The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-22 00:00:00

Those who love the crush, the racket, and the roar
of London would feel very mush at home amid the
din and rattle of New York. In the way of noise
this city of ono street has little toenvy the Babylon
with the hundred thoroughfares, There is nothing
in the world more distracting, more fretting, more
inspiriting than
a walk along the Broadway trot-
toirs from one hour after sunrise till long after the
closing of the shops in the evening. In Broadway
you have Oxford-street, the Strand, King William-
stre,et, and London-bridge in one street between
two and three miles in length; one main artery for
the pulsation of one million human tide. Starting
from the Old Battery, at the water's edge, where
the North and East Rivers blend their streams,
forming by far the noblest harbour and one of the
most charming sites upon earth, and making for
Union-square or the Park, where interminable rows
of dull transverse streets, at right angles, with
stately but silent and somewhat dreary longitudinal
avenues, spread out intn the,Belgravias and 'Fybur-
nias of this Weetern London, the city has, through-
out, no other direct line of communication than this
one. There is not one omnibus or heavily laden
waggon, and hardly a private vehicle or a pedes-
trian, no matter on whit errand bound, that can
avoid the throng and swarm of Broadway, and there
is hardly a human face, out of the hundreds of
thousands dwelling in the town and its suburbs,
that does not love to show itself in Broadway from
choice, when not driven into it by necessity.
Truly this street, which gives New York its pecu-
liar character of oneness, is well worth all the affec-
tion that these Manhattan people evidently bear it.
Not that it has any particular object to attract the
attention of a travelled stranger, but it is as gay as
the Boulevards, as trim and glittering as Regent-
street; it has a grandeur and loftiness all its own.
Shops, I beg their pardon, "stores," that take in
the whole, not of a house, but of a huge block of
houses, basement, ground floor, upper storeys, gar-
rets, and all ; hotels that present 150 ft. front to
the street, and nearly as high es they are long and
breed; marble warehouses, stylish as palaces, solid
as castles ; and churches, and halls, and theatres,
ail that other towns scatter about in their various
quarters, much also that other towns hide away out
of sight—all is here mustered up in two parallel
rows of buildings, on a tolerably straight, but by no
means monotonous line, "up town and down town."
The real fascination of Broadway, however, lies in
its noise ; not in mere brick and mortar, but in the
ebb and flow, in the heaving and eddying of the
wave that incessantly sweeps along it. The pride
of Broadway is the omnibus, that peculiar institu-
tton of modern Republicanism,
which flourishes no
where so luxuriantly as in this headquarters of the
Model Republic; the omnibus, not sober and dun as
in London, not slow and unwieldy as in Paris, but
gay and gaudy and motley, now all beautifully
whet© with red and gold letters, now quaintly
daubed over with landscapes and sea pieces, and
the effigies of odd revolutionary "guys" in cocked
hats and pigtails; a throng of omnibuses, three or
four of them often abreast, or as many arrayed
against one another, running foul of each other,
tilting with their long poles, clumsily driven, with
uncouth shouts and savage oaths, and an occa-
sional crash, as horses slip, stumble, and tumble
on this the most treacherous and murderous pave.:
mcnt, that ever disgraced a Christian community ;
for there is no Society for the Prevention
of Cruolty to Animals in this country, and
no one has leisure for the cultivation of
humane feelings. I never once walked along
Broad Way, morning or evening, without seeing at
least one luckless horse down ; never was in New York
on &today without being saddened by the sight of
one poor horse, the carcase rotting on the stone
where it foil, awaiting the cart which was to con-
vey it to the knacker's on the first working day.
Through the medley of these buses, and the heavy
carts, and the light spider-legged buggies which
venture into the fray (cabs are not among American
ineiituticias, and the few lunebering hackney coaches
doing duty for them do their utmost to scare their
" away by thievish charges)—throughout
this awful medley, I say, the great bu,iness of
the Western world must force its way. Crossing
the street at Aster-house or at the turning of Wall-
eteeet is by far a greater feat than anywhere in Pic-
cadilly and Chee.pside ; and the softer sex would at
nil times give up the attempt as hopeless, were it
not for the intervention of a set of loungers, with
the garb and name of policemen, but with the man-
ners of the daintiest gentleman in all the land, whose
only duty is that of squiring the ladies; tall, stal-
wart men in long frock coats and round leathern
capes, who take hold of the fair one's arm as they
plunge with her into the vortex at one street corner,
and never slacken their professional grip until they
emerge out of the melee at the other corner.
Through the midst of all this chaos of men, women
and things which constitute the ordinary traffic of
New York, these warlike times send now a regi-
ment of foot, now a battery to clog the whole pave-
ment with its heavy measured, inexorable tramp;
and more often a fire-engine, or a long row of fire-
engines come dashing up, tearing up, fighting their
way, with hose, escape, ladders and all, drawn by
men hatless and coat less, very fiends in human shape,
lagging for very life, and curdling your blood with
3.e11a borrowed frcm the wild Indians—the Fire
Brigade, ne a, an old familiar sight in New York, the
Praia of A. •
merman skill and daring, the kind of work
best snit
cd to the temper of a people who, even while
reviving the
the instinct cause of humanity, must needs obey
Which makes them revel in scenes of
havoc and esstrue,.aort.
Stich is outw
staNew York—a c:ty to the greatness
awl prosperity et eye inhabitants of which Provi-
dence has set no limits, Perpetuate, if you will, the
work of the present Southern Secession set u the
W ; p
est in open rebellion
against the East; split up
the Union into now stales
and nations • cut up the
Stars and Steein=s into as many
s.
ma?
ofshreds and patches
eke
as now ma UP the
Europe ; seduce the
New •.)-:'k to
importance of that of mere capital of
st3ze which bears its
the Empire . s 1141.11 P • 6on't;4u`e
of Hanseatic • ' "
it into a mere kind
eltY, and you will
IS.c)tth American
always have here the centre of
movement and life. Its port and its rive, ,
and the 'Whit the gap
between the Alleghenyand Green
Mountains, mastery
will always give Sew York the
over the trade of the Western world. Air
etl(l3' the
old shipping importance of Salem, Portland
and
Boston itself, and the banking pro-eminence
t• Philade phia, are rapidly absorbed by their Nut,.
hettan rival ; for "unto everyone that bath shall
be given," and whatever may be the career of New
Crleans on the gulf of Mexico, or San Francisco on
the Pacific, Now York will share with acne of her
sister cities the sovereignty of the Atlantic.
But to
the usuale:unchecked, headlong progress—to the
insolent good fortune of this mushroom city, the
great civil war has now come to give a fresh, momen-
tous impulse. The calamities which are desolating
the South and crippling the West have thrown
many a windfall into the lap of this great eastern
emporium, whose shouts of joy have echoed back
the groans of New Orleans and the cries of distress
of Si. Louis. The whole of America is flocking to
New York. I have heard of European travellers in
whose opinion New York is a representative city—
the pattern and summary of all Americanism. The
city
however is in bad odour with the natives them-
selves, even with the dwellers therein,who look upon
It as the sink of all • ' alien misery and corruption—the
a.71-ure, of lawless Irish and godless Germans, of all
the worst set of adventurers from the Old World.
Few of the New Yorkers profess to be at home in
NoW York. The
y are all people who have conic to
zwll:e their fortune, or, having made it, only tarry
tin they " realise." It is a floating, flitting papule-
'"o .no's to" the soil and but few of the
71131 tics which bind man .0 'm
I an. The. city is but
en
a a thoronghfarc, a place to make money
in, but not
N.; hick to enjay
anJ tol , one in
rr• to close COe's
onz;'3 happy old a,7e, or to
ro-Ir one't; chi.!titTn.

11'300 at all tirnee—jut now a
W;th 011 this wan-ladle charaetu,
owcver ew
N
York. is t cra-.vded
Ia a town
""ere b ,r
irroriEnt, ko lets than five
,:!!), the most ginntie
,ro row bi'irg buin and :'tell uP)"d their.

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