The Sunday tatler and Jersey City express. (Jersey City, N.J.) 1883-1886, 1886-07-11

ON THE WHARF.
responses of the roustabouts mingled with
the noise of escaping steam, the ring of
countless bells and the rumbling and
Sinking of drays and wagons, carts and
steam cars, cannot smother the jocund
notes of the negroes song. his arms and
limbs and head all keeping time to the har-
mony, even as he trundles the heavy bales
along the narrow gangplank. The negro
of the wharves is contented and happy.
He lives emphatically in the present, and
thinks not of the past or future.
But we will have to visit some of the old
ruins before we bid adeiu to the old city.
The old Spanish Prison is one of the most
interesting of these, and l explored it from
its wide massive-beamed and galierried
chambers to it's nether-most regions.
Horrible holes in solid masonry are they,
that still seem to be reeking with the blood,
and echoing with the sigbs and groans OF
the wretched beings who were cast into
them to starve and rot during the years of
Spanish rule. What tale the old walls
could tell if they had the gift Of speech!
Many dark plot would be revealed that
will never know the light of history It
was in this old prison that the transfer of
the Province from one country to the other
was made, and some of the most dis
tinguiched of the early colonists were im-
pIisoned in the rusty old cells. Looking
for the Archiepiscopal Palace, I made my
way to sort of lodge house in the centre
of high wooden enclosure, giving en-
trance to garden at the rear of which
stood rickety old building. quite sugges-
tive of conventional seclusion. Getting en-
trance ! was easy to believe that here
dwelt brotherhood tsuly welded to per-
petual poverty, since the layman who adj
mitted me was in as bad a state of repair and
decrepitude as were the buildings. Assur-
ing me that there was nothing to see, this
guide and philosopher conducted me
through the main hallway revealing at the
rear another garden, a lovely spet ear from
the maddeniDg crowd, and from this van
tage ground pointed out the Bishops resi-
dence on one side and the Ursuline Con-
vent on the other. I had entered these
pious shades through sort of charter
house and now l gazed upon the Palace,
for such it is called. Let it no longer be
said that America is destitute of stored
ruins done in tone. Surely no land could
show wreck like this, thai still would be
found equal to the sheltering of saint or
sinner, not a more demeralized pile claim
ing s0agrand name. You can still see
Congo Square, the old slave Mart, but
nothing remains to mark the spot. The
four whipping posts to which the unruly
slaves were made fast by hands and feet
are gone, and NJ one seesos moro glad than
the Louisianians. Shaver, bad strong root
in the State, and the emancipation of the
blacks was hard blow at the time, but
the people with the vivacity of the typical
Erenrhmen are fast recovering, and the
Queen City of the South is far richer to-
day than she ever was in ante-bellum days.
A strange city this, a city of contradictions,
a place of magnificent buildings and tum-
ble-doWn shanties, of refinement and ignor-
vnce going hand in hand, of mingled
energy and laziness.