The sun., 1894-12-28
Old Times.

/
of THE SUN, those numbers OF it printed at
the holiday season less than sixty years ago,
to see how things went here in the city
about New Years time along between 1890
and 1850, or later 1t appears by THE
| Suns reports that the New Yorkers who
lived, say from forty to sixty years ago, must
have had liveler time of 1t during the days
in which the old year went out and the
new year came in than we had a year
ago, or will have next week. The folks of
the older time gave themselves up to all
around merriment in the closing hours OF
December, often stayed up tho whole night
for q purpose, and were full Of jollity the
next day, or for several days. They visited
each other, the whole lot of them, to pass
the compliments of the season they tramped
around to house after house, from early
dawn to dewy eve and later vet.
Anybody was welcome everywhere be
tween 1880 and 1880; everybody took
something" at the homes of all friends and
acquaintances; a good table, upon which
there were plates and other properties was
set in every ones house; the mistress Of
every place, and all her children, excepting
those Of the boys who had gone out, awaited
the days visitors; and happiness reigned
supreme. from the Battery up along the
Bowery, and other streets higher than Canal
street, away over in Greenwich vii
lage, by the sides OF both rivers, and
far out, at occasional spots, toward
Harlem, not to speak Of Kip's Bay and
hundreds Of other places. There were no
California wines then, nor any lager beer
(1s30-'5O), but we infer from the reports
In THE Sun Of old that other potables Of a
reviving kind flowed freely as the Hudson
by the Palisades. We should judge from
THE SUNS reports that a fair proportion of
the New Workers. of those times got tipsy,
or half seas over, on New Years Day, and
had no fear Of the constables Gt was the
pre-pantata epoch), and were patriotic,
both Wings and Democrats and, in short,
carried on in high old style, fearless Of courts,
jails, or Old Nick
Perhaps the respectable New York de-
scendants Of the original Dutch had the best
time Of it at New Years up to 1850, or
thereabouts, for there were hardly any Ger
mans or Irish here till then, and as for Ital-
ians, Slavs, Swcdes, Jews, and such, they
could be counted on the fingers of one hand
The Methodists in those days stayed up be-
yond midnight of the last OF December to pray
the old year out and the new year in. and
their shouts could be heard from the old
church in John street as far up as the newer
one in Sullivan street. New Years Day
was the day Of all the year, better than
Evacuation Day or Independence Day or
any other; and any competent historian,
novelist, or poet who would like to write it
up for future generations can find piles OF
serviceable information in the old volumes
Of THE SUN. all of which are carefully
stored away Hardly anybody of the prm-
tive stock took any notice of Christmas
then, or, at least, it was not day that
counted for much in the New York calendar.
A change has been brought about within
the past thirty or forty years. more especially
during the time that has elapsed since the
war broke out. The New Yorkers now on
the stage do not enjoy New Years days like
their forbears OF the first half of our century.
They don't, for themselves, ring out the old
or ring in the new; they don't freshen up
their friendship, or go about the town, or
carry on, or eat New Years cake or smell
schnapps, or enjoy the solid yet foaming old
fashioned fun. The people Of to-day seem to
be dry and dull, as compared with those of
whom one can read in the way back volumes
Of THE sun, those numbers Of it that were
printed along about New Years time.