Position of New York - Externals of the city - Conveyances -
Maladministration - The stores - The hotels - Curiosities of the hospital -
Ragged
Schools - The bad book - Monster schools - Amusements and oyster
saloons - Monstrosities - A restaurant - Dwelling-houses - Equipages - Palaces
- Dress - Figures - Manners - Education - Domestic habits - The ladies - The
gentlemen - Society - Receptions - Anti-English feeling - Autographs - The
"Buckram Englishman."
New York, from its position, population, influence, and commerce, is
worthy to be considered the metropolis of the New World. The situation of
it is very advantageous. It is built upon Manhattan Island, which is about
thirteen miles in length by two in breadth. It has the narrowest portion
of Long Island Sound, called East River, on its east side; the Hudson,
called the North River, environs it in another direction; while these two
are connected by a narrow strait, principally artificial, denominated the
Harlem River. This insular position of the city is by no means
intelligible to the stranger, but it is obvious from the top of any
elevated building. The dense part of New York already covers a large
portion of the island; and as it daily extends northward, the whole
extent of insulated ground is divided into lots, and mapped out into
streets.
But, not content with covering the island, which, when Hendrick Hudson
first discovered it, abounded with red men, who fished along its banks and
guided their bark canoes over the surrounding waters, New York, under the
names of Brooklyn, Williamsburgh, and four or five others, has spread
itself on Long Island, Staten Island, and the banks of the Hudson.
Brooklyn, on Long Island, which occupies the same position with regard to
New York that Lambeth and Southwark do to London, contains a population of
100,000 souls. Brooklyn, Williamsburgh, Hoboken, and Jersey City are the
residences of a very large portion of the merchants of New York, who have
deserted the old or Dutch part of the town, which is consequently merely
an aggregate of offices. Floating platforms, moved by steam, with space in
the middle part for twelve or fourteen carriages and horses, and luxurious
covered apartments, heated with steam-pipes on either side, ply to and fro
every five minutes at the small charge of one halfpenny a passenger, and
the time occupied in crossing the ferries is often less than that of the
detention on Westminster Bridge. Besides these large places, Staten Island
and Long Island are covered with villa residences. Including these towns,
which are in reality part of this vast city, New York contains a
population of very nearly a million! Broadway, which is one of the most
remarkable streets in the world, being at once the Corso, Toledo, Regent
Street, and Princes Street of New York, runs along the centre of the city,
and is crossed at right angles by innumerable streets, which run down to
the water at each side. It would appear as if the inventive genius of the
people had been exhausted, for, after borrowing designations for their
streets from every part of the world, among which some of the old Dutch
names figure most refreshingly, they have adopted the novel plan of
numbering them.
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