lphia."

In the Lenox Collection there is now one of the various editions of the
"Cries of New York" (published in 1808), which is valuable both as a
record of the street life of the old-fashioned town of ninety-six
thousand inhabitants, and as perhaps the first child's book of purely
local interest, with original woodcuts very possibly designed and
engraved by Alexander Anderson.

The "Cries of New York" is of course modelled after the "London Cries,"
but the account it gives of various incidents in the daily life of old
New York makes us grateful for the existence of this child's toy. A
picture of a chimney-sweep, for instance, is copied, with his cry of
"Sweep, O, O, O, O," from the London book, but the text accompanying it
is altered to accord with the custom in New York of firing a gun at
dawn:

"About break of day, after the morning gun is heard from Governor's
Island, and so through the forenoon, the ears of the citizens are
greeted with this uncouth sound from figures as unpleasant to the sight,
clothed in rags and covered with soot--a necessary and suffering class
of human beings indeed--spending their childhood thus. And in regard to
the unnecessary bawling of those sooty boys; it is _admirable_ in such a
noisy place as this, where every needless sound should be hushed, that
such disagreeable ones should be allowed. The prices for sweeping
chimneys are--one story houses twelve cents; two stories, eighteen
cents; three stories, twenty-five cents, and so on."

"Hot Corn" was also cried by children, whose business it was to "gather
cents, by distributing corn to those who are disposed to regale
themselves with an ear." Baked pears are pictured as sold "by a little
black girl, with the pears in an earthen dish under her arm." At the
same season of the year, "Here's your fine ripe water-melons" also made
itself heard above the street noises as a street cry of entirely
American origin. Again there were pictured "Oyster Stands," served by
negroes, and these were followed by cries of

"Fine Clams: choice Clams,
Here's your Rock-a-way beach
Clams: here's your fine
Young, sand Clams,"

from Flushing Cove Bay, which the text explains, "turn out as good, or
perhaps better," than oysters. The introduction of negroes and negro
children into the illustrations is altogether a novelty, and together
with the scenes drawn from the street life of the town gave to the
old-fashioned child its first distinctl