|

If I breathed short before, after this my breath seemed to desert me entirely, and I verily thought that the beating of my heart would betray me. Belle, pure as an angel to me then, and white as a snow-flake, proceeded to turn off the gas and to get into bed. I felt her soft pressure over my head, and shrunk closer and closer to the hard floor upon which I was extended. What thoughts rushed through my brain! Above "I should say so, decidedly. I see it all, old me lay a young and unsophisticated girl wholly fellow! You've been on a lark, and had to put unconscious that the one she loved lay so close-up in the watch-house; come now, own up and ly to her, and who had for the first time been made aware of her interest in him, by hearing words which she supposed went only to Heaven! I knew then that the night must pass away, and

it? From the looks of the feathers I should say | mere hearsay. That very day he went to see

But Fred Evans was not to be discouraged by that grew out of it.

THE SWEETEST DAYS.

WH

OLD TIMES AND NEW.

́HO among us, having attained manhood or womanhood, does not sometimes indulge in the regretful pleasure of retrospection? Who is there so happy in the present that old times, old friends, old memories furnish not the greater part of his holiday musings? Pope's often-quoted line—

"Man never is, but always to be blest,"

is pertinent only to forward-looking youth; after middle age past blessings occupy a larger share of our attention than the events of the apathetic present or the illusions of the promissory future. Popular slang, in its adolescence, petted the phrase, "There's a good time coming!" but we are not all Micawbers; and you and I, dear Paterfamilias, learned long ago that Time in the Future is an arch trickster-a hoary blackleg-who stakes in the Game of Life against our very heart's-blood only his promises to paynotes of hand which no one will discount now, and which, when they arrive at maturity, are sure to be protested-the only result of our investigations concerning the affairs of the insolvent valetudinarian being the conventional plea of "no effects." The Future is to us a fundless speculator; the Present a commercial bankrupt; but we have still our investment with the Past at compound interest, yielding us a steady income of kindly reminiscences.

practical knowledge of woman's mission. They can "execute" miraculous "fantasies" upon "eight octave" grand pianos (modern monstrosities of indiscriminable bass and unattainable treble). They can glibly run over the list of the most approved "modistes" here or abroad. They can display sylphide grace and prodigious endurance in the "German Cotillion." But, with the best intentions in the world, they can not efficiently supervise their nurseries and storerooms. When Canal Street was the uppermost boundary of our good city of Manhattan, dames of the highest fashion were deeply versed in household lore-had penetrated all the occult mysteries of culinary alchemy-possessed vast knowledge concerning remedies for infantile ailments, and could and did find time to direct in person the operations of their domestics; to embody in palatable palpability sundry prized recipes for cake and confectionery; to administer chastisement to refractory inmates of the nursery; to do all that should or could be done in a well-ordered, cheerful home, and yet to keep up outside social intercourse. Now the exigencies of an interminable visiting list and a constantly-to-be-replenished wardrobe leave but little leisure for housewifery; and if a modern matron see her children twice a day, and be able to tell her husband what there is for dinner, it is about as much as can be expected of her.

And we ourselves, male reader! are we to our wives, our sons, and daughters, what our fathers were to theirs? or do our business affairs monopolize our days, and our clubs absorb our nights, until home and family have become mere empty words, which touch no pleasurable chord within us? Do you remember when the

Perhaps our preference for things of yore may arise in part from causes within ourselves. First impressions are more vivid than the hackneyed repetitions of after-life. We sip our sparkling "Carte d'or" to-day with critical fastidiousness, but with less enjoyment than our undiscriminating palates found in the spurious, cloy-busiest merchants came home to dinner at three ing Heidsick of our boyhood. The beauty of last season's blooming ball-room débutantes pales before our recollection of the belles of our time. It may be that in some respects we deserve the supercilious sneer with which our newfledged supplanters quote at us, "Laudatores temporis acti;" but let us comfort ourselves, O respectable contemporary! in the conservative conviction that alterations are not always improvements; let us thank God that, with regard to many dear old customs, though the times have changed, we have not changed with them! However beneficial "modern improvements" may be in the matters of domestic architecture, gas, water-works, and abstract science, the continual remodeling of our social institutions has resulted, possibly in a higher external polish, but certainly in deterioration of the original fabric.

Are there such parents nowadays as those of our childhood? I think not. Mothers there are in plenty, Heaven be praised! who fondly love their little ones, and who would willingly fulfill their maternal duties if they only knew how; but the delectable system of modern education which has fostered them is vastly different from that which gave our mothers fewer ornamental accomplishments, perhaps, but more VOL. XXXIII.-No. 198.-3 G

o'clock, and, save perhaps on "mail nights" (less frequent then than in these days of steam), spent their afternoon and evenings in the happy circle around the crackling wood - fire?-when there were but two theatres, one gambling-hell, and no club in Gotham ?-when bar-rooms were but few and far between, and, in their stead, great bins of centennarian Madeira furnished private cellars? We have liquid conveniences now on every block, and "the Tiger" claims his jungles on every hand; but are we the better in morals or pockets? Clubs and theatres abound in our thoroughfares, but are our real enjoyments enhanced thereby? Hot-air furnaces and anthracite coal have banished woodfires; but what we have gained in warmth we have lost in cheerfulness. Our incomes are larger than those of our progenitors, to be sure; but all the wealth for which we toil so hard can not purchase for us a tithe of their genuine comfort-can not compensate us for the estrangement from family ties entailed upon its pursuit. Solomon's apophthegm of the dinner of herbs and the stalled ox will thrust its antithesis upon us some day when we have become millionaires and confirmed dyspeptics; when our sons are irreclaimable rakes and gamesters, and our daughters shining lights of "fast" watering

place cliques, conscience will whisper a few tardy hints concerning the natural guardianship of youth.

By nature's usual rule of compensation, as parental care diminishes some other influence should intervene to protect infancy and childhood; but, alas! such is not the case. Where is the nurse of our earlier days?-the matronly old soul whose kindly but strict discipline preserved order among her half dozen unruly nursery subjects; who held us entranced for hours together with marvelous recitals of faerie; who mended our habiliments and our morals with equal assiduity; whose unyielding grasp subdued our struggles when, supine in her broad lap, nauseous doses gurgled down our protesting throats. What has become of her Bible, her silver spectacles, her snowy cap, her dear old self? She has passed away, and in her place modern Fashion allots to each child a separate attendant in the person of a slatternly, semi-idiotic Irish woman, whose chief characteristics are utter ignorance of the care of children combined with general negligence, mendacity, and a misplaced attachment for tawdry finery; whose numerous retinue of "cousins" encumber our kitchens, devour our viands, drink our wines, and smoke our cigars; whom you may see at any time absorbed in amatory colloquy with some loutish compatriot on the benches of our parks, while her luckless charge rolls unheeded on the damp grass to the serious detriment of its health and clothing; whose religious fervor and "evenings out" place her mistress at most inconvenient times in the position of ordinate menial.

in the family? Have ye gas and stationary tubs, and hot and cowld wather? I'll not do the nurse's washin'. I have every other Sunday mornin', an' Sunday an' Wednesday evenin's every week. Do ye keep a girrul to wash up the kitchen things afther me? Is the kitchen light an' airy? Do ye have airly dinner o' Sundays, bekase I likes to have me afthernoons to myself?" Three new-fangled "domestics" are required for half the work performed in former times by one, and, bad as they are, Materfamilias has learned by sad experience that each change makes matters worse, and is afraid to find fault or demur to their exactions, in dread of their conventional "Very well, ma'am, then if ye plaze ye'll suit yerself wid another girrul an' I'll lave whin me month's up." In good sooth, if "Ireland for the Irish" imply the re-emigration of all be-hooped iconoclasts from our intelligence offices back to their own verdant isle, the Fenian cause has no more sincere well-wisher than the present writer.

THE CENTRAL PARK OF NEW
YORK.*

THE

HE CENTRAL PARK of New York is the most thoroughly National Institution in the land. The Report of the Board to whom is intrusted its charge and management shows that during the year ending with December 31, 1865, there were more than seven and a half millions of visits made to the Park. This number represents visits, not individual visitors. Not a few sub-persons, like the writer of this, went scores of times, and were so often counted. Very many went more than once, and large numbers only a single time. Few persons now come to New York for business or pleasure who do not visit the Park. In the absence of all positive data on this point we judge that a million separate

1865. Of these we suppose about one-half were
residents of the metropolis and its immediate
environs; the other half came from other parts
of the country, and from abroad.

Before touching upon the many interesting
Ninth Annual Report of the Board of Commissioners

31, 1865.

But if the nurses of this degenerate era are deserving of reprobation, what shall we say of the other members of our “kitchen cabinets?" Of a verity, if all the outcry about "down-trodden Celts" and "Saxon oppressors" were true, the wrongs of Erin would be amply redressed-individuals visited the Park during the year ay, and a heavy balance accredited to the other side by the exactions of our Hibernian domestic tyrants! John Leech, in his "Flunkeyania" and "Servantgalism," has portrayed minor phases of the insolence of servitude; but transatlantic pictures sink into utter insignificance compared with the utter, abject enslavement of our New of the Central Park, for the Year ending with December York households under Irish despotism. Time was when no fictitious gloss of varnish shone upon the mahogany of our fathers, but wax and sturdy "elbow grease" were applied each day until the table's surface mirrored the well-washed glass pendants of the chandelier above; when the brass mountings of the grates and fire-irons must be burnished into dazzling brightness; when oil-lamps were to be trimmed and filled, and water, whether for potation or ablution, to be fetched from the pump at the corner; and all these and other multifarious duties were performed by two, or at most three, servants for a large family. Under the new régime we are assailed by each and every applicant for exorbitant wages, with a formal routine of questions somewhat in this fashion: "How many of yes

The pedestrians and equestrians are counted individually; the vehicles are counted, and an average of three persons is allowed to each. The following is the exact number of visits to the Park, as thus made out: Pedestrians, individually counted... Equestrians, individually counted 98,56) Vehicles, 1,425,241, three persons to each.. 4,275,723 Total visits in 1865. 7,593,13

3,219,056

But we think the estimate of three persons to a vehicle

is too low. We should give the average at fully four. On the other hand, as we shall have occasion to notice, abent 400,000 vehicles passed into the Park at its lower entrances, went through and beyond it, and again re-entered, and so were counted twice. Many persons also came into the Park outside of the regular entrances. The incidental errors on one side will about balance those on the other; so that we may safely say that during the year 1865 there were between seven and eight millions-nearer eight than seven-visits to the Central Park.

points involved in the Report of the Board of | bounded by the Hudson, here called the "North Commissioners we must say a few words con- River," a name given by the early explorers to cerning the Board itself. Charges of corrup-distinguish it from the Delaware or "South tion or incompetency have been brought against River;" on the east by the "East River," which almost every other body of men having in trust is no river at all, but an arm of the sea opening the municipal affairs of the city of New York. into Long Island Sound, and thence into the Not a few of these charges are proved or prova-broad Atlantic. The lower end of the island, ble; many-we wish we could say the majority for about five miles, originally consisted of a -are, we trust, unfounded. But from first to succession of low sand-hills, swamps, ponds, and last the administration of the Central Park Com- creeks. But the hills have been leveled, the missioners has been not only pure, but unsus- swamps, ponds, and creeks filled up, and now pected, and to them has been confided the charge the whole presents the aspect of an ascending of laying out and controlling the streets above plane sloping off on either side to the rivers, and the Park, and constructing the grand Boulevard entirely covered by buildings and streets. At which will form its appropriate adjunct. The the lower edge of the Park, 4 miles from the present Board consists of Charles H. Russell, "Battery," the general elevation is about 80 J. F. Butterworth, Waldo Hutchins, Thomas C. feet above high-water mark. A little below Fields, Andrew H. Green, Henry G. Stebbins, this, however, ridges of bare solid rock begin to R. M. Blatchford, M. H. Grinnell. Few resi- crop out; these, within the Park, in the space dents of the metropolis need be told how much of a mile reach the utmost height of 135 feet, private worth and public spirit are embodied then within another mile and a half the land in these eight names. Mr. Green, as Treas- sinks down again almost to water-level, at the urer and Comptroller, is the executive officer of upper end of the Park. Then again it rises the Board; and in ascribing to him the chief sharply into the picturesque ridge known as credit of the admirable manner in which the Washington Heights, whence it slopes down affairs of the Park have been managed, we no again to water-level at Harlem River, the upper more detract from the merits of his associates portion of which, known as "Spuyten Duyvel and subordinates than, in ascribing to Grant the Creek," is merely a passage through which a merit of conducting the closing campaign of the small portion of the waters of the Hudson make war, we undervalue the services of Sherman and their way through a narrow gorge into the HarThomas, of Sheridan and Meade, or of the thou- lem River, itself an offset of the East River. sands and hundreds of thousands, from General Flurries of wind are apt to sweep through this to Private, who, each in his sphere, performed narrow gorge, to the detriment of small craft the duty laid upon him. plying on the Hudson. According to the veracious Diedrich Knickerbocker, one of the old Dutch worthies-if we remember rightly it was Anthony Van Corlear-baffled by these gusts, swore that he would pass the point, Spuyt den Duyvel-"in spite of the Devil." Another legend says that this gorge was held by the Dutch settlers to be the abode of a "Spitting Devil," who blew wind-flaws from his big mouth. Between these two possible etymologies one may find a satisfactory explanation of the present appellation of the northern boundary of the Island of Manhattan.

We think we perceive in the honest and capable administration of the Park promise of the inauguration of something like it in other departments of our municipal affairs. Thus, when people pass from the filthy streets around into the well-kept roads within the Park, and learn from actual statistics how much less good management costs than bad, they may imagine that the system of capacity and honesty is capable of being somewhat extended. It may occur to them, for example, that the proper business of the Street Department is not so much to provide sinecures for politicians, or to secure votes for "our party," whatever that may be, as to put and keep the streets in good order. If "evil communications corrupt good manners," good communications should amend evil manners. Who knows but that some day we may even come to have an honest Common Council?

To one who looks upon the map of the city as it now exists the name "Central Park" will scem a misnomer; a generation ago it would have been an absurdity; a generation hence it will have become exact truth. Manhattan Island is a tongue of land thrust southward toward the Atlantic, or rather into the deep bay which opens into the ocean by the strait throat known as "the Narrows." The island is 13 miles long, coming to a point at its southern extremity, and increasing irregularly northward, having usually a breadth of 24 miles, occasionally contracting to half that distance. On the west it is

The lower part of the island is laid out with no special regard for regularity; the streets, running in every conceivable direction, being mainly named in honor of some notable person or family of the olden time. As we go up town the endeavor for regularity becomes more and more decided. At Fourteenth Street, 23 miles from the Battery, the regular system fairly ousts the old one. Above this line, and partially a little below, all the streets running lengthwise are known as "Avenues," numbered from First to Twelfth, with several shorter ones, rendered necessary by the conformation of the island. These Avenues run parallel, in straight lines for miles. The streets which cross them are numbered from First Street upward, Fourteenth Street being the lowest which completely crosses the breadth of the island. This rectangular arrangement continues to One Hundred and Fiftyfifth Street, nearly ten miles from the Battery;