The pilot and transcript. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1840-1841, 1840-08-26


Must come alas! through every fate
Oftnl and distance, cold and late,
When the dear hend, whose touches nled
Its leaf with sweetness, may be child
Afsare.
Wes! even they who receive letters from home
with all the regularity permitted by contrary
winds, shipwrecks and other accidents, cannot
altoaether hush their alarms But what must
have been my feelings3 / am violent New
Yorker, with all the peeuliarities, prejudices,
waps and savings OF that great western city.
was born in Pearl-street9 Went to school to Nelson,
have followed fre-engines, skated on Stuyve-
SAINTS pond, laughed at P0t-ple Palmer, and trer-
bled at the frown of Old Hays, as if there were
no other spot in the world than my native town.
There il not a drop of blood in my veins but that
flows faster at the name OF New-York. How
often have fired crackers on the fourth OF July
by the booths near the Park and Battery How
have fought against the insults of the Spring
streetcrs, that can of vicious boys who almost
brought the police to a stand? How have
stgone in a swimming" from the rats by the old
fort Gansvoart? | remember wheR the church
was burnt in .Maiden-lane; l liftedIny mslancho-
ly huzza at the downfall of the Park theatre
There has nat been any thing extra ordinary
going on in town, for the last thirty years, but
that was either present, at least knew all
about it afterward. / would not have missed n
fire for weeks vacation. If workman fell
from the scaifoldiHg and broke his leg his neck,
there was /. If man was drowned, there was
]. II Old Hays caught any vagabonds in the
practice their nefaRous profession, hatsteaing,
counterfeiting, etc, there was by sort ofubi-
qulty, by kind of ompiscience, at the head of a
band of heterogeneous ragamuffins, black and
white; and when the militia turned out, my glory
was complete. How graVely, too, have gone
about at PaaS, with an egg in my hand, address
sing every stranger urchin vith-"Mister, viii
you crackw
am older now, and have fallen of from
skating-parties, streethghts and hre-englnes, put
my associations still adhere to New-York people
and New-York things; lounge up Broadway
or the Battery, an evening at the Park theatre,
to have other days recalled by Barnes's .hitsta-
pha, or Simpsons Young RGpid-a walk on
Sunday, to read the bulletins in Wall-street-an
afternoon excursion to Hoboken-an idle hour
in the court of sessions, when the Honorable
Richard Riker, in his own kind way, explains
to his acquaintance from the adjoining building
the particular moral connection between vice and
misery, with cerollary amounting to demon
stration-a trip up the North river, and few
hours repose upon the Oversaugh, Indeed, l
am so completely filled with imag of New-York,
that ON sailing one day in a Messina merchant
for the island Of Sicily, to pay long-pro
missed visit to fr1end and see little ofthe great
world we live in, | found myself abroad, rising
if had left my own globe and alightca upon
new planet.
Since that period have been over all Europe,
and great part of Asia and Africa. l have
tasted opium with the Turk at Constantinople--
had survey of the Pyramids myselfin
the ball of st. Peter's-held handkerchief to
my face in the wet, filthy lanes of Paris, and
viewed from the monument of London
| should have been enchanted with my travels,
but for one consideration But will relate my
sad fate soon found that one of the keenest
pleasures | should enjoy during my absence
would be the receipt of letters and papers. Ihad
left no particular directions where to address me,
and after few months residence in Naples, l
began to be uneasy, and wrote home by every OPP
portunity, stating the best way of communicating
with me. Quite . sufficient period elapsed fol
the reply, and yet none came. put up at Rome
for a time, and haunted the pcst-olice like a
spectrc-but in vain. went to Florence Here
had some months before requested all my letters
to be sent, and here resolved to await my packe
from America. Every mail-day took my stand a
the postodice, but day after day, t7ee after week
month after nonth--not whisper--not sing
not paper-my visits were paid here with sdcl
egnlarity that the whole surrounding population