an undertaker's shop with transparent walls of 
 glass, that our neighbors may see how merry 
 we are. Let the women and children who 
 grow melancholy with serious sports and semp- 
 stress's work in the day time, have a roaring 
 regale of grinning silver plates and waxen 
 polished mahogany coffins ! Come and be 
 buried, my merry men all ! A shiver, a cold, 
 
150 THE PEN- AND INK PANORAMA. 
 
 sl*eet, a few people standing around in black 
 coats — open the door — and you are in — Eter- 
 nity ! That's all ! Thanks, Mr. John Mace, 
 for the gentle introduction. 
 
 This is, a sad and damnatory truth, the spirit 
 of the times. 
 
 It is a part of our nature to cherish foolish 
 hopes, to believe well of our kind : and in our 
 vain fancy to contrive sanctuaries a little re- 
 moved from the street and the market-place, 
 to remember that while we are of the earth, 
 earthy, good Providence has assigned to us 
 immortal souls, whose business may be in 
 another scene, where there is no traffic, where 
 painted fashion enters not, and where a light 
 from far-off stars and music from distant 
 spheres may play about our enfranchised 
 spirits. Shall we go to that as scholars who 
 have learned no part of their coming lesson ; 
 where, when we mumble over the topics of the 
 exchange and the counting-room, our new fel- 
 
"tickets for greenwood." 151 
 
 low-citizens of the upper sphere will account 
 us foreigners and strangers ? 
 
 Oh, let us, if \v T e can, even in the hurry and 
 bustle of this the busiest age of the world, re- 
 serve one little domain sacred to our nobler 
 studies. However far peaceful valleys are in- 
 vaded with the whirl of new mechanisms, old 
 lakes and rivers vexed, though the temples of 
 worship themselves are overthrown in the 
 furious speed of grasping barter, let the grave 
 — the dear, sacred grave — where our fathers 
 and mothers, our sisters and our brethren 
 have gone before us, lie aloof, as of old, and 
 possess a twilight peace of its own. 
 
 The scene change sonce again to a queer 
 little thoroughfare, and behold 
 
152 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 MRS. ALWAYS, 
 
 AND THE LITTLE SCHOOL IN THE CROOKED STREET. 
 
 Memory has its holiday time, to the most of 
 us — and let it ever cherish this benignant 
 power ! — opening a little gallery of its own : a 
 series of Portraits and Interiors tinted with 
 cheerful colors, which live as fresh to-day on 
 the canvas, as in the first hour they were put 
 there. It calls up to most of us a picture or 
 two, which teaches us that while we are grow- 
 ing old — and gliding swiftly to the great ocean 
 which opens outward on another world — com- 
 munities and metropolises are also sailing on- 
 wards in their larger bulk and with their wider 
 shadow, towards the same great bourne of all 
 things. It is within our remembrance — and 
 we are not by any means " the oldest inhabi- 
 tant" — it seems but yesterday — that Indians 
 wandered among us at holiday-time, and near 
 upon Christmas were used to make their ap- 
 pearance in the old Square, (named after that 
 
MRS. ALWAYS. 153 
 
 noble friend of ours, Lord Chatham,) with bow 
 and arrows, and to shoot at pennies in a cleft 
 stick at some thirty paces — for what they 
 could hit ; a sport patronized of youth and 
 sometimes lingeringly watched by grown-up 
 men, bound homewards with the Christmas 
 turkey in hand. Has it ever occurred to you, 
 by the way, to note the bearing of a working- 
 man, a thrifty cartman or mechanic, as he con- 
 voyed this pride of the season at his side. 
 There is no countenance in the world, I take 
 it, which so happily mingles all that we can 
 imagine of the grand and lowly — a cross be- 
 tween pride of purpose and consciousness of a 
 naked bird in its plumpness dangling by the 
 legs — as belongs to the Christmas turkey- 
 bearer ! This, by the way, only, and in con- 
 nection with the circumstance that a marvel- 
 lous train of these — more than one would 
 suppose that narrow precinct could hold — were 
 visible on such days traversing the Square, 
 and disappearing at that crook-necked per- 
 
154 THE PEN-AND-INK PANOPwAMA. 
 
 versity of a street just at its head. Here or 
 there it was, in an angle not easy to be found, 
 that Mrs. Chanty Always, the widow of an 
 excellent Quaker dealer in paints and oil, had 
 her seat or rather bench of authority, with the 
 modest blazon of " Select School for Children," 
 faintly denoted on a yellow board on the gate 
 of entrance. The room within was a triangu- 
 lar, with two slips against the wall, lined with 
 children in frocks and pinafores ; we doubt 
 whether there was an authentic coat or com- 
 plement of breeches in the whole company. As 
 we take pleasure, seeing the full-grown bird 
 on the wing, in his strength and beauty 
 spreading himself in the heavens, and circling 
 the land in his daily flight, in going back to a 
 recollection of the humble spotted egg in the 
 obscure nest from which he pitched his wing : 
 so can we help comparing what we remember 
 of the modest beginnings of schools we knew 
 in our youth, with the grand and comprehen- 
 sive sweep of our present public Seminaries, 
 
MRS. ALWAYS. 155 
 
 Free Academies, and great Colleges of learn- 
 ing? Prim, precise Mother Always, (as she 
 was known,) sat in her rocker, her ancient sil- 
 ver spectacles lifted from the nose, rod in hand, 
 (for in those days the hide was by no means 
 tenderly considered,) diligently forwarding and 
 expediting by reasonable stages her little 
 fleecy flock of innocents up the roads and over 
 the rugged hills of knowledge. It was all 
 head and hand work in those days, main per- 
 sonal strength of teacher and learner, that 
 achieved anything. In those days there were 
 no picture-books, no colored primers, block- 
 letters, toys, sliding alphabetical contrivances 
 of encouragement ; but the twenty-six primary 
 monsters of the language, to be met in their 
 naked hideousness, and conquered one by one 
 in open battle. No singing, no combination 
 in classes, no division of labor ; it was a work 
 of salvation, in which each little struggler was 
 put to dig out his own deliverance : no straps 
 nor servants to carry books, but an unmis- 
 
156 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 takable bag, in a string about the neck, if the 
 invoice amounted to so much — at any rate, 
 the plain old spelling-book in its dingy-blue 
 shingle cover, on the worst (that is to say to 
 us now in the fancy, the best) of paper. 
 Severity ! Have you ever looked on a gen- 
 eral at the crisis of battle ? A Judge deliver- 
 ing a sentence of death with the black cap on ? 
 A tiger at feeding hour ? Mother Always, 
 kindly-hearted woman as she was, when she 
 came to the house to take- tea with the parents 
 out of school-hours, could have sat for her por- 
 trait, and given them odds in rigidity of fea- 
 ture and unwavering resoluteness of purpose. 
 I tremble when I meet her now — although I 
 have practised law since, and badgered Judge 
 and Jury in my time. She seems a reproach- 
 ful ghost or spectre, with her pale, unmoving, 
 quiet features, stepped out of the past, with a 
 dreadful account to settle of forgotten alpha- 
 bets, misreckoned sums, loiterings to schools, 
 and truancies of absence. She, too, has never, 
 
MRS. ALWAYS. 157 
 
 changed her relations one jot, or in a single 
 relaxed look, towards her childish scholars. 
 
 Samuel D , the Congressman, is still in the 
 
 first form with her ; Barney H- , although 
 
 a mighty College Professor is still stumbling in 
 
 words of two syllables ; E. N , though 
 
 accounted one of the most correct and finished 
 writers of the land, is still blundering in his 
 accidence with her. No attempt at a greater 
 familiarity of any one of all has ever, so far, 
 succeeded with her. She still holds the rod 
 in terror em in all her encounters. A blessing 
 on her careful steps — wherever they tread 
 now ! Though it is many a day since they 
 fearfully crossed us — may she still linger long 
 upon earth to appropriate to herself as she 
 quietly does, all their achievings ; weaving in 
 upon the plain ground of her Quaker cap, all 
 the laurels, and chaplets, and glories they are 
 earning. She it is, in her way of looking at it, 
 that sits upon the Judge's bench, writes all 
 those fine books, and delivers all those great 
 
158 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 speeches in the House. " For," she reasonably 
 asks, " what would they all have been with- 
 out me ?" True, venerable mother ! It was 
 you that opened the gate, and let us into those 
 wide pastures ; you instructed our timid teeth 
 in those first cautious nibblings, and shall we 
 now deny the voice of the shepherdess ? The 
 tree has grown, and has spread wide its 
 verdurous branches; but it was you that had 
 the acorn in your pocket, (that mysterious 
 cavern where so much disappeared,) and if you 
 and others of your kindred had not had the 
 goodness to plant it, would our beloved city 
 have been at this happy hour other than a 
 waste howling wilderness, without college roof 
 or academy spire, to lift its cheerful summit 
 over our heads, and the heads of our children ? 
 
 Stop a moment here, if you please, and let 
 us have a word to say on 
 
 
STREET ENTERTAINMENTS. 159 
 
 SEEING THE BEAR DANCE AND OTHER STREET 
 ENTERTAINMENTS. 
 
 Time appears to have taken notice of the 
 bitter complaint of the great comic novelist of 
 England, that he could find no street-mice, 
 hurdy-gurdies, or other comforts of that sort, in 
 the highways of New- York. Mice are still 
 scarce ; but in the interval since his lament, 
 hand-organs have visited every thoroughfare, 
 and there is scarcely a house iu the metropolis 
 without its attendant grinder, as regular in his 
 appearance as a well-paid family physician. 
 Monkeys, too, abound ; blind harpers ; Swiss 
 pandeans; Italian choruses; performers on 
 the flute, and whole caravans of fantoccini. 
 At no season of the year are these indolent 
 men idle — they pay no heed to swallows or 
 butter-cups, but are in a state of perpetual 
 bloom along the side-w T alks — always in blow. 
 We have a surprising growth of street spec- 
 tacles in the great thoroughfares ; out-of-door 
 
160 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 shows of a more ambitious character — small 
 theatres and spectaculums. For instance, in 
 a sort of rivalry with the Bowery and Chat- 
 ham — midw 7 ay between these popular houses 
 — what is it we have before us? A small 
 structure on wheels, at the corner of the Square 
 and Mott-street, with a big-lettered announce- 
 ment, that the Bear is dancing within at two 
 cents a sight. Payment not being required in 
 advance, and the price, in consideration of a 
 rival cosmorama, a yard off, having been let 
 down to a penny, we put our head under a 
 crimson hood, and get a capital view of a bril- 
 liant interior — exhibiting a series of affection- 
 ate dances of some half-a-dozen lively bears 
 with so many lovety young ladies, underillumi- 
 nation from the back of the box. The crowd 
 stand off in a respectful circle awaiting our cri- 
 tical report ; and when it is announced to be 
 a most satisfactory and enchanting exhibition, 
 the pennies, you see, pour in with great vio- 
 lence, the conductor smiles, and leaving the 
 
CHATHAM- STKEET. 161 
 
 women and children about the Bear Dance, in 
 the happy alphabet of their education, as wit- 
 nesses of a first performance, we strike forth- 
 with into 
 
 CHATHAM-STREET 
 
 We have known Chatham-street since our 
 boyhood. It is a necessary part of the educa- 
 tion of a New-Yorker. Not to have studied 
 humanity in that great highway, is to have 
 read " Othello" omitting the third act — to have 
 eaten icecream, neglecting the last dainty 
 dropping in the glass— to have partaken of 
 straw-berries, leaving the largest and ripest in 
 the dish — in fact an extremely absurd and 
 foolish thing. To consider Chatham-street 
 rightly, we may take it either by the handle or 
 the bowl, for it lies like a spoon, with its bulge 
 at the square, declining gently till it comes to 
 an end at Tammany Hall. To begin at the 
 small end, it must be confessed that this re- 
 nowned thoroughfare has a rather shabby and 
 
162 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 deserted look in that quarter, having but one 
 side to it, and being confronted in its poverty 
 by the stately public buildings, the City Hall, 
 Hall of Records, &c., although it even then 
 stickles for its rights, and puts forth its three 
 balls under Mr. Simpson's patronage, inviting 
 small parcels, umbrellas, family jewels, and 
 other nick-nacks, thither in pledge! We could 
 tell a story, just here, that would bring tears to 
 your eyes — of a little child whose sole wish 
 from infancy, was to see his grandfather, (poor 
 grandfather was dead — he had been a noted 
 beau in his time,) and who was instructed to 
 seek him at Mr. Simpson's, whither resorting 
 he had shown him the cane, the cocked hat, 
 the breeches, ruffles, and other appendages of 
 his venerable progenitor — which had been duly 
 spouted in his life-time ; but no matter, the 
 story's rather long, and as it has been told 
 more than once before, you had, perhaps, 
 better be spared. Not far from this, just 
 past the Fork, is a spot memorable for its con- 
 
CHATHAM-STREET. 163 
 
 nection with the late Mexican war. The num- 
 ber of times that small boy in regimentals has 
 beaten that drum, and the number of stories 
 that gentleman in the belt and sergeant's hat, 
 has told to innocent-looking young men from 
 up town, would be hard to calculate. We sup- 
 pose there has been about as many of the one as 
 of the other. And that they might come down 
 to the rendezvous duly sharpened to warlike 
 thoughts, some special providence has planted 
 just above it a long range — the longest in the 
 metropolis — of gunshops, their windows filled 
 with all sorts of murderous instruments, brist- 
 ling with dirks, rampant with cocked pistols 
 and clamorous with great open-mouthed mus- 
 kets. 
 
 If you were asked through what street in 
 New-York, in a given time, the greatest num- 
 ber of dirty shirts passed, we think the chances 
 are ten to one you would name Chatham ; and 
 yet, strangely enough, this very street has been 
 selected as the stronghold and entrenchment 
 
164 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 of the linen drapers. With their great trans- 
 parent windows, equipped with endless relays 
 of new shirts, staring forth with fresh pearl 
 buttons, they are a perpetual reproach to tra- 
 vellers in that street, and seem to be saying to 
 them constantly, " Go home, my poor fellow, 
 and put on a clean shirt !" where perhaps 
 there is no shirt to be had to put on. But 
 Chatham-street rallies characteristically on the 
 other side of the way : for it is there that Old 
 Clo' has pitched his paradise ; it is there, that 
 to be shorn of their buttons, to have a small 
 rent in the back, to be out of color is no objec- 
 tion in a coat or other garment, not the least ; 
 but rather commends it, connecting it by secret 
 association with the antiquity and long- 
 descended history of their own race. You 
 have perhaps not been a student of the Chat- 
 ham-street Jew ? You have done yourself a 
 great injustice. In our earliest recollections 
 of him, he lived in patriarchal simplicity, in a 
 small burrow at the back of his shop, from 
 
CHATHAM-STREET. 165 
 
 which he was contented to observe the world 
 of traffic through a glazed window, running 
 forth into the shop from time to time, as the 
 calls of trade required him. Presently, as he 
 grows more corrupt in the midst of an advan- 
 cing civilization, he takes up his station in the 
 shop. Even here he would not be at rest, but 
 shortly seized his stool and sallied forth at the 
 shop door and planted himself firmly on the 
 stoop. These movements were simultaneous 
 through the whole range, so that you, at the 
 selfsame instant, heard the clatter of the 
 advancing stools from every shop in the street. 
 Now many pleasant dialogues ensued between 
 the young gentleman of Jewry, of a right witty 
 and trenchant character, and many friendly 
 appeals were addressed to gentlemen from 
 the country, in which their attention was soli- 
 cited to a " first-rate coat," or " them pants," 
 or " not'ing of this sort, neighbor ?" This 
 pleasant game was, by times, carried so far 
 that these Jewry-men did take to marching, 
 
166 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 even like the men of G-ilgal before Jericho, up 
 and down the walk, and seizing by violence 
 the men from the far countries, hauled them, 
 with force, within their fastnesses, and there 
 impressed them, whether they would or no, in 
 garments of the strangest make, dimensions, 
 and fitnesses. This street, reader, was in the 
 old times of this Island, a war-path of Man- 
 hattan Indians to the West ; civilization hath 
 not affected it greatly. The old red men 
 scalped their enemies, the Chatham Go' men 
 skin theirs. So little difference have two hun- 
 dred years in changing the character of man- 
 kind ! 
 
 Leaving the clean linen and faded clothes 
 shops to stare each other out of countenance 
 as long as they choose, let us go up the street 
 a little way. There seems to be a wonderful 
 activity in this street, a perpetual movement 
 of mighty streams of people, and it would be 
 curious, if we could, to ascertain the springs, 
 or spring which set them a-going. All through 
 
CHATHAM- STREET. 167 
 
 this thoroughfare, to whatever part we pro* 
 ceed, we discover in great baskets, festooned 
 on strings, piled in tin measures, and spread 
 out on great boards, endless supplies of a little 
 bulbus vegetable, which men, women, and boys 
 are busy dealing out to passers by, who, par- 
 taking thereof, go on their way rejoicing. The 
 pea-nut is the motive power of Chatham-street, 
 and all Chatham-street has of culture, litera- 
 ture, the drama, springs from the pea-nut. 
 Without the pea-nut Chanfrau had never been, 
 the great Mose were non-existent; without the 
 pea-nut, trade w ? ould decline, and civilization 
 become extinct in that portion of the metropo- 
 lis. It is the bread-plant of these east-siders, 
 their manna in the wilderness. Watch them 
 closely ; if any great blight has come over 
 their spirits ; if there has not been enough 
 fires or too little water ; if the Chatham Theatre 
 is shut, or Mr. Chanfrau has gone to Boston, 
 or any other circumstance has happened to 
 affect their lightness of heart — note their con- 
 
168 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 duct ! They will keep from the pea-nut, with 
 a sort of holy and self-imposed abstinence for 
 many days, and only by degrees, as matters 
 mend with them, (a great fire is the speediest 
 relief,) take to them again. Such is man in all 
 ages of the world ! 
 
 But listen ! We are nearing one of the 
 Prairies, with all the bull buffaloes of the west 
 assembled in one place, all roaring at once ! 
 Or, is it a second Niagara burst from the 
 earth, clamoring with the voice of fifty thousand 
 demons ? Let us climb the hill and learn for 
 ourselves — and now we get for the first time a 
 view of the renowned Chatham Square, at the 
 height of its glory, for it is auction-day, and 
 with the red flags flying, and furniture and 
 utensils of every name and kind strewn on 
 every side, it has the look of a lively field of 
 battle, where the contest is well-sustained on 
 every hand. But even these almighty lungs 
 at last give out; carts and barrows rush in; 
 the square is cleared ; the sun declines, and 
 
CHATHAM. STREET. 169 
 
 with long streams of bright tin-ketties making 
 for the Bowery, Division-street, and the thor- 
 oughfares on the East-side, the day draws to 
 a close. A comparative silence broods over 
 the Square, broken by a sailor getting up from 
 the East side by way of Oliver-street, and 
 making for a harbor somewhere in the keys 
 and recesses of Doyer and Pell streets ; a stray 
 fisherman comes out of Catherine-street, and 
 with his rickety wagon and long trumpet, 
 steers for the Points through Mott-street, break- 
 ing the silence with a doleful cry, " Oysters ! — ■ 
 any good — Oy-s-ters I" Midnight strikes from 
 the clock at the Fork, and — we all go to bed. 
 
 And here, ladies and gentlemen, we stand 
 where we can look straight down into that 
 dark and dismal hollow of the Five Points, 
 which sets us as we walk through — step care- 
 fully, ladies and gentlemen ! — thinking upon 
 
170 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 REFORMING THE WORLD BY WHOLESALE. 
 
 If we encounter a fellow-being who is hun- 
 gry, and hand him a loaf of bread, which 
 appeases his appetite, we know that we have 
 done him a service. If we announce from the 
 house-top, and in the market-place, that we 
 think the condition of every man on the face 
 of the earth should be ameliorated, and come 
 down only to organize great societies to go to 
 Australia and the North Pole, to repeat the 
 same theoretical statement, we ought not to be 
 sure that we have done " any great things," 
 after all. By great brags and large professions 
 of universal kindness, we are very likely to let 
 go our duty to our neighbors, and those who 
 are nearest and should be dearest to us. 
 
 These reflections occur to us in connection 
 with a recent incident. A meagre, hollow- 
 chested gentleman, with straight hair, and of 
 a chalky complexion, waited upon us one day 
 
REFORMING THE WORLD BY WHOLESALE. 171 
 
 last week, and insisted upon laying before us 
 a comprehensive plan for the reformation and 
 improvement of the citizens and subjects of 
 Eussia, Prussia, France, Italy, Ireland, and 
 Great Britain. We took the liberty of asking 
 him whether his own condition could not be 
 improved ? 
 
 " In what respect, sir ?" 
 
 " Why, sir," we replied, " if you would get 
 up every morning, and throw stones into a 
 cart for a couple of hours, or saw fire- wood for 
 your neighbors, we think you would enlarge 
 your chest, which seems now to be rapidly 
 falling in, and greatly add to your own imme- 
 diate comfort." 
 
 He looked blank for a moment, but recover- 
 ing himself, proposed to argue the question on 
 the celebrated Five Points of Theology. We 
 had no time to spare for further answer, than 
 to recommend him to study the Five Points 
 of Orange, Cross, and Anthony streets. With 
 a ghastly smile, he departed, and we never ex 
 
172 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 pect to see him again. While his head is in a 
 frenzy about the people at the other end of 
 the world, poor fellow, he is " caving in" him- 
 self as fast as he can. His plans are altogether 
 too vague and distant. And he is but a better 
 specimen of a whole race of modern reformers 
 — men of so loose ideas, that they are always 
 at least a mile wide of their mark, in their at- 
 tempts to benefit their fellow-men. 
 
 The breeches (with respect,) these people 
 contrive, are so large and comprehensive, that 
 while they are intended for all mankind, they 
 fit so poorly, that they do not afford the least 
 comfort to the limbs of a single member of the 
 whole human race. It is the philanthropy of 
 the moon, which, while it looks very full and 
 pure, does not furnish one ray of heat ; while 
 the honest old sun goes about his day's w T ork 
 with genuine ardor, and makes the world 
 happy with his every-day light, without any 
 pretence of excessive purity or freedom from 
 
OUR FESTIVALS. 173 
 
 blemish, which that wretched impostor and 
 borrower, the moon, claims as her special 
 virtue. 
 
 Ladies and gentlemen, having conducted 
 you through the city on both sides, with such 
 pictorial help in illustration of scene and char- 
 acter as I could, I have but a " stretch" or two 
 more of canvas to unroll before I dismiss you. 
 "Will you pardon me, as we approach a sort of 
 grand climax in the Panorama, if I say a word 
 upon a general topic of which that is for the 
 present moment the special example ? What 
 is to be thought of 
 
 OUR FESTIVALS. 
 
 The metropolis of New York is unquestion- 
 ably the favorite child of Brother Jonathan ; 
 and repeats the features of its wide-awake and 
 universal parent, with the greatest truth and 
 
174 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 freshness. Ours is an age of miscellaneous 
 activity, of which Jonathan himself may fairly 
 claim to be the prime representative, and of all 
 miscellanies, Manhattan is certainly the most 
 comprehensive and various. Of contributions 
 to this mighty medley a notion may be formed 
 when it is known that in a late report, the im- 
 migration for one year to this port ranged 
 from a single Malay up to a hundred thousand 
 Irishmen, embracing in the intermediate figures 
 of the scale, representatives of something like 
 thirty nations. The result is that in our streets 
 a thousand streams of character, dress, dialect, 
 cross each other, and that no such thing as a 
 pure streak is to be had ; there is scarcely 
 any class large enough to stand by itself and 
 to control public opinion. This will explain 
 in a considerable degree why it is that in all 
 our public entertainments, theatres, concerts, 
 balls, lectures, &c, &c, and even in the pro- 
 fessedly exclusive opera itself, provision is 
 required to be made for all tastes ; so that a 
 
OUR FESTIVALS. 175 
 
 sufficient number may be called in to counte- 
 nance and sustain the enterprise. Where an 
 average is in this way struck in literature or 
 the arts, it will of necessity fall below the high- 
 est standards ; common-place would become 
 the rule : and if our glorious metropolis should 
 therefore, fail on public occasions to produce 
 the impression which might be expected from 
 its size and its resources, it will be understood 
 that in the very scale of these resources lies 
 the chief difficulty. A village spectacle of the 
 humblest compass would, we fancy, as a mere 
 piece of picturesqueness, be more effective and 
 satisfactory than the grand and enormous 
 " turn outs," in which New York from time to 
 time, indulges. New York has all the mate- 
 rials in ample variety and abundance, for an 
 epic city on a grand scale ; but it wants direc- 
 tion and unity. How are these to be acquired 
 and secured ? Clearly nothing can be accom- 
 plished in pursuits or engagements of a private 
 character. We cannot prescribe to the build- 
 
176 THE FEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 ers of residences that they shall be constructed 
 on any general principles, or that harmony 
 shall be observed either in a suitable concord 
 or discord of arrangement. "We cannot bring 
 the proprietors of omnibuses to acknowledge 
 pictorial propriety in the build and embellish- 
 ment of their coaches ; nor can we enact or 
 enforce sumptuary laws for the regulation of 
 the dress of our citizens, so that they shall 
 present suitable colors and agreeable contrasts. 
 For all these and like matters, the town is a 
 chartered libertine, and will have its own way 
 without let or hindrance. There is, however, a 
 very decided inclination among our people to 
 come together, without distinction of class, 
 caste, or degree ; and this is one of the happiest 
 auguries of our age and country. In no coun- 
 try on the surface of the globe are so many 
 professions, callings, and trades represented, 
 ranging from the highest to the humblest, 
 mingled in common, and on terms of perfect 
 equality, as in one of our public assemblies, 
 
OUR FESTIVALS. 177 
 
 whether it be church, theatre, lecture-room or 
 political gathering. It is a fortunate necessity 
 of our community, so various in country and 
 pursuit, that they are thus brought together 
 on a free footing ; and the oftener it occurs, 
 the more speedily and constantly shall we be- 
 come a fraternal, united, and homogeneous 
 community. The occasions to which we have 
 referred, are, however, limited in their scope 
 and in the numbers upon which they act. The 
 influences and opportunities are rare which 
 inspire the whole body of our citizens with a 
 common sentiment, and force them into a like- 
 thinking and like-feeling society. Such, for 
 instance, as the death of a President, the com- 
 mon ruler of the country, (although this may 
 be touched with partisan biases;) or the 
 achievement of a national victory, as in the 
 case of the late Mexican war, when, we re- 
 member with a glow, how the whole inhabita- 
 tion of our metropolis poured into the streets 
 at night, and we saw no less than a hundred 
 
178 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 thousand men, women, and children — inclu- 
 ding the fairest in costly apparel, and the plain- 
 est in homely garb — assembled in a public 
 park, as witnesses of the triumphant illumina- 
 tion. We knew the heart, we felt that night 
 the power of the great community in which 
 we live ; and we will engage that a secret in- 
 spection of the movements and motives of our 
 fellow-citizens would have shown less asperity, 
 and the pressure of a kindlier bond following 
 that night's joyful celebration. Occasions like 
 these are, in their very nature, accidental and 
 rare : and we can accordingly found our hope 
 only on established holidays of regular recur- 
 rence. Meanwhile, let us confess that this is 
 an excitable city of a wonderfully changeable 
 humor. The spirits of New York are up and 
 down, the entire length of the barometer, at 
 least a dozen times in the year. 
 
 One short month works w T onders in the 
 aspect of our volatile metropolis. Houses are 
 down that were up — brick-piles, inspired with 
 
OUR FESTIVALS. 179 
 
 life by the magic glance of the architect, spring 
 up to be houses. Streets are shut up which 
 were open — -and new highways cut through 
 earth and rock. Churches changed into 
 auction-rooms — theatres into churches. All 
 alive with a dog at every door — and then 
 not a yelp to be heard in all the town. New 
 liberty-poles erected, and flags flying one day 
 for France, the next for Italy, the next for 
 Hungary — shad come and gone — strawberries, 
 raspberries, blackberries, and all the kindred 
 and family of berries — wedding-garments made 
 and worn-out — funerals by the score, by the 
 hundred. Some general malady, for example, 
 comes upon the town — how sad the city ! As 
 in a single night all smiles depart — the eyes 
 of the city as of one man, dull and gloomy — ■ 
 the step of the people slow and troubled — 
 the very negroes stop laughing. This is 
 under the first access and alarm. One short 
 month, and under Providence, the healthy con- 
 stitution of our Island City has happily sur- 
 
180 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 vived the shock, and promises to live on a long 
 life of peace, liberality, and prosperous com- 
 merce. The citizen has recovered his New 
 York rapidity of pace — -the children are out 
 again with their hoops — the dustman has con- 
 fidence to lift up his voice — the milkman wields 
 his bell with its old clamor. The very trees 
 shake their leaves as if they knew, (as they 
 probably do,) that the prevailing epidemic is 
 gone or going. We hear sundry canary birds 
 of our acquaintance, absolutely tongue-tied for 
 weeks, singing as if for dear life — and we think 
 we discover at Niblo's Garden that Francois 
 Ravel has several extraordinary comic twists 
 of the leg and contortions of the countenance 
 which he had laid aside for a time — brought 
 forward as fresh as new. The mayor of the 
 city recovers something of his proper municipal 
 pomp of manner, and the Board of Aldermen 
 and Assistants begin to smack strongly in the 
 supper-room. 
 
ON THE ROAD. 181 
 
 And now that we have dispatched the city- 
 proper, let us take car and roll along our pan- 
 oramic way to the extreme landmark of its 
 present civilization, to wit, the Crystal Palace. 
 "What line shall we take ? Here are yellow 
 cars and red cars, and salmon-colored cars, 
 and clean cars, and dingy cars ; and omnibuses 
 two-horsecl, four-horsed, and twelve-horsed, 
 (with feathers in their ears,) all pouring toward 
 that great up-town terminus — which shall we 
 take ? 
 
 If there were a car or an omnibus with a 
 comfortable seat a-top, there would be a chance 
 — for unless you have tried it, you can't fancy 
 the new views of life you get from an elevation 
 like the driver's seat of the omnibuses — glimp- 
 ses of interiors, far-off views, river and country- 
 perspectives down side streets, all utterly lost 
 to the poor prisoner caged within, and lim- 
 ited to the narrow look-out of the window. 
 We have made our choice and away we go ! 
 A steamer is just in, as is known by the guns 
 
182 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 fired in the direction of the Battery half an- 
 hour ago — and what cloud is it that has rained 
 down these clamorous boys all over the city ? 
 and who are these wonderful boys to be seen 
 everywhere — swift of foot, wide-awake, nimble- 
 fingered, superhuman in activity, and typical 
 in their universality, of this great metropolis 
 itself? These are 
 
 THE NEWSBOYS. 
 
 The genuine Newsboy, in his full develop- 
 ment and activity, we fancy, does not exist, 
 except in New York. Your Philadelphia 
 Newsboy, now, has a sort of slow-and-easy, 
 deliberate sing-song, which inspires you with 
 anything but a desire to read the news. But 
 in New York the quick, snapping cry, uttered 
 while under a full run, and trailing along like 
 the smoke of a steam-pipe with the boat 
 at the top of her speed, communicates a sort 
 of excitement to the dullest laggard in the 
 street, and sets the whole city in a state of 
 
THE NEWSBOYS. 183 
 
 effervescence directly. The Newsboy is the 
 lemon in the tumbler of everyday life, making 
 it pungent and smart with a flavor. Without 
 him, the giant's arm, the Press, would lose much 
 of its power, and half its activity. He is the 
 spider's leg which feels and forewarns the com- 
 munity of approaching news — the taster of the 
 great cup of Newspaperism, which everybody 
 quatfs. Formerly the Newsboy cried the 
 leading featnre of his news — but he found that 
 many hundreds did not care to hear any more, 
 and passed on without buying. So now he 
 has become chary of his crying, and gives as 
 little as possible of the purport of his budget. 
 If you stop him and inquire what is the news, 
 you may get a civil answer — but we would 
 advise you not to rely too much on the accu- 
 racy of the intelligence. If you would have 
 the news, fork over your pennies for an Extra 
 Tribune, Times, Herald, or Sun, and then 
 read it honestly and with a clean conscience. 
 We have never made the attempt to count 
 
184 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 the Newsboys, but we suppose, from a gener- 
 al observation of them in all their haunts and 
 localities, that there are about three hundred 
 regularly and permanently on duty — increased 
 by fifty or more on extraordinary occasions. 
 "When the first Newsboy appeared, or where 
 he came from, no man has yet told : we sup- 
 pose, as to his parentage, he was the son of an 
 Oysterman, from whom he derived his voice, 
 and the free and self-possessed manner with 
 which he employs it in the street. 
 
 In his dress, he does not affect the latest 
 fashions. No Newsboy, no legitimate News- 
 boy, has ever been seen in a whole suit. The 
 uniform of his Craft is a slouched cloth cap, 
 dilapidated roundabout and breeches, no shoes 
 nor stockings, and a dirty face with hands to 
 match. 
 
 Notwithstanding the diligent and elaborate 
 search we have instituted, we have not been 
 able to ascertain where the Newsboy has fur- 
 nished himself with his dress. We have in- 
 

 THE NEWSBOYS. 185 
 
 quired at all the tailors : not one of them is 
 tailor to the Newsboys. At the slop shops 
 they work for the sailors, not for the News- 
 boys. At the second-hand clothes-dealers in 
 Chatham-street, they do not recollect to have 
 ever had a Newsboy for a customer. Some 
 have supposed their rigs, or fit outs, are thrown 
 into the street over night, by unseen hands, 
 and picked up early in the morning by the 
 Boys. Others, that they grow upon the News- 
 boys by degrees, like moss about tree-trunks : 
 that one day a pair of trousers comes, the next 
 week what they call a coat, and then, as the 
 season advances, an old cloth-cap. For ourselves 
 we believe these suits have descended to the 
 Nineteenth Century from a remote antiquity ; 
 that they are fragments of the costume of a 
 remote period, artfully reconstructed : and it 
 is not impossible, (and the heathen manner 
 in which they are freely riddled gives plausi- 
 bility to the conjecture,) that some of them 
 have figured in the Crusades. Find us the 
 
186 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 tailor who makes the Newsboy's Uniform, and 
 we will tell you when the American Union is 
 going to be dissolved. 
 
 "We are afraid Tom Newsboy is a trifle pro- 
 fligate ; he swears, we know, freely ; drinks, 
 fights, and very often stays out all night. This 
 last we must not dwell on too strongly as a 
 vice, for it is often a necessity. Tom having 
 no home to go to, and not thinking it worth 
 while to be at a charge for lodgings, takes up his 
 quarters for the night in a box or bunk, under 
 a stoop or in an entry way, where half a dozen 
 of them frequently huddle together, heads and 
 points, with a shaggy dog in their midst, as 
 good a fellow as any of them. 
 
 Tom indulges, too, in games of chance, and 
 is scarcely ever without dice, small cards, and 
 other implements of hazard in his pocket. "We 
 believe he has some games peculiar to himself, 
 of his own devising. He pitches pennies 
 sometimes, like all other boys, or plays at 
 marbles ; but this he holds to be a small busi- 
 
THE NEWSBOYS. 187 
 
 ness. In general he disdains the common 
 sports of youth, and rises on the wing into a 
 loftier region of his own. 
 
 The most extraordinary feature, perhaps, in 
 the whole history of the Newsboy, is his pro- 
 found passion for the Theatre. This is one of 
 the earliest uses to which he devotes his first 
 earnings. The Chatham or the Bowery, has 
 always the first-fruits. At the opening of 
 the doors he throws himself into the pit, and 
 with judicial steadiness watches the progress 
 of the piece. He generally takes possession 
 of the middle of the benches : many of them, 
 by inscribing their names thereupon with a 
 knife, securing them' against invasion, and oc- 
 cupying them, (as they suppose,) by as good 
 a right, and with more regularity nightly, than 
 the rich frequenters of Grace Church and St. 
 Patrick's, their pews, with their names embla- 
 oned on polished plates, at an annual rent of 
 five hundred dollars the pew. 
 
 He affects, in his dramas, thunder and light- 
 
188 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 ning, long-swords, casques, and black-whiskered 
 villains, with mysterious exits and entrances, in 
 preference to every-day life. In bloody and 
 violent death-scenes he revels like a little 
 pirate. There was a Mr. Kirby — he is gone 
 now, poor fellow — we hope he passed into the 
 other world at theE. H. door ! — who had great 
 favor among the Newsboys by his convulsive, 
 awful manner of yielding up the ghost on the 
 stage. Many boys whose engagements did 
 not permit an entire attendance, have paid the 
 full price to be in at one of Kirby's death- 
 struggles. They were unquestionably the 
 most magnificent things (of their kind) ever 
 seen in this country. The Newsboys, however, 
 held the late Mr. Kirby to a strict account. If 
 he omitted a single groan or distortion of fea- 
 ture, there was a general howl of disapproba- 
 tion through the pit, and that actor was com- 
 pelled, more than once, to go through a death- 
 struggle a second and even a third time, till it 
 
THE NEWSBOYS. 189 
 
 satisfied the high requirements of these young 
 censors. 
 
 Not only in his keen judgment in such ques- 
 tions of Art, but in all Newsboy accomplish- 
 ments, the New York practitioner, compared 
 with the Newsboy of other cities, takes the 
 lead by several lengths, in speed of foot, power 
 of vociferation, rapidity of utterance, force of 
 character — in fact, like every thing New York, 
 he is at the head of his class. After the 
 theatre, the chief luxury of the Newsboy is, in 
 common, a glass or half-a-dozen glasses of a 
 crimson whity mixture, supposed to be or to 
 stand for ice-cream ; and in winter, an equal 
 number of cups of gloomy coffee, at a penny a 
 cup, as the other is a penny a glass. No won- 
 der they have customs and usages of their 
 own : for this is, certainly, a peculiar business 
 which summons forth young boys, mere lads, 
 at all hours, associating them in a manner with 
 the mighty Press, at that early time of life, 
 and cramming their pockets with silver, more 
 
190 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 spend ing-money than the richest merchant's 
 son, which they may disburse, when, how, and 
 where they desire, without accountability to 
 any one. They often make two and three dol- 
 lars from a steamer's " Extra," in an hour ; 
 selling from fifty to one hundred and fifty 
 papers, at a heavy advance on first cost. It is 
 the duty of the Newsboy to watch the Press, 
 as a rat watches a mouse; to be on hand at all 
 hours, seasonable and unseasonable, for foreign 
 or domestic news of importance, as much as 
 the editors or proprietors of the journal. At 
 the moment of delivery, he seizes the reeking 
 paper, and rushing forth like one distracted, 
 they fill all the streets of the city, far and near, 
 in an inconceivably short space of time, with 
 their bold and startling cries. These are not 
 always to be taken as Gospel. They sometimes 
 bring on a revolution impromptu, and depose 
 a king without notice. Against certain mem- 
 bers of the royal families of Europe, they seem 
 to cherish a bitter spite. We believe the 
 
THE NEWSBOYS. 191 
 
 Newsboys itched for months to announce the 
 deposition of Louis Phillippe : as much might 
 have been inferred from the fervor — the more 
 than fervor, the fury — with which they bel- 
 lowed out his downfall, when, at last, it did 
 come. We think, as a body, they would an- 
 nounce the flight of Prince Albert and Queen 
 Victoria, and the disruption of the British 
 Empire, with the greatest satisfaction. As in 
 all communities there are leaders, so there are 
 Chief Newsboys or Foremen ; small Capital- 
 ists, who furnish the papers to the boys, re- 
 quiring an account at night, and allowing them 
 a part of the profits or reasonable wages. It 
 is to these — to whom King Mark McGuire is 
 the Chief — that the " bursted-up" boys apply, 
 to be set up again in business, when by impro- 
 vidence or neglect, they have become insolvent. 
 The Newsboys, for the sake of the fresh air, 
 sometimes make short trips down East, or to 
 Albany, in the steamboats, or on the cars be- 
 tween the cities, getting a free passage, (with 
 
192 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 a newspaper or two to the clerk or conductor,) 
 and selling what they can by the way. The 
 city, is, however their main stay. 
 
 We have been told that Newsboys have 
 been seen at cock-fights, in back-yards and sub- 
 terranean places about the city ; and that they 
 have even figured as owners of game-fowls. 
 This we do not believe. It's a scandal put in 
 circulation by the enemies of the brotherhood. 
 That the}^ swear, fight, cheat, and run wild at 
 night, we have frankly admitted, but the cock- 
 fights we deny. We have a friendship for the 
 Order, and we must make a stand somewhere. 
 It has also been asserted (from some touches 
 of grandeur we have noticed glimmering out 
 from among his rags — we can believe this,) 
 that in the pride of his spirit, and in the dig- 
 nity of his intimate connection with the pub- 
 lic journals, two or three newsboys have been 
 known to club together, and purchase at auc- 
 tion, a horse and wagon — both of light build — 
 (value of the outfit, including harness, tail- 
 
THE NEWSBOYS. 193 
 
 board, &c, $4.25,) with which they have been 
 seen sporting in afternoon rides on the Avenue, 
 like so many young gentlemen of fortune. 
 
 We wonder whether it has ever occurred to 
 any Newsboy of reflecting turn, what a mighty 
 instrument for good or evil, he has in that voice 
 of his — the peace of how many families he has 
 broken or cheered by his loud and long cry of 
 steamer or packet — what mischief he has 
 wrought by false alarms — how many ears have 
 been strained to catch its far-off* sound, whose 
 all of weal or woe in this life, hung suspended 
 on the Newsboy's breath. 
 
 A piece of advice we shall venture, as the 
 friends of these young gentlemen : If the pas- 
 sion is strong upon them to dabble in literature, 
 let them stick to the legitimate business of the 
 Morning and Evening newspapers, regular and 
 extra, and not allow themselves to be seduced 
 by grown men, (who should have more sense 
 and self-respect,) to deal in dirty foreign 
 novels, and filthy compositions of home manu- 
 
194 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 facture on a similar mode]. Let them shun 
 the contraband sale of obscene books and 
 prints, as they would red-hot coals of fire ; 
 which would burn up in them every good prin- 
 ciple, and reduce them to a sapless, ashy, and 
 worthless old age. We can imagine no more 
 pitiful or revolting sight than one of these chil- 
 dren, under the promptings of some old fiend 
 of mischief from behind his " respectable" 
 counter, sneaking about the hotels, steamboat 
 landings, and public parks, having concealed 
 in his bosom, the seeds of ruin, and stealthily 
 seeking to cast them in the laps of others. 
 Heaven must weep and devils grin, when poison 
 is so diffused with a double damnation, killing 
 the soul of buyer and seller with a subtle and 
 fatal power. Boys ! you had better jump into 
 a furnace at white heat, than to have any thing 
 more to do with this low and nasty traffic ! 
 Stick to the newspapers ! 
 
 What kind of citizens these Newsboys will 
 make — what kind of creatures will spring from 
 
THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 195 
 
 these mixed elements of turmoil, street-running, 
 precocious activity of body and mind, and pre- 
 cocious profusion of cash, no one can guess; 
 for the system — started some ten or fifteen 
 years since — has not been long enough in ope- 
 ration to bring many of them of age. Onr best 
 wishes are with the Boys. 
 
 I am not going to put myself out of favor 
 with all mankind, by asserting that this is the 
 finest Panorama ever penned or painted, and 
 that New York is the only city in all Christen- 
 dom worthy of such special pictorial notice ; 
 but this I will say, ladies and gentlemen — I 
 have said it before and I will abide by it now — 
 New York is the eldest and favorite child of 
 Brother Jonathan, and that whatever toy he 
 takes a fancy to, the boy must be indulged in 
 his humor. Yorkey has taken a fancy for a 
 Crystal Palace, and a Crystal Palace the darly- 
 
196 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 darling shall have. The lad must every now 
 and then be furnished with a knob, a good, big, 
 palpable knob, to open the door to some new 
 amusement, and here he has it. By some 
 secret law of aggregation, analogous to the 
 movements of the blood in the human system, 
 the world comes periodically to a head upon 
 some spot on its surface, and breaks out at 
 pretty regular intervals, with a new island at 
 sea, a volcano on lnnd, an Eglinton tournament, 
 or a World's Fair. These may be vents of 
 relief or tumors indicating foregone excesses 
 of the old globe, which, being once fairly dis- 
 charged, the world is free for a time to pursue 
 its regular paths with the steady gait of puri- 
 fied convalescence ; or, on the other hand, they 
 may be looked on as the crests or knolls of 
 history, by the use of which Time advances 
 from one era of development to another. It is 
 doubtless in this fairer light that observers are 
 just now disposed to speculate upon the Exhi- 
 bition of the World's Industry in this very 
 
THE CRYSTAL FALACE. 197 
 
 Metropolis of New York. As a mere assem- 
 blage of people, it will prove one of the most 
 motley and various within the remembrance 
 of man : not a clime nor country, however far 
 removed from that centre, but will have its 
 representative, urged thither by all the preter- 
 natural agencies of our times ; stimulated to 
 the very extremities of the earth by steamer, 
 railway, and telegraph ; and in the Crystal 
 Palace, Eeservoir Square, Manhattan Island, 
 the Tower of Babel will rise again, in a confu- 
 sion of tongues which no polyglot nor series of 
 polyglots can ever attempt to interrupt. The 
 place is New York ; the products are the con- 
 tributions of all nations — there are no other 
 elements of unity discoverable — and what 
 white men call hodge-podge, and the Indians 
 harum-scarum, will inevitably rule the univer- 
 sal medley. No scheme could have been de- 
 vised by metaphysical ingenuity so likely to 
 draw into question the unity of our race ; and 
 we can imagine something of the astonishment 
 
198 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 with which the representatives of the different 
 points of the compass will find themselves in 
 contact — ail bi-furcated creatures — without 
 any other possible point of alliance or sympa- 
 thy: None other than the Grand Central 
 Building known as 
 
 THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 
 
 If we fancy the Island of Manhattan a great 
 hump whale which has struck for the Atlantic 
 by the way of the Highlands of the Hudson 
 River, and has come to a pause with its snout 
 in the Bay of New York, the Crystal Palace, 
 midway up between the two rivers, will stand 
 for the hump. And — oh ! Bacchus, son of 
 Semele ! — what seas of drink we have about 
 us, for the whale to swim in — from what oceans 
 of julep, and cobbler, and punch, and port, and 
 toddy, does that beautiful dome spring into 
 the air. One would fancy from the great 
 abundance of springs of a peculiar sort here- 
 about, that the Crystal Palace was a fairy 
 
THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 199 
 
 structure in the desert. Look around ! Here 
 is the Empire House and the Troy House, 
 and the Trojan House ; Jones's, Cox's, The 
 Tontine, The Albion, and, in a perfect swarm, 
 the whole military family of the Thompson's, 
 (powerful in the drinking line,) Colonel Thomp- 
 son's, Major Thompson's, Captain Thompson's, 
 Corporal Thompson's. We all exclaim, what a 
 dreadful thirsty neighborhood is this ? As if 
 all the publicans in the world had said — and 
 with a truth — as Sir Charles Lyell, English 
 Commissioner to the American Exhibition, 
 would certify to us — " That's a sandy soil up 
 there — dry as Sahara — we must go up thither 
 and moisten it : come, ye mighty pourers-out 
 of cobbler, ye mixers of punch, concocters of 
 cock-tail, and all ye other sons of the bar — the 
 earth gapes for drink !" And then, beside the 
 human necessities, behold ! what cattle — the 
 twelve fat oxen, and the mammoth steers, that 
 huge living crocodile, to say nothing of the 
 dancing bear, and the anaconda from Brazil, 
 
200 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 the alligator nine feet long, (there's stowage 
 for fluids !) the three live rattlesnakes, the calf 
 with six legs, and the wonderful cow with 
 double horns — (two men to wait on her alone !) 
 Was there ever such surrounding to such a 
 structure ? 
 
 But, my friends, let us tarry no longer with- 
 out — let us enter the beautiful building : it is 
 about to be opened this day. We have crossed 
 the threshold, and all those eccentric surround- 
 ings are forgotten — we are now in a new 
 world. How far away stretch the aisles ! how 
 loftily the dome lifts up ! and riding through 
 the centre, as author and master of the scene, 
 that great image of Washington horsed in 
 bronze — serenely he regards this scene of tran- 
 quil industry as there he sits aloft — the Man 
 without bigotry, without bias, acting for all, 
 aided by all; a renown great at the beginning : 
 deepening its hold, spreading its base, and lift- 
 ing loftier its summit in every subsequent gen- 
 eration : energetic in a righteous war, equally 
 
THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 201 
 
 ready for a righteous peace : honored by all 
 honorable men at home and abroad. Even as 
 on that great horse, upon the affections of the 
 People he marches on over the land, and we 
 bless the day that gave him to us; 
 
 The day to us this man was born, 
 Whose memory is like the morn, 
 Which riseth calmly in the East 
 And brightens on toward the West, 
 Each hour more lovely and more blest ! 
 
 Far shores and isles behold, and praise 
 The champion of our gloomy days — 
 Happy the father of such son, 
 Happy the mother who upon 
 His cradle poured her benison ! 
 
 He was a child of Truth and Peace, 
 And loved the silent fields' increase — 
 The sword he took and laid aside, 
 Calmly, and with far less of pride 
 Than when he mowed with sickle wide • 
 
202 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 Behold ! how the crowds of fair women and 
 quick eyed men, throng from the galleries, 
 spread themselves thick upon platforms about 
 the floors — the trumpets are blown, and enter 
 — successor to the mighty man there up on 
 high — the present President of the United 
 States — the Palace is inaugurated — and as if 
 contact with him were electrical, and had some- 
 thing of the virtue ascribed in old times to the 
 royal touch, there is a general dash for the Pre- 
 sidential hand — he wheels — he grasps — now 
 you see him and now you don't ! — he is over- 
 borne as by the waves of the sea — men of all 
 nations, of all climes, are there, eager to ac- 
 knowledge the living embodiment of our great 
 Continent, The crowds melt away from the 
 platforms, trickle off from the galleries — all is 
 still — the glorious light of the moon beams 
 through the dome — and Washington, still riding 
 triumphantly, is alone in the House Beautiful ! 
 
bird's-eye view of the city. 203 
 
 We have now, ladies and gentlemen, passed 
 some time together upon the level ground — we 
 have been up street and down street, across 
 the town and about the town : and now by 
 way of a final novelty have you any objection 
 to rise with me into the air and from a con- 
 siderable elevation, (not quite as lofty as the 
 Alps or Mount Blanc,) to get a notion of the 
 Metropolis as a whole, and in the far-com- 
 manding position it bears on the general map 
 of the country ? Up we go, then, to take our 
 grand closing 
 
 BIRD'S- EYE VIEW OF tfEW YORK FROM LAT- 
 TING'S OBSERVATORY. 
 
 Having breathed our way three hundred 
 feet, to the highest window of the wooden 
 tower, (which is dashed down just at the side 
 of the Crystal Palace, like a tall mark of ex- 
 clamation at the completion and beauty of that 
 structure,) in the grey of morning, we see a 
 mighty blank of haze spread on every side 
 
204 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 from which emerges, first some houses near at 
 hand, then, as the sun unrolls the wide veil, 
 there comes out more and more of the great 
 city, the two rivers, the East and the North, 
 then the suburbs ; Brooklyn, near by, rising on 
 its heights ; New Jersey, with its great factory 
 chimney ; Hoboken, w T ith its green walks ; 
 "Williamsburgh, with its countless little cot- 
 tages ; then in the Bay, the Islands, Governor's, 
 with its dark stone fort ; Gibbet's, (where the 
 pirates are hung) ; Staten Island, with ridgy 
 back ; villages dropped along the shore ; Pater- 
 son with the Falls, scarcely visible ; farther on 
 in Jersey, Newark, quite conspicuous ; the Nar- 
 rows, with early ships coming in, all sail set, 
 or fading aw r ay into the distant ocean ; Gow T an- 
 us, on Long Island, with the gleaming monu- 
 ments of Greenwood Cemetery here and there 
 discernible ; Bedford ; Flatbush, with its tidy 
 w 7 hite country mansions, almost lost in trees ; 
 Jamaica, with its celebrated race-course ; 
 Newtown ; then, re-crossing the East River, 
 
bird's-eye view of the city. 205 
 
 Yorkville, springing up among the rocks ; 
 Bloomingdale. advertized by its single church- 
 steeple ; Harlem, a good deal at random, but 
 defined by its heights and the bridge ; and be- 
 yond all, Morrisania, and divers steeples, prick- 
 ing up in "Westchester County, as far as the 
 eye can reach. As for the city itself, it bears, 
 generally, a flat appearance ; as of a level har- 
 vest field bristling with spires — the streets, at 
 that height are so many threads. At sunrise, 
 or just before, a faint murmur of life begins to 
 creep up, lumbering market-wagons are com- 
 ing in from the country for the first sales ; as 
 the day advances, it grows rapidly with sounds 
 of carts, stages, labor, factories, the clang of 
 iron, the racket of stores, the cries of workmen ; 
 human feet, thousands upon thousands beating 
 the pavement every minute — into a mighty 
 roar, or rather moaning, as of a great bull ; no 
 one sound distinguishable from another, ex- 
 cept, perhaps, a well-blown trumpet blast when 
 a band of music passes directly under the 
 
206 THE PEN-A\ T D-1NK PANORAMA, 
 
 tower. Scarcely anything is sharply marked 
 enough to discolor the broad stream of life ; 
 you may see the white-backed omnibuses 
 pouring down Broadway in quick succession ; 
 a military procession tinges it with a few 
 streaks of red and white. You always see 
 flags flying over the city, but you can't tell at 
 that height whether they are at the top of the 
 staff, half-mast, or run down ; whether for a 
 rejoicing or a calamity. The shipping you can't 
 help taking notice of, if you would ; it fringes 
 the city like a heavy beard ; contending with 
 the church-spires, and out-numbering them 
 a hundred to one. Sails are making for 
 New York from every direction, down the 
 Sound through Hell Gate, and the East 
 River; on the broad Hudson; in from the 
 Ocean ; ships, sloops, steamboats ; an everlast- 
 ing activity of these last from morning till 
 night, plying in the rivers and about the Bay. 
 And, running your eye about the limits of the 
 city proper, you begin to acquire from that 
 
bird's-eye view of the city. 207 
 
 commanding look-out, some idea of the vast 
 size — the gro\ving power and expansion of the 
 city. You have known it before piece-meal — 
 a street here, a building or two there — but now 
 you see it in the mass, stretching towards the 
 East, stretching towards theWest — with chim- 
 neys innumerable, avenues, parks, public build- 
 ings, huddling upon each other, as if no man 
 could count them. In the edges you do not 
 see it growing as in its infancy, with a strag- 
 gling house here or there ; but whole blocks 
 and squares of new edifices starting from 
 the ground at once, and in a hurried rivalry 
 of brick and mortar, racing out of town. 
 As a sort of morality for yourself, in this 
 ascent and approach to heaven, by way of 
 this lofty wooden tower, you acquire some- 
 thing of a heaven-like consciousness of the 
 unimportance of earth, and affairs earthly; 
 for you cannot make out — you cannot bring 
 home to yourself — strain your eyes as you 
 may — a single object which engages your 
 
208 THE PEN-AND-INK PANORAMA. 
 
 worldly interests or affections, when you are 
 at your ordinary level below — youV shop, your 
 house, your church — (that which, in its peculiar 
 purity, you think Heaven must surely take 
 notice of) — where are they, in all that heap of 
 things ? Specks, dust, fly-blows. One thing, 
 however, and above all, you are clearly sensi- 
 ble of at that great height — you feel it, if you 
 do not see it — a universal movement of all the 
 inland country towards New York as its cen- 
 tre ; everything, by an irresistible impulse or 
 momentum, driving or driven on towards the 
 city. It is not merely so much of the neigh- 
 borhood as you can reach in an easy walk, that 
 belongs to New York, but the whole country 
 as far as the eye can sweep — farther, too, than 
 that — is its suburb. There's not a man in a 
 distant wagon, on a far-away Jersey road, not 
 a ploughman in the field in the very depth of 
 Westchester, nor a fisherman toiling in the 
 ocean, ever so far from land, whose heart is 
 not fixed on New York, who is not thinking of 
 
bird's-eye view of the city. 209 
 
 the markets and the cash of the metropolis, 
 when he drives his cart, or marks his furrow, 
 or casts his net. The birds that pass, as they 
 often do, at this starry height, cannot, with all 
 their strength of wing, fly to where New- York 
 is not a paramount idea, affecting the business 
 and the conduct of men. 
 
 Ladies and gentlemen, the Pen-and-ink- 
 Panorama of New-York City is closed — I am 
 much obliged to you for your attendance, and 
 hope to have the pleasure of meeting you 
 again. 
 
 TH E END. 
 
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