1861.1862.1863.$$$1Total value of Exports142,903,689216,416,070219,256,2032Total value of Imports161,684,499172,486,453184,016,3503Value of Goods warehoused during the entire year41,811,66446,939,45161,350,4324Amount of Drawback allowed during the entire year57,326.55275,953.92414,041.445Total amount of Duties paid during year21,714,981.1052,254,317.9258,885,853.426No. of Vessels entered from Foreign Ports during year9655,4064,9837No. of Vessels cleared to foreign Ports during year9665,0144,666
Besides the various berths or anchorages and the warehouses of New York, commerce is still further waited on in our metropolis by one of the most perfect systems of pilot-boat, steam-tug, and lighter service which have ever been devised for a harbor. No vessel can bring so poor a foreign cargo to New York as not to justify the expense of a pilot to keep its insurance valid, a tug to carry it to its moorings, and a lighter to discharge it, if the harbor be crowded or time press. Indeed, the first two items are matters of course; and not one of them costs enough to be called a luxury.
The American river-steamboat—the palatial Americansteamboat, as distinguished from the dingy, clumsy Englishsteamer—is another of the means by which Art has supplemented New York's gifts of Nature. This magnificent triumph of sculpturesque beauty, wedded to the highest grade of mechanical skill, must be from two hundred and fifty to four hundred feet long,—must accommodate from five hundred to two thousand passengers,—must run its mile in three minutes,—must be asrococoin its upholsterings as a bedchamber of Versailles,—must gratify every sense, consult every taste, and meet every convenience. Such a boat as this runs daily to every principal city on the Sound or the Hudson, to Albany, to Boston, to Philadelphia. A more venturous class of coasting steamers in peaceful times are constantly leaving for Baltimore, Wilmington, Charleston, Savannah, Key West, Mobile, New Orleans, and Galveston. The immense commerce of the Erie Canal, with all its sources and tributaries, is practically transacted by New York City. Nearly everything intended for export, plus New York's purchases for her own consumption, is forwarded from the Erie Canal terminus in a series oftows, each of these being a rope-bound fleet, averaging perhaps fifty canal-boats and barges, propelled by a powerful steamer intercalated near the centre. The traveller new to Hudson River scenery will be startled, any summer day on which he may choose to take a steamboat trip to Albany, by the apparition, at distances varying from one to three miles all the way, of floating islands, settled by a large commercial population, who like their dinner off the top of a hogshead, and follow the laundry business to such an extent that they quite effloresce with wet shirts, and are seen through a lattice of clothes-lines. Let him know that these floating islands are but little drops of vital blood from the great heart of the West, coming down the nation's main arteryto nurse some small tissue of the metropolis; that these are "Hudson River tows"; and that, novel as that phenomenon may appear to him, every other fresh traveller has been equally startled by it since March, and will be startled by it till December. Another ministry to New York is performed by thenight-tows, consisting of a few cattle, produce, and passenger barges attached to a steamer, made up semi-weekly or tri-weekly at every town of any importance on the Hudson and the Sound. We will not include the large fleet of Sound and River sloops, brigs, and schooners in the list of New York's artificial advantages.
Turning to New York's land communication with the interior, we find the following railroads radiating from the metropolitan centre.
1. A Railroad to Philadelphia.2. A Railroad to the Pennsylvania Coal Region.3. A Railroad to Piermont on the Hudson.4. A Railroad to Bloomfield in New Jersey.5. A Railroad to Morristown in New Jersey.6. A Railroad to Hackensack in New Jersey.7. A Railroad to Buffalo.8. A Railroad to Albany, running along the Hudson.9. Another Railroad to Albany, by an interior route.10. A Railroad to New Haven.11. A Railroad to the chief eastern port of Long Island.12. The Delaware and Raritan Road to Philadelphia, connecting with New York by daily transports from pier.13. The Camden and Amboy Railroad, connecting similarly.14. The Railroad to Elizabeth, New Jersey.
The chief eastern radius throws out ramifications to the principal cities of New England, thus affording liberal choice of routes to Boston, New Bedford, Providence, and Portland, as well as an entrance to New Hampshire and Vermont. To all of these towns, except the more southerly, the Hudson River Road leads as well, connecting besides with railroads in every direction to the northern and western parts of the State, and with the Far West by a number of routes. The main avenue to the Far West is, however, the Atlantic and Great Western Road, with its twelve hundred miles of uniform broad-gauge. Along this line the whole riches of the interior may reasonably be expected to flow eastward as in a trough; for its position is axial, and its connection perfect. All the chief New Jersey railroads open avenues to the richest mineral region of the Atlantic States,—to the Far South and the Far West of the country. Two or three may be styled commuters' roads, running chiefly for the accommodation of city business-men with suburban residences. The Long Island Road is a road without important branches; but the majority of all the roads subsidiary to New York are avenues to some broad and typical tract of the interior.
Let us turn to consider how New York has provided for the people as well as the goods that enter her precincts by all the ways we have rehearsed. She draws them up Broadway in twenty thousand horse-vehicles per day, on an average, and from that magnificent avenue, crowded for nearly five miles with elegant commercial structures, over two hundred miles more of paved street, in all directions. She lights them at night with eight hundred miles of gas-pipe; she washes them and slakes their thirst from two hundred and ninety-one miles of Croton main; she has constructed for their drainage one hundred and seventy-six miles of sewer. She victimizes them with nearly two thousand licensed hackmen; she licenses twenty-two hundred car- and omnibus-drivers to carry them over twenty-nine different stage-routes and ten horse-railroads, in six hundred and seventy-one omnibuses and nearly as many cars, connecting intimately with every part of the city, and averaging ten up-and-down trips per day. She connects them with the adjoining cities of the main-land and with Staten and Long Island by twenty ferries, running, on the average, one boat each way every ten minutes during the twenty-four hours. She offers for her guests' luxurious accommodation at least a score of hotels, where good living is made as much the subject of high art as in the Hôtel du Louvre, besides minor houses of rest and entertainment, to the number of more than five thousand. She attends to their religion in about four hundred places of public worship.She gives them breathing-room in a dozen civic parks, the largest of which both Nature and Art destine to be the noblest popular pleasure-ground of the civilized world, as it is the amplest of all save the Bois de Boulogne. Central Park covers an area of 843 acres, and, though only in the fifth year of its existence, already contains twelve miles of beautifully planned and scientifically constructed carriage-road, seven miles of similar bridle-path, four sub-ways for the passage of trade-vehicles across the Park, with an aggregate length of two miles, and twenty-one miles of walk. As an item of city property, Central Park is at present valued at six million dollars; but this, of course, is quite a nominal and unstable valuation. The worth of the Park to New York property in general is altogether beyond calculation.
New York feeds her people with about two million slaughter-animals per annum. How these are classified, and what periodical changes their supply undergoes, may be conveniently seen by the following tabular view of the New York butchers' receiving-yards during the twelve months of the year 1863. I am indebted for it to the experience and courtesy of Mr. Solon Robinson, agricultural editor of the "New York Tribune."
Month.Beeves.Cows.Calves.Sheep.Swine.Jan.16,3493931,31825,352138,413Feb.19,9304741,20724,87798,099March22,1878432,59429,64579,320April18,9216363,18218,31156,516May16,7394403,51020,33839,305June23,7857185,51644,80856,612July20,2243962,99341,61440,716August20,3474963,04049,90036,725Sept.30,8475243,65479,07868,646Oct.24,3974753,28364,144112,265Nov.23,9915573,37861,082183,359Dec.26,3745182,03460,167191,641Total of each kind,264,0916,47035,709519,3161,101,617Total of all kinds,1,927,203.
Of the total number of beeves which came into the New York market in 1863, those whose origin could be ascertained were furnished from their several States in the following proportions:—
Illinoiscontributed118,692New York"28,985Ohio"19,369Indiana"14,232Michigan"9,074Kentucky"6,782
Averaging the weight of the cattle which came to New York market in 1863 at the moderate estimate of 700 lbs., the metropolitan supply of beef for that year amounted to 189,392,700 lbs. This, at the average price of nine and a quarter cents per pound, was worth $17,518,825. Proportionably with these estimates, the average weekly expenditure by butchers at the New York yards during the year 1863 was $328,865.
It is an astonishing, but indubitable fact, that, while the population of New York has increased sixty-six per cent during the last decade, the consumption ofbeefhas in the same time increased sixty-five per cent. This increment might be ascribed to the great advance of late years in the price of pork,—that traditional main stay of the poor man's housekeeping,—were it not that the importation of swine has increased almost as surprisingly. We are therefore obliged to acknowledge that during a period when the chief growth of our population was due to emigration from the lowest ranks of foreign nationalities, during three years of a devastating war, and inclusive of the great financial crisis of 1857, the increase in consumption of the most costly and healthful article of animal food lacked but one per cent of the increase of the population. These statistics bear eloquent witness to the rapid diffusion of luxury among the New York people.
From the table of classification by States we may draw another interesting inference. It will be seen that by far the largest proportion of the bullocks came into the New York market from the most remote of the Western States contributing. In other words, New York City has so perfected her connection with all the sources of supply, that distance has become an unimportant elementin her calculations of expense; and she can make all the best grazing land of the country tributary to her market, without regard to the question whether it be one or twelve hundred miles off.
The foregoing butchers' estimates are as exact as our present means of information can make them. Large numbers of uncounted sheep are consumed within the city limits, and the unreported calves are many more than come to light in statistics. Besides these main staples of the market which have been mentioned, there is consumed in New York an incalculable quantity of game and poultry, preserved meats and fish, cheese, butter, and eggs.
Mr. James Boughton, clerk of the New York Produce Exchange, has been good enough to furnish me with a tabular statement of the city's receipts of produce for the year ending April 30, 1864. Such portions of it as may show the amount of staples, exclusive of fresh meat, required for the regular supply of the New York market, are presented in the opposite column.
A less important, but still very interesting, class of products entered New York during the same period, in the following amounts:—
Cotton.Seed.Ashes.Whiskey.Oil Cake.Bales.Bush.Pkgs.Bbls.Sacks.18,1937,3431,40121,8382,32916,2993,1961,65726,92514,04013,0809011,17519,62720,12011,0438921,55118,08319,58312,8742,08288415,7814,81019,3321,18979017,65617,50026,9022,3181,28020,09810,44124,8708,1931,39339,5944,97322,0108,4411,16332,3462,67628,24224,2161,49834,4752,11539,30231,7651,45735,5752,96333,5385,6861,04422,8734,536265,68596,22215,293304,871106,356
New York, during the same period, exported,—
OfFlour2,571,744 bbls."Wheat15,842,836 bushels."Corn5,576,836 ""Cured Beef113,061 pkgs."" Pork189,757 bbls."Cotton27,561 bales.
Month.Flour.Corn Meal.Corn Meal.Wheat.Corn.Bbls.Bbls.Bags.Bush.Bush.1863.—May454,36310,33118,6141,789,9521,914,490June636,50119,2837,9892,853,7552,262,825July451,0049,99510,4802,409,1843,049,126August298,0979,8759,2261,989,8392,343,899September319,92310,4814,7151,132,5882,196,157October451,7628,67313,0203,052,9681,265,793November530,0968,88322,8353,164,750295,398December429,64116,30145,6271,396,608135,9071864.—January266,2407,98743,99010,244145,557February233,82212,48947,13745,283108,751March190,78514,13540,510108,407259,547April218,18110,88927,097166,506120,272Total4,480,415145,272291,19018,119,99314,098,262
Months.Oats.Rye.Malt.Barley.Beef.Bush.Bush.Bush.Bush.Bbls.1863.—May808,23328,03424,0344,6729,428June1,442,97923,03822,5081,6432,386July849,83152,75916,710none.1,285August1,097,22368,03555,453....892September307,0259,72147,0487,941718October1,319,98541,91213,461753,8937,420November2,189,71936,73144,322441,47968,391December1,882,34445,72759,494275,56874,0311864.—January305,6906,53242,6086,97222,988February209,0803,55463,0645,1056,358March258,6855,30869,57818,3864,319April238,3446,37344,38341,9144,654Total10,909,238328,619502,6931,557,573203,270
Months.Pork.Cut Meats.Lard.Dressed Hogs.Bbls.Pkgs.100lbs.No.1863.—May119,30238,587149,966....June112,34321,40175,966....July10,1556,63315,396....August6,8792,8703,784....September7,1153,9675,233....October6,9214,50135,128881November6,91611,06635,997755December21,86418,84331,77521,2081864.—January39,36434,46925,14548,276February32,14442,59343,24559,894March33,68792,71083,1224,600April12,34649,39990,49667Total409,036327,129594,853135,481
Deducting from the total supply of each of these six staples such amounts as were exported during the year, we find a remainder, for annual metropolitan consumption, amounting, in the case of
Flourto1,908,671 bbls.Wheat"2,276,257 bushels.Corn"8,540,490 "Cured Beef"89,209 pkgs." Pork"209,279 bbls.Cotton"238,124 bales.
We have no room for the details—which would embarrass us, if we should attempt a statement—of the cost of clothing the New York people. We will merely remark, in passing, that one of the largest retail stores in the New York dry-goods trade sells at its counters ten million dollars' worth of fabrics per annum, and that another concern in the wholesale branch of the same trade does a yearly business of between thirty and forty millions. As for tailors' shops, New York is their fairy-land,—many eminent examples among them resembling, in cost, size, and elegance, rather a European palace than a republican place of traffic.
The most comprehensive generalization by which we may hope to arrive at an idea of the business of New York is that which includes in tabular form the statistics of the chief institutions which employ and insure property.
On the 24th of September, 1864, sixty-three banks made a quarterly statement of their condition, under the general banking law of the State. These banks are at present the only ones in New York whose condition can be definitely ascertained, and their reported capital amounts to $69,219,763. The national banks will go far toward increasing the total metropolitan banking capital to one hundred millions. The largest of the State banks doing business in the city is the Bank of Commerce, (about being reorganized on the national plan,) with a capital of ten millions; and the smallest possess capital to the amount of two hundred thousand dollars.
Mr. Camp, now at the head of the New York Clearing-House, has been kind enough to furnish the following interesting statistics in regard to the total amount of business transactions managed by the New York banks in connection with the Clearing-House during the two years ending on the 30th of last September. Figures can scarcely be made more eloquent by illustration than they are of themselves, I therefore leave them without other comment than the remark that the weekly exchanges at the Clearing-House during the past year have repeatedly amounted to more than the entire expenses of the United States Government for the same period.
1862.Exchanges.Balances.October$ 1,081,243,214.07$ 54,632,410.57November874,966,873.1547,047,576.93December908,135,090.2944,630,405.431863.January1,251,408,362.7658,792,544.70February1,199,249,050.0751,583,913.88March1,313,908,804.1460,456,505.45April1,138,218,267.9053,539,812.46May1,535,484,281.7870,328,306.25June1,252,116,400.2059,803,975.44July1,261,668,342.8762,387,857.44August1,466,803,012.9053,120,821.99September1,584,396,148.4761,302,352.35$14,867,597,848.60$677,626,482.61306 Business days.Average for day, 1862-3.Exchanges $48,586,921.07Balances 2,214,415.63
1863.Exchanges.Balances.October$ 1,900,210,522.77$ 74,088,419.08November1,778,800,987.9566,895,452.49December1,745,436,325.7360,577,884.191864.January1,770,312,694.4363,689,950.88February2,088,170,989.4865,744,935.13March2,753,323,948.5384,938,940.37April2,644,732,826.3493,363,526.16May1,877,653,131.3776,328,462.88June1,902,029,181.4288,187,658.93July1,777,753,537.5373,343,903.49August1,776,018,141.5369,071,237.16September2,082,754,368.8469,288,834.17$24,097,196,655.92$885,719,204.93306 Business days.Average for day, 1863-4.Exchanges $77,984,455.20Balances 2,866,405.19
Aggregate Exchanges for Eleven Years$95,540,602,384.53" Balances " " "4,678,311,016.79Total Transactions$101,218,913,401.32
On the 31st day of December, 1863, there were 101 joint-stock companies for the underwriting of fire-risks, with an aggregate capital of $23,632,860; net assets to the amount of $29,269,423; net cash receipts from premiums amounting to $10,181,031; and an average percentage of assets to risks in force equalling 2.995. Besides these 101 joint-stock concerns, there existed at the same date twenty-one mutual fire-insurance companies, with an aggregate balance in their favor of $674,042. The rapidity with which mutual companies have yielded to the compacter and more efficient form of the joint-stock concern will be comprehended when it is known that just twice the number now in being have gone out of existence during the last decade. There are twelve marine insurance companies in the metropolis, with assets amounting to $24,947,559. The life-insurance companies number thirteen, with an aggregate capital of $1,885,000. We may safely set down the property invested in New York insurance companies of all sorts at $51,139,461. Add this sum to the aggregate banking capital above stated, and we have a total of $120,359,224. This vast sum merely represents New York's interest in the management of other people's money. The bank is employed as an engine for operating debt and credit. Its capital is the necessary fuel for running the machine; and that fuel ought certainly not to cost more than a fair interest on the products of the engine. The insurance companies guard the business-man's fortune from surprise, as the banks relieve him from drudgery; they put property and livelihood beyond the reach of accident: in other words, they manage the estates of the community so as to secure them from deterioration, and charge a commission for their stewardship.
It is a legitimate assumption in this part of the country that the money employed in managing property bears to the property itself an average proportion of about seven per cent. Hence it follows that the above-stated aggregate banking and insurance capital of $120,359,224 must represent and be backed by values to more than fourteen times that amount. In other words, and in round numbers, we may assert that the bank and insurance interests of New York are in relations of commerce and control with at least $1,685,029,136. This measure of metropolitan influence, it must be remembered, is based on the statistics attainable mainly outside of cash sales, and through only two of the metropolitan agencies of commerce.
I do not know how much I may assist any reader's further comprehension of the energies of the metropolis by stating that it issues fifteen daily newspapers, one hundred and thirty-three weekly or semi-weekly journals, and seventy-four monthly, semi-monthly, or weekly magazines,—that it has ten good and three admirable public libraries,—a dozen large hospitals, exclusive of the military,—thirty benevolent societies, (and we are in that respect far behind London, where every man below an attorney belongs to some "union" or other, that he may have his neighbors' guaranty against the ever-impending British poor-house,)—twenty-one savings-banks,—one theatre where French is spoken, a German theatre, an Italian opera-house, and eleven theatres where they speak English. In a general magazine-article, it is impossible to review the hundreds of studios where our own Art is painting itself into the century with a vigor which has no rival abroad. We can treat neither the æsthetic nor the social life of New York with as delicate a pencil as we would. Our paper has had to deal with broad facts; and upon these we are willing to rest the cause of New York in any contest for metropolitan honors. We believe that New York is destined to be the permanent emporium not only of this country, but ofthe entire world,—and likewise the political capital of the nation. Had the White House (or, pray Heaven! some comelier structure) stood on Washington Heights, and the Capitol been erected at Fanwood, there would never have been a Proslavery Rebellion. This is a subject which business-men are coming to ponder pretty seriously.
After all, New York's essential charm to a New-Yorker cannot express itself in figures, nor, indeed, in any adequate manner. It is the city of his soul. He loves it with a passionate dignity which will not let him swagger like the Cockney or twitter like the Parisian. His love for New York goes frequently unacknowledged even to himself, until a necessary absence of unusual length teaches him how hard it would be to lose the city of his affections forever.
It is a bath of other souls. It will not let a man harden in his own epidermis. He must affect and be affected by multitudinous varieties of temperament, race, character. He avoids grooves, because New York will not tolerate grooviness. He knows that he must be able, on demand, to bowl anywhere over the field of human tastes and sympathies. Professionally he may be a specialist, but in New York his specialty must be only the axis around which are grouped encyclopædic learning, faultless skill, and catholic intuitions. Nobody will waste a Saturday afternoon riding on his hobby-horse. He must be a broad-natured person, or he will be a mere imperceptible line on the general background of obscure citizens. He feels that he is surrounded by people who will help him do his best, yes, who will make him do it, or drive him out to install such as will. If he think of a good thing to do, he knows that the market for all good things is close around him. Whatever surplus of himself he has for communication, that he knows to be absolutely sure of a recipient before the day is done. New York, like Goethe's Olympus, says to every man with capacity and self-faith,—
"Here is all fulness, ye brave, to reward you:Work, and despair not!"
"Here is all fulness, ye brave, to reward you:Work, and despair not!"
Moreover, the moral air of New York City is in certain respects the purest air a man can breathe. This may seem a paradox. New York City is not often quoted as an example of purity. To the philosopher her atmosphere is cleaner than that of a country village. As the air of a contracted space may grow poisonous by respiration, while pure air rests over the entire surface of the earth in virtue of being the final solvent to all terrestrial decompositions, so it is possible that a few good, but narrow people may get alone together in the country, and hatch a social organism far more morbid than the metropolitan. In the latter instance, aberrations counterbalance each other, and the body politic, cursed though it be with bad officials, has more vitality in it than could be excited by any conclave of excellent men with one idea, meeting, however, solemnly, to feed it with legislative pap.
While no man can ride into metropolitan success on a hobby-horse, popular dissent will still take no stronger form than a quiet withdrawal and the permission to rock by himself. No amount of eccentricity surprises a New-Yorker, or makes him uncourteous. It is difficult to attract even a crowd of boys on Broadway by an odd figure, face, manner, or costume. This has the result of making New York an asylum for all who love their neighbor as themselves, but would a little rather not have him looking through the key-hole. In New York I share no dreadful secrets with the man next door. I am not in his power any more than if I lived in Philadelphia,—nor so much, for he might get somebody to spy me there. There is no other place but New York where my next-door neighbor never feels the slightest hesitation about cutting me dead, because he knows that on such conditions rests that broad individual liberty which is the glory of the citizen.
In fine, if we seek the capital of well-paid labor,—the capital of broad congenialities and infinite resources,—the capital of most widely diffused comfort, luxury, and taste,—the capital which to the eye of the plain businessmandeserves to be the nation's senate-seat,—the capital which, as the man of forecast sees, must eventually be the world's Bourse and market-place,—in any case we turn and find our quest in the city of New York.
To-day, she might claim Jersey City, Hoboken, Brooklyn, and all the settled districts facing the island shore, with as good a grace as London includes her multitudinous districts on both sides of the Thames. Were all the population who live by her, and legitimately belong to her, now united with her, as some day they must be by absorption, New York would now contain more than 1,300,000 people. For this union New York need make no effort. The higher organization always controls and incorporates the lower.
The release of New York commerce from the last shackles of the Southern "long-paper" system, combined with the progressive restoration of its moral freedom from the dungeon of Southern political despotism, has left, for the first time since she was born, our metropolitan giantess unhampered. Let us throw away the poor results of our last decade! New York thought she was growing then; but the future has a stature for her which shall lift her up where she can see and summon all the nations.[E]
FOOTNOTES:[E]In addition to the obligations elsewhere recognised, an acknowledgment is due to the well-known archæolgist and statistician of New York,—Mr. Valentine,—who furnished for the purpose of this article the latest edition of his Manual, in advance of its general publication, and to the great convenience of the writer.
[E]In addition to the obligations elsewhere recognised, an acknowledgment is due to the well-known archæolgist and statistician of New York,—Mr. Valentine,—who furnished for the purpose of this article the latest edition of his Manual, in advance of its general publication, and to the great convenience of the writer.
[E]In addition to the obligations elsewhere recognised, an acknowledgment is due to the well-known archæolgist and statistician of New York,—Mr. Valentine,—who furnished for the purpose of this article the latest edition of his Manual, in advance of its general publication, and to the great convenience of the writer.
I am very sure that nothing was ever farther from my thoughts than the writing of a book. The pages which follow were never intended for publication, but were written as an amusement, sometimes in long winter evenings, when it was pleasanter to be indoors, and sometimes in summer days, when most of the circumstances mentioned in them occurred. I was a long time in writing them, as they were done little by little. There was a point in them at which I stopped entirely. Then I lent the manuscript to several of my acquaintances to read. Some of these kept it only a few days, and I feel quite sure soon tired of it, as it afterwards appeared that they had read very little of it: they must have thought it extremely dull. But these probably borrowed it only out of compliment, and so I was neither surprised nor mortified. The only surprise was, that now and then there was one who did have patience to go over it all, as it was written in a common copy-book, not in a very nice hand, and with a great many erasures and alterations. But when one has a favorite, it is grateful to find even a single admirer for it. So it was with me. I wrote from love of the subject; and when any one was kind enough to give his approval, I felt exceedingly pleased, not because I had a high opinion of the matter myself, but only because I had written it. Then it mustbe acknowledged that my small circle of acquaintances comprised more workers than readers. Those who had a taste for reading found their time so occupied by the labor necessary to their support that but little was left to them for indulging in books; and the few who had leisure were probably such indifferent readers as to make the task of going over a blotted manuscript too great for their patience, unless it were more interesting than mine.
At last, after a very long time, and a great many strange experiences, the manuscript fell into the hands of one who was an entire stranger to me, but who has since proved himself the dearest friend I ever had. He read it, and said it must be published. But the thought of publication so frightened me that it almost deprived me of sleep. Still, after very long persuasion, I consented, and the whole was written over again, with a great many things added. When it was all ready, he told me I must write a preface. So I was persuaded even to this, though that was a new alarm, and I had scarcely recovered from the first. I have always been retiring,—indeed, quite out of sight; and nothing has reconciled me to this publicity but the knowledge that no one will be able to discover me, unless it be the very few who had patience to read my manuscript. Even they will find it so altered and enlarged as scarcely to remember it.
Yet there is another consideration which ought to reconcile me to coming forward in a way so contrary to what I had ever contemplated. I think the story of my quiet life may lead others to reflect more seriously on the griefs, the trials, and the hardships to which so many of my sex are constantly subjected. It may lead some of the other sex either to think more of these trials, or to view them in a new and different light from any in which they have heretofore regarded them. They may even think that I have suggested a new remedy for an old evil. I know that many such have labored to remove the wrongs of which poor and friendless women are the victims. But while they have already done much toward that humane end, as much remains to do. I make no studied effort to influence or direct them. The contrast between my first and last experience was so great, that, in rewriting, I added some facts from the experience of others to give force to the recital of my own. My hope is, that humane minds may be gratified by a narrative so uneventful, and that they, fortified by position and means, will be led to do for others, in a new direction, as much as I, comparatively unaided, have been able to do for myself.
Having always had a great fondness for reading, I have gone through every book to which my very limited circle of acquaintance gave me access. Even this small literary experience was sufficient to impress upon my mind the superior value of personal memoirs. Of all my reading, they most interested me; and I have learned from others that such books have most interested them. Indeed, biography, and personal narrative of all kinds, seem to command a general popularity. Moreover, we like to know from the person himself what he does, how he thinks and feels, what fortunes or vicissitudes he encounters, how he begins his career, and how it ends. All biography gives us most of these particulars, but they are never so vividly recited as by the subject of the narrative himself. Accordingly what was once a kind of diary of the most unimportant events I have transformed into a personal history. I know the transformation will not give them any importance they did not originally possess, but it gives me at least one chance of making my recital interesting.
All who have any knowledge of the city of Philadelphia will remember that on its southern boundary there is a large district known as the township of Moyamensing. Much of it is now incorporated with the recently enlarged city, but the old name still clings to it.There are many thousand acres in this district, which stretches from the Delaware to the Schuylkill. The junction of the two rivers at its lower end makes it a peninsula, which has long been known as "The Neck." When the city was founded by William Penn, much of this and the adjoining land was in possession of the Swedes, who came first to Pennsylvania. They had settled on tracts of different sizes, some very large, and some very small, according to their ability to purchase. It was then covered by a dense forest, which required great labor to clear it.
My ancestors were among these early Swedes. They were so poor in this world's goods as to be able to purchase only forty acres of this extremely cheap land. Even that was not paid for in money, but in labor. In time they cleared it up, built a small brick house after the quaint fashion of those early days, the material for which was furnished from a superior kind of clay underlying the land all around them, and thenceforward maintained themselves from the products of the soil, then, as now, proverbial for its fruitfulness. It descended to their children, most of whom were equally plodding and unambitious with themselves. All continued the old occupation of looking to the soil for subsistence; and so long as the forty acres were kept together, they lived well. But as descendants multiplied, and one generation succeeded to another, so the little farm became subdivided among numerous heirs, all of whom sold to strangers, except my father, who considered himself happy in being able to secure, as his portion, the quaint old homestead, with its then well-stocked garden, and a lot large enough to make his whole domain an acre and a half.
I have many times heard him relate the particulars of this acquisition, and say how lucky it was for all of us that he secured it. The other heirs, who had turned their acres into money, went into trade or speculation and came out poor. With the homestead of the first settler my father seemed to have inherited all his unambitious and plodding character. His whole habit was quiet, domestic, and home-loving. He was content to cultivate his land with the spade, raising many kinds of fruits and vegetables for the family and for market, and working likewise in the fields and gardens of his neighbors; while in winter he employed himself in making nets for the fishermen.
But much of this work for others was done for gentlemen who had fine old houses, built at least a hundred years ago. The land in Moyamensing is so beautifully level, and is so very rich by nature, that at an early day in the settlement of the country a great many remarkably fine dwellings were built upon it, to which extensive gardens were attached. Father had been in and all over many of these mansions, and was fond of describing their wonders to us. They were finished inside with great expense. Some had curiously carved door-frames and mantels, with parlors wainscoted clear up to the ceiling, and heavy mouldings wherever they could be put in. These old-time mansions were scattered thickly over this beautiful piece of land. Such of them as were built nearest the city have long since been swept away by the extension of streets and long rows of new houses; but all through the remoter portion of the district there are many still left, with their fine gardens filled with the best fruits that modern horticulture has enabled the wealthy to gather around them.
I remember many of those that have been torn down. One or two of them were famous in Revolutionary history. The owners of such as remained in my father's time were glad to have him take charge of their gardens. He knew how to bud or graft a tree, to trim grapevines, and to raise the best and earliest vegetables. In all that was to be done in a gentleman's garden he was so neat, so successful, so quiet and industrious, that whatever time he had to spare from his own was always in demand, and at the highest wages.
When not otherwise occupied, my mother also worked at the art of net-making. At times she was employed inmaking up clothing for what some years ago were popularly called the slop-shops, mostly situated in the lower section of the city. These were shops which kept supplies of ready-made clothing for sailors and other transient people who harbored along the wharves. It was coarse work, and was made up as cheaply as possible. At that time the shipping of the port was much of it congregated in the lower part of the city, not far from our house.
When a little girl, I have often gone with my mother when she went on her errands to these shops, doing what I could to help her in carrying her heavy bundles to and fro; and more than once I heard her rudely spoken to by the pert young tailor who received her work, and who examined it as carefully as if the material had been silk or cambric, instead of the coarse fabric which constitutes the staple of such establishments. I thus learned, at a very early age, to know something of the duties of needle-women, as well as of the mortifications and impositions to which their vocation frequently subjects them.
My mother was a beautiful sewer, and I am sure she never turned in a garment that had in any way been slighted. She knew how rude and exacting this class of employers were, and was nice and careful in consequence, so as to be sure of giving satisfaction. But all this care availed nothing, in many cases, to prevent rudeness, and sometimes a refusal to pay the pitiful price she had been promised. Her disposition was too gentle and yielding for her to resent these impositions; she was unable to contend and argue with the rough creatures behind the counter; she therefore submitted in silence, sometimes even in tears. Twice, I can distinctly remember, when these heartless men compelled her to leave her work at less than the low price stipulated, I have seen her tears fall in big drops as she took up the mite thus grudgingly thrown down to her, and leave the shop, leading me by the hand. I could feel, young as I was, the hard nature of this treatment. I heard the rough language, though unable to know how harshly it must have grated on the soft feelings of the best mother that child was ever blessed with.
But I comprehended nothing beyond what I saw and heard,—nothing of the merits of the case,—nothing of the nature and bearings of the business,—nothing of the severe laws of trade which govern the conduct of buyer and seller. I did not know that in a large city there are always hundreds of sewing-women begging from these hard employers the privilege of toiling all day, and half-way into the night, in an occupation which never brings even a reasonable compensation, while many times the severity of their labors, the confinement and privation, break down the most robust constitutions, and hurry the weaker into a premature grave.
I was too young to reason on these subjects, though quick enough to feel for my dear mother. When I saw her full heart overflow in tears, I cried from sympathy. When we got into the street, and her tears dried up, and her habitual cheerfulness returned, I also ceased weeping, and soon forgot the cause. The memory of a child is blissfully fugitive. Indeed, among the blessings that lie everywhere scattered along our pathway, is the readiness with which we all forget sorrows that nearly broke down the spirit when first they fell upon us. For if the griefs of an entire life were to be remembered, all that we suffer from childhood to mature age, the accumulation would be greater than we could bear.
On one occasion, when with my mother at the slop-shop, we found a sewing-woman standing at the counter, awaiting payment for the making of a dozen summer vests. We came up to the counter and stood beside her,—for there were no chairs on which a sewing-woman might rest herself, however fatigued from carrying a heavy bundle for a mile or two in a hot day. And even had there been such grateful conveniences, we should not have been invited to sit down; and unless invited, no sewing-woman would risk a provocation ofthe wrath of an ill-mannered shopman by presuming to occupy one. Few employers bestow even a thought upon the comfort of their sewing-women. They seldom think how tired they become with overwork at home, before leaving it with a heavy load for the shop, nor that the bundle grows heavier and heavier with every step that it is carried, or that the weak and over-strained body of the exhausted woman needs rest the moment she sets foot within the door.
The woman whom we found at the counter was in the prime of life, plainly, but neatly dressed,—no doubt in her best attire, as she was to be seen in public, and she knew that her whole capital lay in her appearance. I judged her to be an educated lady. Though a stranger to my mother, yet she accosted her so politely, and in a voice so musical, that the gracefulness of her manner and the softness of her tones still linger in my memory. Looking down to me, then less than ten years old, and addressing my mother, she asked,—
"How many of them have you?"
"Only three, Ma'am," was the reply.
"I have six of them to struggle for," she said,—adding, after a moment's pause, "and it is hard to be obliged to do it all."
I saw that she was dressed in newly made mourning. I knew what mourning was,—but not then what it was to be a widow. My mother afterwards told me she was such, and was therefore in black. Other conversation passed between the two, during which I looked up into the widow's face with the unreflecting intensity of childish interest. Her voice was so remarkable, so kind, so gentle, so full of conciliation, that it won my heart. There was a sadness in her face which struck me most forcibly and painfully. There was an expression of care, of overwork, and great privation. Yet, for all this, the lines of her countenance were beautiful even in their painfulness.
While I thus stood gazing up into the widow's face, the shopkeeper came forward from a distant window, by whose light he had been examining the vests, threw them roughly down upon the counter in front of her, and exclaimed in a sharp voice,—
"Can't pay for such work as this,—don't want it in the shop,—never had the like of it,—look at that!"
He tossed a vest toward my mother, who took it up, and examined it. One end of it hung down low enough for me to catch, and I also undertook the business of inspection. I scanned it closely, and was a sufficient judge of sewing to see that it was made up with a stitch as neat and regular as that of my mother. She must have thought so, too; for, on returning it to the man, she said to him,—
"The work is equal to anything ofmine."
Hearing a new voice, he then discovered, that, instead of tossing the vest to the poor widow, he had inadvertently thrown it to my mother. Then, addressing the former, he said, in the same sharp tone,—
"Can't pay but half price for this kind of work; don't want any more like it. There's your money; do you want more work?"
He threw down the silver on the counter. The whole price, or even double, would have been a mere pittance, the widow's mite indeed; but here was robbery of even that. What, in such a case, was this poor creature to do? She had six young and helpless children at home,—no husband to defend her,—no friend to stand between her and the man who thus robbed her. A resort to law were futile. What had she wherewith to pay either lawyer or magistrate? and was not continued employment a necessity? All these thoughts must have flashed across her mind. But in the terrible silence which she kept for some minutes, still standing at the counter, how many others must have succeeded them! What happy images of former comfort came knocking at her heart! what an agonizing sense of present destitution! what a contrast between the brightness of the one and the gloom of the other! and then thecries of hungry children ringing importunately in her ears! I noticed her all the time, and, child that I was, did so merely because she stood still and made no reply,—utterly unconscious that emotions of any kind were racking her grief-smitten heart. I felt no such emotions myself,—how should I suppose that they had even an existence?
She made no answer to the man who had thus wantonly outraged her, but, turning to my mother, looked up into her face as if for pity and advice. Were they not equally helpless victims on the altar of a like domestic necessity, and should not common trials knit them together in the bonds of a common sympathy? A new sadness came over her yet beautiful countenance; but no tear gushed gratefully to relieve her swelling heart. She took up the money,—I saw that her hand was trembling,—placed it in her purse, lifted from the counter a bundle containing a second dozen of vests, and, bidding my mother a graceful farewell, left the scene of this cruel imposition on one utterly powerless either to prevent it or to obtain redress. I have never forgotten the incident.
These labors of my mother were at no time necessary to the support of the family; but, though quiet and retiring in her habits, she had ambitious aspirations for supplying herself with pocket-money by the work of her own hands. As I said before, she was a beautiful sewer on the finest kinds of work, such as, if obtained from the families in which it is worn, would have yielded her remunerative wages. But we lived away beyond the thickly settled portion of the city, had no influential acquaintances from whom it could be procured, and hence my mother, with thousands who were really necessitous, resorted to the tailors, to the meanest as well as to the honorable. When my father heard of the indignities they practised on us, and of the shamefully low prices they paid us, he forbade my mother ever going to them again. He said their whole business was to grow rich by defrauding of their just dues the poor women who were thus competing with each other for work, and that we should do no more for any of them, until we could find an honest man and a gentleman to deal with.
But my father, always busy in his garden or in that of some wealthy neighbor, knew nothing even of the little outside world into which we had penetrated. His generous, unsuspecting nature thus led him to feel sure that the honest and the gentlemanly were to be found in abundance; but he overlooked the fact that it was only his quiet wife upon whom was devolved the task of discovering them, as well as that her explorations had never yet been rewarded with success.
Notwithstanding these discouragements, my mother was firmly of opinion that the needle was a woman's only sure dependence against all the vicissitudes of life. She believed, in a general way, that a good needlewoman would never come to want. The idea of diversifying employment for the sex had never crossed her mind; the vocation of woman was to sew. All must not only do it, but they must depend on it. She considered it of little use to think of anything beyond the needle. She could not see, that, if all the women of the country did the same thing, there must inevitably be more laborers than could find employment,—that the competition would be so great among them as to depress prices to a point so low that many women could not live on them,—and that those who did would drag out only a miserable existence.
Though a woman of excellent sense, with a tolerable education, and fond of all the reading she could find time to do, still she continued to plead for this supremacy of the needle, even after her humiliating experience at the slop-shops. She was the most industrious sewer I have ever known,—and not only industrious, but neat, conscientious, and rapid. Machines, with iron frames and wheels, had not then been invented; but since they have, I have never seen a better one than my mother. Her frame, if not of iron, seemedquite as indestructible, even if it did turn out fewer stitches. Times without number has she sat up till midnight, plying her needle by the dull light of a common candle: for there was no gas in our suburban district. While we children were sound asleep, there she sat, not from necessity, but from pure love of work. Yet she was up early, long before any of the dull sleepers of the household had stirred, and had more trouble to get us down to breakfast than to get up the meal itself. I scarcely thought of these things during the young years of my life, when they were occurring; but as I am writing this, they all come thronging before my memory with the freshness of yesterday. They will no doubt seem dull to others; but the recollection is very precious to me.
With this conviction of its being almost the sole mission of a woman to sew, she made the needle a vital point in my education, as well as in that of my sister. There were two girls of us, and a brother. I was the eldest, and my sister the youngest of the three. Thus, when I was quite a child, I learned to use the needle; and as I grew older, the utmost pains were taken to teach me every branch of sewing, from the commonest to the most difficult. My sister went through the same course of instruction.
At a very early age we were able to make and dress our own dolls, hem our handkerchiefs and aprons, and in due time were promoted to the darning of father's stockings and the patching of his working-clothes. We thought the being able to do these things for him a very great affair, and mother praised us for our work. But when sister Jane once put a patch over a hole in the knee of father's pantaloons, without covering all the rent,—she had let the patch slip down a little,—mother required her to rip it off and put it in the right place: but there was not a word of scolding for Jane; it was all softness, all kindness; she knew that Jane was a child. I think father, however, would never have noticed that the patch was a little out of place; and, indeed, I think it very likely he didn't care about having a patch of any kind put on, for his mind was on work, and not on appearances. But then it was my dear mother's way. We were taught that the needle was to be the staff of our future lives. Whatever we undertook must be done right; and then she had a just pride in making father always look respectable.
Thus in time we came to feel as much pride in being good seamstresses as did our mother. It was natural we should, for we believed all she taught us, and there was no one to controvert her positions,—except sometimes, when father heard her impressing her favorite dogma on our minds, he put in a word of doubt, saying, that, before the needle could be made so sure a dependence for poor women, there must be found a better market for female labor than the slop-shops, and a more honorable race of employers. To this questioning of her doctrine she made no reply, knowing that she had us all to herself, and that a doubt from father, only now and then uttered, would make no impression. But I remember it all now.
I can remember, too, how proud I felt when mother called me to her, one day, and gave me a piece of cotton cloth, of which she said I was to make father a shirt. It was of unbleached stuff, heavy and strong, but still nice and smooth. Father wore only one kind; and as it was to serve for best as well as for common wear, I was to make it as nicely as I could.
That afternoon all of us children were to go on a little fishing-excursion to the meadows on the Delaware, among the ditches which run all round the inside of the great embankment that has been thrown up to keep out the river. There was a vast expanse of beautiful green meadow inclosed by this embankment, on which great numbers of cattle were annually fatted. As viewed from the bank, it was luxuriant in the extreme; in fact, it was a prairie containing hundreds of acres, trimmed up and cared for with the utmost skill andwatchfulness, and intersected with clean, open ditches, to secure drainage. Into these ditches the tide flowed through sluices in the bank, and thus they were always full of fish.
These beautiful meadows were the resort of thousands who resided in the lower section of the city, for picnics and excursions. The roads through them were as level as could possibly be, and upon them were continual trotting-matches. In summer, the wide flats outside the embankment were over-grown with reeds, among which gunners congregated in numbers dangerous to themselves, shooting rail and reed-birds. On Sundays and other holidays, the wide footpath on the high embankment was a moving procession of people, who came out of the city to enjoy the fresh breeze from the river. All who lived near resorted to these favorite grounds.
Several other little boys and girls were to come to our house and go with us. We had long been in the habit of going to the meadows to fish and play, where we had the merriest and happiest of times. Sometimes, though the meadows were only half a mile from us, we took a slice or two of bread-and-butter in a little basket, to serve for dinner, so that we could stay all day; for the meadows and ditches extended several miles below the city, and we wandered and played all the way down to the Point House. On these trips we caught sun-fish, roach, cat-fish, and sometimes perch, and always brought them home. We generally got prodigiously hungry from the exercise we took, and sat down on the thick grass under a tree to eat our scanty dinners. These dinner-times came very early in the day; and long before it was time to go home in the afternoon, we became even more hungry than we had been in the morning,—but our baskets had been emptied.
I think these young days, with these innocent sports and recreations, were among the happiest of my life. I do not think the fish we caught were of much account, though father was always glad to see them; and I remember how he took each one of our baskets, as we came into the kitchen, looked into it, and turned over and counted the fishes it contained. My brother Fred generally had the most, and I had the fewest: but it seems that even for other things than fishes I never had a taking way about me. Father was very fond of them, for mother had a way of frying their little thin bodies into a nice brown crisp, which made us all a good breakfast. So father had made us lines, with corks and hooks, tied them to nice little poles, and showed us how to use them and keep them in order, and had a corner in the shed in which he taught us to set them up out of harm's way. Occasionally he even went with us to the meadows himself.
But while I am speaking of these dear times, I must say that we always came home happy, though tired and dirty. Sometimes we got into great mud-holes along the ditch-bank, so deep as to leave a shoe sticking fast, compelling us to trudge home with only one. Then, when we found a place where the fish bit sharply, all of us rushed to the spot, and pushed into the wild rose-bushes that grew in clumps upon the bank: for I generally noticed, that, where the bushes overhung the water and made a little shade, the fish were most abundant. In the scramble to secure a good foothold, the briers tore our clothes and bonnets, sometimes so as to make us fairly ragged, besides scratching our hands and faces terribly. Occasionally one of us slipped into the ditch, and was helped out dripping wet; but we never mentioned such an incident at home. Then more than once we were caught in a heavy shower, with nothing but a rose-bush or a willow-tree for shelter; and there were often so many of us that it was like a hen with an unreasonably large brood of chickens,—some must stay out in the wet, and all such surplusage got soaked to the skin.
But we cared nothing for any of these things. Indeed, I am inclined to think that we were happy in proportion as we got tired, hungry, wet, and dirty. Mothernever scolded us when we came home in this condition. Though we smelt terribly of mud and fish, and were often smeared over with the dried slime of a great slippery eel which had swallowed the hook, and coiled himself in knots all over our lines, and required three or four of the boys to cut off his head and get the hook out, yet all she did was to make us wash ourselves clean, after which she gave us a supper that tasted better than all the suppers we get now, and then put us to bed. We were tired enough to go right to sleep; but it was the fatigue of absolute happiness,—light hearts, light consciences, no care, nothing but the perfect enjoyment of childhood, such as never comes to us but once.
This is a long digression, but it could not be avoided. I said, that, when mother told me I was to make a shirt for father, we were that very afternoon to go down among these dear old meadows and dirty ditches to fish and play. Our lines were all in order, and a new hook had been put on mine, as on the last excursion the old one had caught in what the boys call a "blind eel," that is, a sunken log,—and there it probably remains to this day. Fred had dug worms for us, and they had coiled themselves up into a huge ball in the shell of an old cocoa-nut, ready to be impaled on our hooks. Everything was prepared for a start, and we were only waiting for dinner to be over: though I can remember, that, whenever we had such an afternoon before us, we had very little appetite to satisfy. The anticipation and glee were such that the pervading desire was not to eat, but to be off.