Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1878-04-19
Our New York Letter.

iouy, must soon spend itself and be a thing
OF the past. M.PP.
Our New York Letter.
STEWARDS POsTHUNOUs ACHTEyRgENr-opES
ING OF THE woMRNs HOIEL-CuRIosITIE
FROM UNDER THE BROOKLYN BRIDGR-Kx
PRESIDENT GRANTS CHAPLAIN.
NEW YORK, April 10th, 1873.
To tho Editor oftLe Free Press and Times.
The central event of the last week here
in point of importance, was the completion
and formal opening of A. 7. Stewart.
Women's Hotel, which has been slowly
building during ten years past, at the corner
of Fourth Avenue and 33rd street. Every
thing being finally in readiness, the euor
nous structure was brilliantly illuminated
early on Tuesday evening. and Mrs. A. T
Stewart waited in an elegant little parlor
fitted up especially for her use, to receive
the three or four thousand guests who had
received formal cards OF invitation to this
inspection. The management, however
soon learned that they bad reckoned with
out their host in attempting to open the
building for q chosen few. Immediately
upon the doors being thrown back, an i'm
mense and indiscriminate throng of the
curious surged in. elbowing the greatly
scandalized ticket-holders end taking posses
sion of things generally. 1t is estimated
that in the course of the evening, sbou.
thirty thousand people pushed and struggled
T.. Il l., .
trolable desire Of seeing for themselves the
true inwardness Of this great white pile
which for years past has stood closed and
silent as the sphynI.
The Women's Hotel is an eight story
iron building, 200 feet square, covering
fourteen lots. The lower story is cut up
into thirty-eight stores, and the remaining
ones contain the parlors, Gfhce, dining and
reception rooms, library for the free use of
guests. containing over $500 volumes,
kitchen, etc, beside 500 sleeping rooms
The furniture and carpets are very hand
some, and the place is expected to accom-
modate about one thousand women. The
building is considered to be absolutely fire.
proof and is self-dependent for water and
gas, there being full set of water pumps
and facilities for manufacturing an album
dant supply Of gas. Two sumptuous elevat-
ors furnish easy communication between the
floors and over two thousand gas jets furnish
illumination by night to the mammoth cara
vansary, which has cost. all complete, in the
neighborhood of S3,O00,000.
This enterprise has been very generally
misunderstood. The prevailing impression
seems to have been that Mr. Stewart's idea
was to provide home for working women,
which should be a charitable institution,
free, or nearly so. But now that it trans
pires. that the scheme is largely business one,
that the terms of the institution are to be
comparatively high and the rules for its gov
ernment rather strict, general hue and cry
is raised against Mr.. Stewart and his execu-
t0rs. 1t is true that only the higher class
of working women can live in the house at
its present tariff, but it is also true that this
class are the ones to best appreciate its COM
forts, and that there are plenty of them in
New York to fill it full. 1t is, however, an
experiment after all, and experience only
can fix its value.
The plots of ground on which the foundi-
tions supporting the New York approach of
the Brooklyn bridge are to rest, are situated
in the very Oldest part of the city, and the
which have just been removed
from them were, some of them, fairly tot
tering with age. Excavations for the found
ations referred to have been begun, and the
ancient soil which the sun has not shone
upon for two or three centuries is proving
as rich in curiosities a. the work of the
in the West. A score of
suggestive relics have been turned up there
within few days. Among them were three
old bayonets, nearl eaten up with rust, and
found close to a number Of cannon balls The
bayonets evidently had belonged to Qseen
Anne muskets at the time of the English
Of the city; but the cannon-balls
belong probably to the days of the redoubt-
able Dutch Governor and Director-Gencral
Wouter Van Twiller.
More curious still, however, was the find
ing, within a stones throw of the cannon
balls OF a Dutch pipe and n piece of tile. The
former was probably the property of some
burgher, and could it have had
phonOgraph attachment in its prime, what
tales it might relate The tile evidently be-
longs to the same period as the pipe. On it
is still to be traced the figure of Bel and the
Dragon. Near by was another pipe, clearly
Of Indian manufacture, and some pieces of
wsmpum or seawan. for long time the only
medium in use between the
Dutch and Indians.
Near the wampum. hut on an upper stra-
tum, were several bricks of yellow clay.
These are Of Holland manufacture. Before
brick-kilns were established on Long Island,
by Governor StuyveSant, in 1861, ships were
loaded with bricks burned in Holland and at
first every dwelling was modelled after those
the Dutch had left, with store-rooms for
trade like those of Amsterdam and other
trading towns in Fatherland. Thus at New
and Fort Orange (Albany) rows
1f houses could be seen built of imported
brick, with thatct-roofs, wooden chimneys,
and the gnble ends always towards the
street. a few Of these remarkable Dutch
houses were to be seen until within a year or
two. in this city, but not one now remains.
Among these spade relics, and of far more !
recent date than those above described, wee
the bored logs of the old Manhattan Water
Works As this company, which was or
,anized in 1899, supplied the city with
water until 1899, the logs must be more
than half a century old, yet those lately un-
earthed were exccllently preserved. So the
iiggers in Frankfort street have pierced in
success strata belonging to four ciyiliza-
tions, 50 to speak, on Manhattan lsland-the
the English, the Dutch and the
Indian.
The Rev. j p. Newman. better known as
'Parson Newman" who was sort OF
cha aplair-in-ordinary TO the White House
during Grants administration, and who
has Just returned from Palestine whittier it
seems that Congress for some profoundly
mysterious reason saw lit To send him as
Inspector Of Ccnsuls,' has accepted call |
TO Methodist church here where he will
shortly enter upon his labors. These will |
be likely to be more arduous than that of |
to the spiritual ycarnings and !
necessities of the ex-Executiye.
1t is commonly supposed that prize fight
ing among the aristocracy IS mainly confined |
20 England; but as proof that that effect
monarchy does not entirely monopolize high
oncd bruisers, it may be stated that member
If each OF two of the most prominent brokers
irms of this city met one night this week at
he rooms of well known professor OF |
he manly art, and then and there pounded
,ach others faces out of shape in the most
.pproved manner; and not only that but were
ully reported in the next mornings papers
ike any pair of bull dogs or game cocks.