The Ground
Around It Became At Once Of Great Value; And I Do Not Doubt That
The Present Fashion Of Fifth Avenue About Twentieth Street Will In
Course Of Time Move Itself Up To Fifth Avenue As It Looks, Or Will
Look, Over The Park At Seventieth, Eightieth, And Ninetieth
Streets.
The great water-works of the city bring the Croton River,
whence New York is supplied, by an aqueduct
Over the Harlem River
into an enormous reservoir just above the Park; and hence it has
come to pass that there will be water not only for sanitary and
useful purposes, but also for ornament. At present the Park, to
English eyes, seems to be all road. The trees are not grown up;
and the new embankments, and new lakes, and new ditches, and new
paths give to the place anything but a picturesque appearance. The
Central Park is good for what it will be rather than for what it
is. The summer heat is so very great that I doubt much whether the
people of New York will ever enjoy such verdure as our parks show.
But there will be a pleasant assemblage of walks and water-works,
with fresh air and fine shrubs and flowers, immediately within the
reach of the citizens. All that art and energy can do will be
done, and the Central Park doubtless will become one of the great
glories of New York. When I was expected to declare that St.
James's Park, Green Park, Hyde Park, and Kensington Gardens
altogether were nothing to it, I confess that I could only remain
mute.
Those who desire to learn what are the secrets of society in New
York, I would refer to the Potiphar Papers. The Potiphar Papers
are perhaps not as well known in England as they deserve to be.
They were published, I think, as much as seven or eight years ago;
but are probably as true now as they were then. What I saw of
society in New York was quiet and pleasant enough; but doubtless I
did not climb into that circle in which Mrs. Potiphar held so
distinguished a position. It may be true that gentlemen habitually
throw fragments of their supper and remnants of their wine on to
their host's carpets; but if so I did not see it.
As I progress in my work I feel that duty will call upon me to
write a separate chapter on hotels in general, and I will not,
therefore, here say much about those in New York. I am inclined to
think that few towns in the world, if any, afford on the whole
better accommodation, but there are many in which the accommodation
is cheaper. Of the railways also I ought to say something. The
fact respecting them, which is most remarkable, is that of their
being continued into the center of the town through the streets.
The cars are not dragged through the city by locomotive engines,
but by horses; the pace therefore is slow, but the convenience to
travelers in being brought nearer to the center of trade must be
much felt. It is as though passengers from Liverpool and
passengers from Bristol were carried on from Euston Square and
Paddington along the New Road, Portland Place, and Regent Street to
Pall Mall, or up the City Road to the Bank. As a general rule,
however, the railways, railway cars, and all about them are ill
managed. They are monopolies, and the public, through the press,
has no restraining power upon them as it has in England. A parcel
sent by express over a distance of forty miles will not be
delivered within twenty-four hours. I once made my plaint on this
subject at the bar or office of a hotel, and was told that no
remonstrance was of avail. "It is a monopoly," the man told me,
"and if we say anything, we are told that if we do not like it we
need not use it." In railway matters and postal matters time and
punctuality are not valued in the States as they are with us, and
the public seem to acknowledge that they must put up with defects -
that they must grin and bear them in America, as the public no
doubt do in Austria, where such affairs are managed by a government
bureau.
In the beginning of this chapter I spoke of the population of New
York, and I cannot end it without remarking that out of that
population more than one-eighth is composed of Germans. It is, I
believe, computed that there are about 120,000 Germans in the city,
and that only two other German cities in the world, Vienna and
Berlin have a larger German population than New York. The Germans
are good citizens and thriving men, and are to be found prospering
all over the Northern and Western parts of the Union. It seems
that they are excellently well adapted to colonization, though they
have in no instance become the dominant people in a colony, or
carried with them their own language or their own laws. The French
have done so in Algeria, in some of the West India islands, and
quite as essentially into Lower Canada, where their language and
laws still prevail. And yet it is, I think, beyond doubt that the
French are not good colonists, as are the Germans.
Of the ultimate destiny of New York as one of the ruling commercial
cities of the world, it is, I think, impossible to doubt. Whether
or no it will ever equal London in population I will not pretend to
say; even should it do so, should its numbers so increase as to
enable it to say that it had done so, the question could not very
well be settled. When it comes to pass that an assemblage of men
in one so-called city have to be counted by millions, there arises
the impossibility of defining the limits of that city, and of
saying who belong to it and who do not.
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