Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-08-24
NEW YORK.
Lights and shadows of the Great
City-The Eranco-Prussian War
''Let us Have Peaceo-The SOUTH
ern Route.
Correspondence of the Union and American
NKw YORK CITY.


E'Let us Have Peace''-The SOUTH
ern Route. .
Correspondence of the Union and American.
NRw YORK CITY.
New York, Aug. IA, 1S70-The
Southron who comes here for change of
climate will find TO his sorrow, that he
has jumped from the frying-pan into the
fire. l have never experienced such a
continued season of debIitating, burning
weather, even in the southern extremity
of our land, than l find here. Night
brings no relief, and you wake up in the
morning Of you can sleep at ALI par
boiled and unrefreshed.
Next to the City Hall, sign upon
large building strikes you very ominously,
and the inscription reads as follows,
Hospital for the relief Of sun-struck pa.
tients. u Thus far about 1,S00 persons
have fallen victims to the fatal influence
of this terrible heat, and many others
have been temporarily disabled. The
people here will scarcely believe me
when | tell them that such cases
very rarely happen at the South,
although great deal of field
and outdoor labor is performed by
white people. When / tell them that I
sleep under comfort nearly every night
at home, where it is always cool and
pleasant after sunset, they open their eyes
with establishment. l moved over into
Jersey City, trying to escape from the
heat; but those blOodthirsty serensders,
the mosquitoes, turned out in such force
the first night that was obliged to beat
hasty retreat. -, us- q
The city is extending and improving
wonderfully, and there is now grand an
nexation scheme on the tapis which will
swallow up all the minor towns clear up
into Westchester county, and make the
city about twenty miles in length. An
immense amount of building is going on,
though real estate has declined fully one
third since last year, and is very slow sale
at that. Any number of fine business and
dwelling houses are for sale or rent in the
best parts of the city, and the complaints
of commercial stagnation and very hard
times are universal. . -rIals 81
Murder and robbery are the order of the
day; the perpetrators are not often found
out, and if so, but rarely punished, as the
whole police and judiciary system is but
a political farce. Gov. Hoffman, though,
seems TO be determined to effect q re-
formation, and l sincerely hope that the
Herculanean task he has undertaken may
prove successful. In the case of Real,
the murderer, all the political and relig-
ious engines of the dominant party were
brought to bear upon him, but the Gov
ernor remained steadfast, and the law was
executed, for which he deserves the
thanks of all good and law-abiding peo-
pie all over the land.
MADISON SQUARE AND FIFTH AVENUE.
Here you find the palatial homes of
the merchant princes and the money aris-
tocrats, the dictators of Wall street who
hold the purse-strings of the nation in
their hands. There in that half million
brown stone house, embowered in splen-
did bay window, sits Miss Flora
McFlimsey, gotten up beautifully.
But no, l am mistaken; she and her fifty
trunks started for Long Branch few days
ago to attend the races. All the Dynasty
of the Reign of Greenbacks is now assem-
bled there, trying to ou!shine each other.
Dr. Helmbold, J. Fisk, Jr., A. Belmont
and other lesser stars are giving free TX
hihitiOns in charioteering to an admiring
multitude. they commenced with four
in hand, and have got up to six in hand
now, which came near proving fatal to
the dainty Alchymist of the Buchu The
circus man will soon eclipse them all, as
he is advertised to drive into town twenty
in hand, which will, no doubt, put an ex-
tinguisher upon these equine rivalries. 1t
requires an income of from $780, to
$50, 600 to keep up these gentry.
TENEMENT HOUSES.
Now, let us look at the other side of
the picture. You will scarcely believe it
when l tell you that in the tenement
houses south of Fourteenth street,
within two districts occupying three and
a half square miles Ala, 54S, or nearly
half q million of men, women and chill
dren are stored away in miserable dens
like sardines in box. visited num-
Der of families who have friends and rela-
tons in Alabama, and found in one five
story house, with 35 feet front, IA fam
lilies consisting of 1913 souls all huddled
and mixed up heterOgeneously within 16
rooms. 1t is a great wonder that the
pestilence does not break out in these
localities where the simplest requirements
of health mast be SO difficult to keep up
with.
NIGHT IN THE CITY.
To very small portion of the COM
munity night represents period of rest,
of quiet and tranquility. But to much
the larger portion it is period of excite
ment or amusement. Broadway and the
Bowery, and Fifth Avenue are as
different from each other as day
is from night, and appear as
if inhabited by people from different
country. In the Bowery the German rules
supreme, and lager beer is omnipresent.
Thousands of hucksters' stands line the
curbstone, and apples and peanuts are all
the rage. There sits the poor Union
soldier, who lost limb on some battle
field, grinding the organ for livelihood,
and here are hundreds of poor women
and children asking you for penny.
Step over to Broadway and the scene is
entirely different. Here you see flashily
dressed men loafing around cigar stores,
with small sprinkling here and there of
better class, and crowd of poor,
wretched women whose manners
but too plainly announce their calling.
And many of these unfortunates are mere
girls, thoughtless children, whom 1udlci-