The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1870-11-29
AD,seription of New York.
A NovEIIsT's IMPRESSION OF THE AMER1c AN
METROPOLIS.

NovEMsTs IMPRESSION OF THE AMERICAN
METROPOLIS.
Mr.. Justin Mccarthy, in his serial now
publishing in the GALAXY, describes New
York as city from the roar and hustle
ofwhose busiest wharfs and thoroughfares
outroaring the loudest din of London
Bridge or the docks Of Liverpool, you
crooss stream and escape in few mo-
ments into green woods fit for the revels
of Titania city of stupendous contrasts
the most hideous streets, the most
beautiful streets-masses of squalid huts,
avenues Of Understanding worse than
the Ghetto or Bluegate fields here, some
thing faircr than the Bots dc Boulognc or
kee Gardens therein summer the fierce
heat, the blazing, binding sunlight, the
tremendous thunder storms, the drench-
ing, torrential rain of the tropics in
winter the SHOWS, and the turs and the
sleghs of st. Petersburg a city in which
everywhere, physically and morally, in
buildings and in breasts, the prosaic and
the poetic, the utter most energy OF the
practical, the drcamiest visions OF the
ideal are always contending-where men
who have faith in nothing save railways
and money, do daily business with other
men who see visions passing those of
Swcdenborg, and people the common air
with forms dcarer and brighter than those
of any Rosicrucian dream q city where
nothing is held to be settled or certain
where John Laws or Fourer,or Jonathan
Southcote, or the Witch of Endor might
be expected to appear any day and have
following-and where yet the highest
teaching of European science is welcomed
and studied as it is not in Europes old
schools themselves city of paradoxes ;
n city of magnificent possibilities contem-
ptuously disregarded, and of seeming i'm
possibilities conquered and reduced to
the scrvitudc of the practiced and the
real city which first rcpcls and ends
by fascinating; such is. in short, the city
of New York.
At this moment, however, the reader
who follows the story can see New York
but family. 1t lies there on the low
lands across the waters of the bay , you
can see two or three spires rising into the
evening sky, and beneath them darkling
mass like fog-bank on the water, which
darkling mass is one Of the river fronts
of the city with Its shipping. Islands
are scattered everywhere over the water
some almost as large as an lonian isle
on which battles have been fought and OF
which poets have sung some only large
enough to hold few buildings and two
or three trees. Steamers Of all sorts and
sizes are coming in and going out; the
long, 1.-the, narrow ocean steamer, familiar
to every port the vast white floating
castles or palaces, which carry New
Workers to Boston or Albany, and the
sight of one of which on the Thames or
the Mersey would create almost as much
surprise as if Roman war galley OF
Noah's ark itself were to appear there
little yellow, fierce, snortlng, vicious look
ing tugs the tiny, tidy boat of the As.
ISOLATED Press, running to meet one OF the
great screws from Liverpool or Southamp'
ton the fcrry-boats, whose name is leg
ion, painting across to the islands and the
railway stations the flagship ola famous
and popular admiral who has Just come
into port perhaps monitor, irreverent'
ly compared. for its odd structure, to q
couple of Dutch cheese on a raft here
and there n genuine raft laden with timber
telling of the Hudson and reminding o.
the Rhine.
Over all is a pure lustrousable sky
glowing toward the west into sunset tC
gorgeous that Turner himself could hard
ly have pictured it or even fancied it, am
deepening on the opposite horizon int
magnificent and wondrous effects of re
hected purple and gold. Truly the whole
is beautiful sight. Let the Rhine (no
of Emmerich, but Of the Drachentels OF
st. Goat flow directly into vaster ba.
of Dublin, scatter the flags Of all nation
and the commerce Of every port broadcas
over the waves, let the atmosphere o
Salamis shine upon the scene, and yol
will have constructed in your imagination
something like the picture which the Nev
Yorker may gaze upon any fine evening
The New York Knickerbockers are thu
described: What is Knickerbocker
One of the grand old legendary familie
who live in what may be called the Eau
bourg St. Germaine of New York-on
of those who had grandfathcrs and an
cestors, and are proud Of them who dat
back to Peter Stuyvesant and his peer
and paladins who are Republicans wit
picturesque Old World dash Of lcgiti
macy over them; who shrink back fron
Shoddy as a Laro chejaquelein Nigh
from Mires who would rather be poor
if need were, than be mixed NY with an
of the vulgarity of modern wealth AM
who would be offended if they were mis-
taken for residents Of Fifth Avenue
Murray Hill and Madison Avenue, yo
inqulring European stranger Of intellec
and pensivc mind wander towards tn
Fast River, until you emerge from shop
and noise and traffic and modern activity
into the solemn, stately monotony an,
majestic silence Of Second Avenue.
There dwell the Knickerbockcrs i
dignited isolation, fading grandy away
citO perifHrf, but touching and sublime i
their fall. Modern degeneracy has no
reached them.
A PAINFUL MIsrAKE-IIere is yer
good story of old DR.. Caldwell iormcrl
Of the University Of South Carolina. Tn
old doctor was a small man, and lean, bu
as hard and angular as the most irregula
pine knots. He looked as if he might b
tough, but he did not seem strong
Nevertheless he was, among the KNOWN
ones, reputed to be as agile as "a cat,