fices. As trade appeared to be firmly
established in that section, a mammoth hotel was built near Coenties
slip for the accommodation of country merchants, and was long famous as
the 'Pearl Street House.' A jobbing concern at that day might be
satisfied with the first floor and basement of a building twenty-five
feet by sixty to eighty, in which a business of from one hundred
thousand to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars could be done. Such
a business was then thought of respectable amount, and few exceeded it.

The trade even at that early day was remarkable for its
precariousness--and while a few made fortunes, whole ranks were swept
away by occasional panics. In 1840, Hanover square was the dry goods
emporium of New York, and there a few years earlier Eno & Phelps
commenced a thriving trade which grew into famous proportions. As an
illustration of the risks of trade, we may mention that we know of no
other concern engaged in that vicinity at that time which escaped
eventual bankruptcy. Near Eno & Phelps stood the granite establishment
of Arthur Tappan & Co., while lesser concerns were crowded in close
proximity. The first disposition to abandon this section was shown by
opening new stores in Cedar street, which soon became so popular as a
jobbing resort that its rents quadrupled. The Cedar street jobbers would
in the present day be considered mere Liliputians, since many of their
stores measured less than eighteen by thirty feet. They were occupied by
a class of active men, who bought of importers and sold to country
dealers on the principle of the nimble sixpence. Of this class (now
about extinct) a few built up large concerns, while others, after
hopelessly contending year after year with adverse fortune, sunk
eventually into bankruptcy, and may in some instances now be found in
the ranks of clerkship. From Cedar street, trade moved to Liberty,
Nassau, and John streets, while as these new emporiums prospered, Pearl
street gradually lost its prestige, until the general hegira of trade in
1848, which left that ancient mart deserted. The Pearl street hotel,
which once was thronged by country dealers and city drummers, was then
altered into a warehouse for storage, while the jobbing houses, where
merchants were wont to congregate, fell into baser uses, and property
sunk in value correspondingly.

The 'hegira,' to which we have referred, led from the east to the north
side of the town, and was so exacting in its d