Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1885-07-06
THE FOURTH IN NEW YORK.

New YORK, July "A holiday could
scarcely be better kept than New York has
kept to-day. EARLY yesterday afternoon,
the crackers began to pop, and by night the
popping had increased to fusilade which
was kept up to late hour in the night.
This morning it recommended with the light,
and all day long it. has been bang-bang-
pop-pop-all over the city. Thousands
of houses displayed fags-some of them
maryland in what are ordinarily the quiet
the steps and pavements firing crackers by
the pack, and setting of, at night, all sorts
OF fireworks, not only with the appreciation,
but with the active participation of their
elders. Ii has seemed to our party like an
old fashioned Christmas, minus the dinner
and the egg-nogg. Just back of our lodg-
ings twenty or more gentlemen and ladies
are gathered in a porch and one of the
peculiar little back yards they have here,
engaged in singing patriotic songs, relieved
ut intervals by the noise of fireworks they
are setting of, and, though they began at
supper tine, eleven o'clock finds them still
at it. People talk of the want of patriotism
in New York, but, whatever deficiency there
may be among the millionaires and the
snoHs. the masses certainly have it. Irish
and Germans, French and Italians vie with
natives in showing love of our free insti-
tu;ions which they could not simulate.
For The first time in the memyry of "the
oldest inhabtant," so a gentleman told me
at The break fast table, there was no public
celebration OF the day. but few indeed were
the stures found open, and many the excur-
sons We went down town early and
found the Brooklyn bridge full of pedestri.
ans and its cars crowded, the Battery we'll
filled and steamer after steamer leaving
both cities loaded to the waters edge. Man
haitian Beach and Brighton, Long Branch
and Far Rockaway, Long Beach and Ocean
Grove, and hundred other places, had
each its crowd of pleasure seekers, aud
Broadway, usually so crowded, was, l ven
lure To say, less so at midday than King
street often is. Except slight cloudiness
and few drops of rain at intervals, be-
tween one and four o'clock, the weather
was bright, and brisk breezs tempered
the increasing heat, as We leaned against
railing OH Broadway and listened to "Co,
lumbia, the Gem Of the Ocean," and "Yan-
kcc Doodle" from the chimes Of Trinity,
or sat upon wharf high up the
North River side and watched the small
boys lodging the police as they INDUCED in
. surreptilious swim. Some were caught in
the mold of an old scow and brought forth
trembling to receive few strokes of the
rattans whilst others, in the costumes ma.
| ture gave them, ran along the docks in full
view of everybody 10 secure retreats, to
which their comrades bore their clothes.
| The policemen told me they only wanted
| IN check the practice, but that as it was the
| t h of July, The boys must have little Ii
! cense 30 they didn't run very fast to catch
| them. The boys said, however, that the
cops" as they invariably call them, some
times came upon them suddenly by water
as well as by land, and that learning to
| swim without five dollar note to pay the
| teacher of tho swimming school is anything
but an easy job. They all do learn how
ever, as they ought.
Few soldiers were out. In the morning !
saw Highlander going to the armory of
| the list to prepare for camp at Peekskill,
and at night met several men of the 9th,
with knapsacks and blankets on, Just from
there. Every regimeut-and every man in
there must SO 10 camp for week in the
year, but, then, not only are his expenses
| paid, but he gets paid, too, whilst he is there.
| The Sd Virginia would like that a little
|
Yourself" plan. Just after noon, as we were
riding up Broadway in one of the cars just
lut upon that thoroughfare, we met q com
| lany of z,uaves, preceded by drum corps
and company of boys dressed just like
| hem, evidently going on all excursion, but
| that was ALL Just before our car had been
startled by an alarm Of fire, and the engines,
hose carriages and salvage trucks darted
past and around ua, but there was found to
be no occasion for their services. Few drunk
Ell men were seen and disturbances We're
rare :. everybody seemed as good humored
rs the crowd in Washington on Inaugural
ton day
We finished the day mt the Madison Square
Theatre. 1t lis handsomely littedu hut very
small-as the audience was. John II. Ray
mond appeared i'll n new comedy, or farce,
called in Chanccry." Yin which man, injured
in a railway collision, loses his memory and
eith it his name, aud comes within an ace
Of committing bgamy and being committed
to prison for contempt of the chancery
court in place of another whose overcoat
and card case had been exchanged for his.
1t was very funny, and, Of course, Raymond
played it well. 1t is now near midnight,
aud still the rockets are shooting up and the
crackers popping as we retire to rest.
FIDELIs.