savour of old New York, let him
read the journals of those bygone days. Better than any history
books will they make the past live again, make it real to you with its
odd perfumes, and its stilted mannerisms, and its high-hearted courage
and gallantry.

I know of no quainter literature than is to be found in these very old
New York papers. The advertisements alone are pregnant with
suggestions of the past--colour, atmosphere, the subtle fragrance and
flavour of other days. We read that James Anderson of Broadway has
just arrived from London "in the brig Betsy" with a load of "the best
finished boot legs." Another gentleman urges people to inspect his
"crooked tortoise-shell combs for ladies and gentlemen's hair, his
vegetable face powder--his nervous essence for the toothache, his
bergamot, lemon, lavendar and thyme"--and other commodities.

Sales were advertised of such mixed assortments as the following:

"For Sale:
"A negro wench.
"An elegant chariot.
"Geneva in pipes, cloves, steel, heart and club, scale
beams, cotton in bales, Tenerisse wines in pipes, and
quarter casks."

In several old papers you find that two camels were to be seen in a
certain stable, at a shilling a head for adults and sixpence for
children. The camels were a novelty and highly popular.

Take this item, for instance, from the good old _Daily Advertiser_,
chronicler of the big and little things of Manhattan's early days. It
gives a fine example of old-style journalism. Observe the ingenuity
with which a page of narrative is twisted into the first sentence. The
last two are the more startling in their abrupt fashion of leaving the
reader high and dry. The cow is starred; obviously the man appears a
minor actor:

"On Thursday afternoon, as a man of genteel appearance was
passing along Beekman Street, he was attacked by a cow, and
notwithstanding his efforts to avoid her, and the means he
used to beat her off, we are sorry to say that he was so
much injured as to be taken up dead. The cow was afterward
killed in William Street. We have not been able to learn the
name of the deceased"!!

Some of the items contain genuine if unconscious humour,--such as the
record of the question brought up before the City Council: "Whether
attorneys are thought useful to plead in courts or not?" Answer: "It
is thought not."

Then there is the proclamation that if any Indian was found drun