Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1843-04-21
Clepcland (O.) Herald
BROADWAY.

BROADWAY.
N. P. WILLIS, in a late letter from New
York to the National Inteligencer, thus
describes a morning in this great thorough
fare
81 strolled up Broadway between nine
and ten and encountered the morning tlde
dorm and if you never have studied the
lphysiognomy of this great thoroughfare in
its various huxes and rehuxes, the differ
ence would amuse you. The clerks and
workies'haye passed down an hour before
the niue O'clock tide, and the sidewalk is
filled at this time with bankers and specua-
tors bound to Wall street; old merchants
and junior partners bound to Pearl and Wa
ter and lawyers young and old bound
for Nassau and Pine. Alb, the faces OF
care The days operations are working
out in their eyes, their hats are pitched
forward the angle of stage coach with all
the load in the drivers seat, their shoulders
raised with the shrug of anxiety: their steps
hurried aud short, and mortal face and gait
could scarcely express a heavier burden of
solcitude than every man seems TO bear.-
They nod to you without smile, and with a
kind of conscious recognition, and II you
are unaccustomed to walk out at that hour,
you might fancy that if there were not some
great public calamity, your friends, at least,
had done smiling on you.
Walk as FAR as Niblo's, stop at the green
house there, and breathe an hour III the
delicious atmosphere of Towering plants,
and then return. There is no longer any
particular current in Broadway. Foreign
ers coming out from the cafes, after their
late break fast, and idling up and down for
fresh air country people shopping early,
ladies going to their dress-makers in close
wells and demi-toettes errand boys, news
boys, duns, and doctors make up the throng
Toward twelve O'Clock there is a sprinkling
of mechanics going to dinner-a merry,
short- acketed, independent looking troop,
glancing gaily at the women as they pass,
and disappearing around corners aud up
alleys. And an hour later Broadway begins
to brighten. The omnibusses go along emp
ty, and at slow pace, for people would rath-
er walk than ride. The side streets are
tributaries of silks and velvets, flowers and
feathers TO the thorongh-fare; and ladies,
whose proper mates Judging by the dress
alone) should be the lords and princes, and
dandie shoppers, and loungers every de-
scription, take crowded possession of the
pace. At nine O'Clock you look into the
troubled faces of men going to their busi-
ness, and ask yourself Ito what end is all
burden and care p and at two, you gaze on
the universal prodigalty Of exterior, aud
wonder what fills the multitude of pockets
that pay for it. The faces are beautiful
the shops are thronged, the sidewalks crowd
ed for an hour and then the full tide turns,
and sets upward. The most of those who
are ont at three are bound to the upper
part of the city to dine, and the merchants
and lawyers, excited by collision and con-
test above the depression of care, Join, smi-
ling in the throng. The physiognomy of
the crowd is at its brightest Dinner is the
smile of the day to most people, and the
hour approaches. Whatever has happen
ed in stocks or politics, whoever is dead,
whoever rnined since morning, Broadway
is thronged with cheerful faces and good
appetites at three. The world will proba-
bly, dine with pleasure TO the last day-per-
haps breakfast with worldly care for the flu
ture on doomsday. And here must break
off my daguerreotype of yesterdays idling,
for the wind came round easterly and raw
at three o'clock and was driven in doors
TO try my industry as an opiate.'
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