respect to veracity, no English statesman or historian stands better than he; with the exception of the artifice which, under the advice of Talleyrand, he employed for the dethronement of the King of Spain, all his transactions, public as well as private, evinced a man of the strictest probity. And it should also be remembered, that the circumstances of Europe have not even yet become favorable to an impartial and rigidly accurate account of his life and actions. Rulers and writers are still afraid of the effects it might produce. Who would venture, or rather who would be permitted, to tell the truth and the whole truth about him in England, Austria, Russia or Prussia?

[To be continued.]

NEW-YORK.

HERE we have picked out from among a crowd of applicants for notice"New-York As It Was,' "New-York In Slices," "New-York By Gas-light," and a sermon on "Juvenile Depravity and Crime in the City." We took out these partly because they were light reading, and we were not in very good health-partly, because we had read one of them in the paper in which it originally appeared; therefore it would lessen our trouble now, for we always read a book through, from the "preface" to the "finis," when we mean to give our candid opinion on it; and partly because the subject would allow a discursive article which another subject would disclaim.

"New-York as it Was," is an Anniversary Address which was delivered before the St. Nicholas Society, at whose request it is published. It is a highly interesting discourse, being made up of the writer's reminiscences of this, our city, since his arrival with the "family caravan," in true patriarchal style, parents and children, man-servants and maid-servants, in the wake of the American army in the month of November, 1783, "close after the evacuation of the city by the British forces." For giving his recollections, and to clear himself from the charge of egotism and garrulity-a wise precaution, and worthy of imitation by writers in general, though not necessary in the present instance,-Mr. Duer, who is an LLD. like our

* New-York As It Was, during the latter portion of the last century. An Anniversary Address, delivered before the Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New-York, December 1st, 1848. By William Alexander Duer, LLD. New-York: Stanford & Swords, 137 Broadway. 1849.

+ New York in Slices, by an experienced carver. Revised, enlarged and corrected. New-York: W. H. Graham. 1849.

New-York by Gas-light. By G. G. Foster, author of "New-York in Slices," &c. New-York: Dewitt & Davenport. 1850.

Juvenile Depravity and Crime in our City. A Sermon, by Thomas L. Harris, Minister of the Independent Christian Congregation, Broadway. New-York: Charles B. Horton, 11 Chambers-street.

VOL. XXVII.-NO. I.

1850.

3

selves, and we have a fellow-feeling for him in consequence on receiving the invitation from the Society to address them, thus cogitated with himself:

"What shall I say to them? My predecessors have well-nigh exhausted all appropriate topics; the contemporary orators of the Historical Society have sounded the depths of our modern antiquities; and our own veracious historian, Dedrick Knickerbocker, has, in defiance of the dogmas of Socialism, monopolized the national domain of wit and humor. I have nothing left but to relate my personal and local experiences; plead the privilege of age in excuse for the egotism and garrulity into which the narrative may betray me, and rely for further justification on the Constitution of this Society, which declares one of its objects to be, to collect and preserve information respecting the history, settlement, manners, and such other matters as may relate to the City of NewYork.'"

Landing at the "Old Albany Pier," and pursuing the way "upwards,” his infant mind was confused at the "dismounted cannon lying under the walls of the Old Fort, or Upper Battery;" but was patriot enough to understand the meaning of a "triumphant glance" at the pedestal in the center of the Bowling Green, which had, previous to the landing of the troops under the Divine-Right-of-Kings' banner, supported a leaden statue of the third

but which, with the dawning spirit of go-aheadativeness since and now a characteristic of our people, was cast into bullets and returned in that "unquestionable shape" to his said majesty's troops, on their landing. Testy Will Cobbett called this "King" "half rotten and mad;" many agree in calling him "imbecile," "crazy," and other kingly epithets; while all humanity, with much of that same ingredient, are clamorous in calling him a "fool," or to frenchify it for upper ten-Un poisson d'Avril-for no doubt he was born on April day, notwithstanding historians will say that foolish event occurred on some other day and month. To all this surmise, as far as we know, we can say that he was simply bulletheaded.

Honor be with the days when Pearl-street was the "court-end" of the town; and when Wall-street, ah! "whisper it not in Gath-tell it not in the streets of Askalon”—aye, when Wall-street was the "rival-seat of fashion," establishing and maintaining an exclusive claim, until out-bid by Park Place. Ah! poor Wall has lost its character since it went for 'Change, and did'nt come back with its trust. Glory to the revolutionary times. Wallstreet had an honest name then, notwithstanding the tory "Verplancks, Marstons, Ludlams, Winthrops, and Whites," lived there. But then others came in immediately after the royal lamp went out, and here then "Dan McCormick kept his Batchelor's Hall," and members of Congress crowded into Mrs. Daubeney's fashionable boarding-house. Here, at the "corner of Pearl-street," "under Rivington of the Royal Gazette," Greenleaf, the republican printer,—and for which Greenleaf shall have no autumn in our memory-it shall be ever-green for him-"planted his batteries so as to command the stronghold of toryism." Lord! what a blessing it was to live in those days, when society was not rendered nervous by the quackery-the ordinary and extraordinary-the morning, noon, and evening editional

quackery of the thousand doctors of the press; now dosing you into a fever-heat, and now chilling you below zero, and all about some phantasmagoria in the reporter's brain.

Well, to "New-York As It Was." The Hon. Mr. Duer takes us through the by-gone Gotham with much interest, and he gossips pleasantly, too, not to say instructively. "Crossing from Dover to Great Queen, since Pearl-street," says our guide, "and pursuing the course of the latter beyond its intersection with Chatham-street, and along that part of Pearl then called Magazine-street, we arrived at the Kolch,' or Collect, or 'Fresh-water Pond." The city was supplied with water from this pond; and "its southern and eastern banks were lined with furnaces, potteries, breweries, tanneries, ropewalks, and other manufactories, all drawing their supplies of water from the pond." In winter it was the resort of the youth for skating; “and," says Mr. Duer, "no person who has not beheld it, can realize the scene it then exhibited, in contrast to that part of the city under which it now lies buried." Why we have taken the reader some way out of his way to this Kolch is, because

"Upon its bosoms were made some of the earliest experiments in steam navigation. Our worthy fellow-citizen, Anthony Lamb, recollects seeing on the Collect, as early as the year 1795, a boat with a screw propeller at the stern, driven by a steam engine; and other experiments are said to have beeen made there in the summer of 1796, or 1797, by John Fitch, the undoubted inventor of the art, with a common ship's yawl, into which he had placed a rude steam engine of his own construction, with paddle wheels at the sides of his boat. A person of the name of John Hutchings, now, or late of Williamsburgh, L. I., then a lad, states that he assisted Fitch in his experiments, and that Chancellor Livingston, and another person, whom he supposed, no doubt erroneously, to have been Mr. Fulton, were present on one occasion-and he understood from their conversation that Mr. Stevens, of Hoboken, and a Mr. Roosevelt, of this city, had some knowledge of the enterprise, and felt an interest in its success. A map of the Collect, as it then was, showing its relative position to the streets now covering its site, with drawings and descriptions of the boats, was not long since published by Hutchings, accompanied by an account of Fitch's experiments, and testimonials to his own character for truth. From all which it would seem, that in this case, as in many others, the original inventor failed of complete success, partly from being in advance of his age, but chiefly from want of means to defray the expenses incident to the prosecution of his experiments, and that the fruits of his genius and labor were reaped by his more fortunate and accomplished successor. Thus Fitch, like Columbus, deprived of support and overborne by prejudice, sank into poverty and neglect; while Fulton, like Americus Vespucius, was fostered by a wealthy patron who enabled him to pursue his experiments, with the aid of lights derived from his predecessor, and had the address to give his name to the discovery."

Fitch going to Europe in search of encouragement, died in France. His papers fell into the hands of the United States Consul, by whom they were delivered to Mr. Fulton. Many interesting notes accompany the above extract, which our space will not allow us to print. Here is an interesting sketch of the notorious Doctors' riot. What a subject? What a lump of spice the Astor Place massacre will be in some future anniversary discourse before the Historical, St. Nicholas, or other Society, for the collection of matter relating to the History of the City of New-York? It will have quite a dramatic effect amid the Wall-street incidents and Hague-street explosions of our day. Hearken to the Saw-bone's mob:—

"The public occurrence that made the earliest, if not the deepest impression upon my memory, was the famous Doctors' Mob,' so called, not because the members of that grave faculty were actors, but because they were sufferers in that outbreak. It was, indeed, provoked by the reckless and wanton imprudence of some young surgeons at the Hospital, who from one of its upper windows exhibited the dissected arm of a subject to some boys who were at play on the green below. One of them, whose curiosity was thus excited, mounted upon a ladder used for some repairs, and as he reached the window, was told by one of the Doctors (Hicks) to look at his mother's arm. It happened unfortunately that the boy's mother had recently died, and the horror, which had now taken place of his curiosity, induced him to run to his father, who was at work as a mason, at a building in Broadway, with the information of what he had seen and heard. Upon receiving the intelligence, the father repaired to his wife's grave, and upon opening it, found that the body had been removed. He returned forthwith to the place where he had been at work, and informed his fellow-laborers of the circumstances; their indignation and horror at the relation were nearly equal to his own. Armed with the tools of their trade, they marched in a body to the Hospital, gathering recruits by the way in number amounting to a formidable mob. The Doctors in the meantime had taken the alarm, and decamped. The theatre of their operations, however, was ransacked, and several subjects, in various states of mutilation, were discovered. Driven to frenzy by the spectacle, the mob issued forth in pursuit of the Doctors, who, had they fallen into the hands of the enraged multitude, would speedily have been made subjects of themselves. They had the good fortune, however, to elude the search, though some of them escaped by the breadth of a hair. They took refuge in the gaol, and the militia were ordered out to protect them, and quell the riot. This was not effected without a specimen of civil war in the streets, which, had the mob been acquainted with the modern art of constructing barricades, might have proved more serious and of longer continuance. As it was, it lasted for three or four days, during which the city may be said to have been in a state of siege. Never shall I forget the charge I saw made upon a body of the rioters by Stake's light-horse. From our residence opposite St. Paul's, I first perceived the troop as it debouched from Fair, now Fulton-street, and attacked the masses collected at the entrance of the fields,' (now the Park,) whence they were soon scattered, some of them retreating into the church-yard,-driven sword in hand through the portico, by the troopers striking right and left with the backs of their sabres. The rioters had received a temporary check, but were by no means subdued. Apprised of the retreat of the Doctors, they rallied and advanced to attack the gaol; but the militia arrived there before them, and were drawn up to defend it, with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets. The Governor, the Mayor, the Recorder, and other city magistrates, were also on the ground, with many of the principal citizens, who repaired to the assistance of the civil authority. Some of them were severely wounded by missiles from the mob. Mr. Jay received a serious wound in the head. The Baron de Steuben was struck by a stone which knocked him down, inflicted a flesh wound upon his forehead, and wrought a sudden change in the compassionate feeling he had previously entertained towards the mob. At the moment of receiving it, he was earnestly remonstrating with the Governor against ordering the militia to fire on the people; but as soon as he was struck, the Baron's benevolence deserted him, and as he fell he lustily cried out, fire! Governor, fire !'"

The procession in honor of the Federal Constitution is graphically detailed in Mr. Duer's discourse; also the grand, the important spectacle, the fact of which rung such a change upon the minds of men, and proved to the world the grand reality of self-government and the strength of republicanism—the inauguration of Washington! Our discourser was pres

ent:

When (says he) the illustrious Chief had kissed the book, the Chancellor, with a loud voice, proclaimed LONG LIVE GEORGE WASHINGTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,' never shall I forget the thrilling effect of the thundering cheers which burst forth, as from one voice, peal after peal, from the assembled multitude. Nor was it the voices alone of the people that responded to the announcement; their hearts beat in unison with the echoes resounding through the distant streets, and many a tear stole down the rugged cheeks of the hardiest of the spectators as well I noted from my station in an upper window of the neighboring house of Colonel Hamilton."

This address is really interesting, and much of it is filled up with anecdotes and recollections of men of notoriety and fame, in the author's memory, from Washington's self down, through many happy windings of character, to Romeo Coates, and later than him too. Those anecdotes are well told, sometimes happily, and often with a clean stroke of wit. With one remark we leave it:-' -'Tis small, but what is in it is good.

Here we have the "Slicer"- --or as we sometimes see him placarded, the "Original Slicer"-and why not? Does not the word "original" before Jim Crow Rice's name, and other amusing celebrities, point as with a finger of glory to the inventive genius of said persons for the introduction of some new school or system before the footlights, or behind the title page? We mean no disparagement to Mr. Foster when we introduce Mr. Jim Crow Rice in juxtaposition, for it is our candid opinion that the latter, in his colored capacity, has made the black population more popular, and their humor more appreciated, than the like efforts of the Original Slicer" can ever accomplish for the whites. However, reader, don't take that as a criticism on his "Slices." Of the "four hundred thousand who live here somehow," Mr. Foster tells us there are "thirty thousand women and young girls, who work ten, twelve, fourteen hours a day," for that which, with economy, covers them with rags, and half starves them-ten thousand prostitutes, "foul," " loathsome," "blasphemous," and "obscure”—and "fifty thousand men morally as guilty as those ten thousand women." He soliloquizes thus over the "broken hearts, broken faith, broken vows, and violated honor" of the so-called "refined" and "fashionable" class of society: "Yes," says he

แ

"Yes-not the beggar's den nor the murderer's cell could vomit forth ghastlier agonies than stalk through the magnificent saloons, and hide behind the silken curtains where gather Fashion's sparkling throng."

Leaving "this false magnificence," and its "dire realities," he leads us "to the right, or left for it is the same for our purpose"-to take a glimpse at the "poverty, misery, beggary, starvation, crime, filth and li centiousness, that congregate" in our Gotham, this noisy booth at Vanity Fair. "There are seventy thousand confessed paupers," we are informed, in and about us, and a well-known "palace" in the centre of the town is full of malefactors and magistrates, policemen, and petty larceny rogues, drunkards, vagrants, rioters, negroes, and wretches of every grade and aspect of misery. The numbers of those gentry are not stated. Such is Mr. Foster's census of the Gotham booth. The Rev. Mr. Harris, by means of the Chief of Police's report, introduces an additional "three thousand children" into the picture of villainy :

"A spectacle (says he) is presented in our midst which might rather seem