Fifth Avenue | Page 4

and sixteen years later, the Battery, with its
gravelled, shady paths, and its somewhat irregular plots of grass, was

still the city's favourite breathing spot. There, of summer evenings,
after the stately walk down Broadway, the crinolined ladies and the
beaux with their bell-crowned hats gathered to watch the sun set behind
the low Jersey hills, and perhaps to inspect the review of the Tompkins
Blues, or the Pulaski Cadets. There was fierce rivalry between these
two commands, one under Captain Vincent, and the other under
Captain McArdle, and each corps had its admiring sympathizers. Both
Blues and Cadets presented a fine, martial appearance as they swung
across the Battery, marching like veterans who had faced fire and
would not flinch. "Sure it was," a flippant chronicler has recorded,
"both had an undisputed reputation for charging upon a well-loaded
board with a will that left no tell-tale vestige." Very likely, in the
throng, all were not of New York. There were doubtful strangers, too,
looking with yearning eyes out over the dancing waters of the blue
bay--swarthy, weather-beaten men with huge earrings. They called
themselves "privateers-men." But there were those who smiled at the
word, for romance had it that there were still buccaneers in the Spanish
Main.
In many families that daily visit to the Battery was all the summer
change. Mr. Dayton, in his "Last Days of Knickerbocker Life,"
informed us that neither belle nor gallant lost caste by declining to
participate in the routine of watering place life, simple and
inexperienced as it then was. Yet there were summer resorts, and they
were patronized by the best and most prominent citizens of the country.
The springs at Saratoga had already been discovered, and there were
many New Yorkers who made the then long and arduous trip.
But nearer at hand was the "Beach at Rockaway," sung by the military
poet, George P. Morris, and Coney Island. At the latter resort
conditions were primitive. Unheard were the blaring of bands, and the
raucous cry of the "Hot-Dog man," and the riot and roar of the rabble.
Mr. Blinker, of O. Henry's "Brick Dust Row," could not then have seen
his vision and found his light. For there was no mass of vulgarians
wallowing in gross joys to be recognized as his brothers seeking the
ideal. But he might have been as well pleased with the unpretentious
hotel at the water's edge, where the urbanite could enjoy the cooling

ocean breezes, and listen to the waves, and dine upon broiled chicken
and succulent clams.
The press of the third decade of the last century was high-priced and
vitriolic. Of the morning papers now known to New Yorkers there was
none. The "Sun," the first to appear, began in 1833. But of the
afternoon journals there was the "Evening Post," perhaps even then
"making virtue odious," as a wit of many years later was to express it,
and the "Commercial Advertiser," now the "Globe," the oldest of all
metropolitan journals. Before the appearance of the "Sun," the morning
papers had been the "Morning Courier and New York Enquirer," the
"Standard," the "Democratic Chronicle," the "Journal of Commerce,"
the "New York Gazette and General Advertiser," and the "Mercantile
Advertiser and New York Advocate." In the evening there were the
"Star," and the "American," besides the "Post" and "Commercial
Advertiser." These newspapers were mere appendages of party,
"organs" in the narrowest and most restricted sense, espousing blindly
certain interests or ideas, expounding in long editorials the views of
small groups of politicians.
"Here's this morning's New York Sewer! Here's this morning's New
York Stabber! Here's the New York Family Spy! Here's the New York
Private Listener! Here's the New York Peeper! Here's the New York
Plunderer! Here's the New York Keyhole Reporter! Here's the New
York Rowdy Journal! Here's all the New York papers! Here's full
particulars of the patriotic Locofoco movement yesterday, in which the
Whigs were so chawed up; and the last Alabama gouging case; and the
interesting Arizona dooel with bowie knives; and all the political,
commercial, and fashionable news. Here they are! Here they are! Here's
the papers! Here's the papers! Here's the Sewer! Here's the New York
Sewer! Here's some of the twelve thousand of today's Sewer, with the
best accounts of the markets, and four whole columns of country
correspondence, and a full account of the ball at Mrs. White's last night,
where all the beauty and fashion of New York was assembled; with the
Sewer's own particulars of the private lives of all the ladies that were
there. Here's the Sewer! Here's the Sewer's exposure of the Wall Street
gang, and the Sewer's exposure of the Washington gang, and the

Sewer's exclusive account of a flagrant act of dishonesty committed by
the Secretary of State when he was