great city daily by means
of the ferries. The country for twenty miles around the city is built up
by persons who earn their bread in New York, and morning and evening they
pass between their places of business and their homes. You may recognize
them as they come into the city in the morning, or as they leave it at
the close of the day. Towards five o'clock vast swarms of working-men
pour over the river, followed at six and seven by the factory and shop
girls, the clerks and salesmen in the retail houses and offices, and from
these the newsboys reap a harvest for the two-penny papers. Every one
has his newspaper, and all who can find the necessary space on the
ferry-boat economize their time by reading the news as they cross the
river. Later still come the clerks in the wholesale houses, and later
still the great merchants themselves. Between nine and ten the Wall
street men put in an appearance, and later yet the great capitalists,
residing out of the city, begin to show themselves. From eight o'clock
the great dailies are in demand, and the newsboys have scarcely a call
for the cheap papers. Towards noon the idlers and ladies bent on
shopping expeditions cross over, and for a few hours the ferries are
comparatively dull. Towards four o'clock in the afternoon, however, the
tide flows back again, but in reverse order. The richest come first, for
their working hours are short, and the poorest extend the crowd into the
hours of darkness. Night brings another flow and ebb of
pleasure-seekers, theatre-goers, etc., so that the midnight boats go
almost as full as those of the early evening. Then a few stragglers
avail themselves of the boats that ply between midnight and morning.
They are mostly journalists, actors, or printers employed in the
newspaper offices.

With the first light of dawn, and frequently long before the darkness has
passed away, the market farmers and gardeners of Long Island and New
Jersey crowd the boats with their huge wagons heavily loaded with
vegetables and fruits for the city markets. They come in throngs, and
the approaches to the ferries in Brooklyn and Jersey City are lined for
blocks with their wagons. They are mostly Germans, but they show a
decidedly American quality in the impatience they manifest at the delays
to which they are subjected. On the lower Jersey ferries, they are often
followed by droves of cattle, many of which have come from the Far West,
all wending their way