History is especially
attended to, with its bearing upon modern politics.
The teachers receive
from 80l. to 300l. a year, and very high attainments are required.
Besides the common and industrial schools, there are means of education
provided for the juvenile portion of the very large foreign population of
New York, principally German. There are several schools held under the
basements of the churches, without any paid teachers. The ladies of New
York, to their honour be it said, undertake, unassisted, the education of
these children, a certain number being attached to every school. Each of
these ladies takes some hours of a day, and youth and beauty may be seen
perseveringly engaged in this arduous but useful task.
The spirit of practical benevolence which appears to permeate New York
society is one of its most pleasing features. It is not only that the
wealthy contribute large sums of money to charitable objects, but they
personally superintend their right distribution. No class is left
untouched by their benevolent efforts; wherever suffering and poverty are
found, the hand of Christianity or philanthropy is stretched out to
relieve them. The gulf which in most cities separates the rich from the
poor has been to some extent lessened in New York; for numbers of ladies
and gentlemen of education and affluence visit among the poor and vicious,
seeking to raise them to a better position.
If there are schools, emigrant hospitals, orphan asylums, and nursing
institutions, to mark the good sense and philanthropy of the people of New
York, so their love of amusement and recreation is strongly evidenced by
the numerous places where both may be procured. There is perhaps as much
pleasure-seeking as in Paris; the search after amusement is characterised
by the same restless energy which marks the pursuit after wealth; and if
the Americans have little time for enjoying themselves, they are resolved
that the opportunities for doing so shall be neither distant nor few.
Thus, Broadway and its neighbourhood contain more places of amusement than
perhaps any district of equal size in the world. These present variety
sufficient to embrace the tastes of the very heterogeneous population of
New York.
There are three large theatres; an opera-house of gigantic proportions,
which is annually graced by the highest vocal talent of Europe; Wood's
minstrels, and Christy's minstrels, where blacks perform in
unexceptionable style to unwearied audiences; and comic operas. There are
al fresco entertainments, masquerades, concerts, restaurants, and oyster
saloons. Besides all these, and many more, New York contained in 1853 the
amazing number of 5980 taverns. The number of places where amusement is
combined with intellectual improvement is small, when compared with other
cities of the same population. There are however some very magnificent
reading-rooms and libraries.
The amount of oysters eaten in New York surprised me, although there was
an idea at the time of my visit that they produced the cholera, which
rather checked any extraordinary excesses in this curious fish. In the
business streets of New York the eyes are greeted continually with the
words "Oyster Saloon," painted in large letters on the basement story. If
the stranger's curiosity is sufficient to induce him to dive down a flight
of steps into a subterranean abode, at the first glance rather suggestive
of robbery, one favourite amusement of the people may be seen in
perfection. There is a counter at one side, where two or three persons,
frequently blacks, are busily engaged in opening oysters for their
customers, who swallow them with astonishing relish and rapidity. In a
room beyond, brightly lighted by gas, family groups are to be seen, seated
at round tables, and larger parties of friends, enjoying basins of stewed
oysters; while from some mysterious recess the process of cookery makes
itself distinctly audible. Some of these saloons are highly respectable,
while many are just the reverse. But the consumption of oysters is by no
means confined to the saloons; in private families an oyster supper is
frequently a nightly occurrence; the oysters are dressed in the parlour by
an ingenious and not inelegant apparatus. So great is the passion for this
luxury, that the consumption of it during the season is estimated at
3500l. a-day.
There are several restaurants in the city, on the model of those in the
Palais Royal. The most superb of these, but not by any means the most
respectable, is Taylor's, in Broadway. It combines Eastern magnificence
with Parisian taste, and strangers are always expected to visit it. It is
a room about 100 ft. in length, by 22 in height; the roof and cornices
richly carved and gilded, the walls ornamented by superb mirrors,
separated by white marble. The floor is of marble, and a row of fluted and
polished marble pillars runs down each side. It is a perfect blaze of
decoration. There is an alcove at one end of the apartment, filled with
orange-trees, and the air is kept refreshingly cool by a crystal fountain.
Any meal can be obtained here at any hour. On the day on which I visited
it, the one hundred marble tables which it contains were nearly all
occupied; a double row of equipages lined the street at the door; and two
or three hundred people, many of them without bonnets and fantastically
dressed, were regaling themselves upon ices and other elegancies in an
atmosphere redolent with the perfume of orange-flowers, and musical with
the sound of trickling water, and the melody of musical snuff-boxes. There
was a complete maze of fresco, mirrors, carving, gilding, and marble. A
dinner can be procured here at any hour of day or night, from one shilling
and sixpence up to half-a-guinea, and other meals in like proportion. As
we merely went to see the restaurant, we ordered ices, which were served
from large reservoirs, shining like polished silver. These were paid for
at the time, and we received tickets in return, which were taken by the
doorkeeper on coming out.
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