Harper's Round Table, April 30, 1895 Part 7

[Ill.u.s.tration: RESERVOIR IN CENTRAL PARK.]

New York has never been a boastful city. It never has filled the world with the noise of its greatness or the parade of its wonderful achievements. Its Broadway is the longest thoroughfare in Christendom, I believe; its suspension-bridge is only excelled by one bridge of another kind; its actual size and population are second to those of but one city; but such facts one must glean from the encyclopaedias and the letters of travellers. The New-Yorkers say nothing about them. Therefore it is but little known that the aqueduct which carries our water to us is the greatest--many times the greatest--tunnel in the whole world. It is more than thirty-three miles in length, and far from being a mere trench, averages a depth of 170 feet below the surface, and is in places 380 feet underground. It is from ten to thirteen feet high, and averages nearly as great a width. Its way is hewn through solid rock in places, and it is everywhere built of brick and granite. It pa.s.ses under several rivers, and at the Harlem River, the northern boundary of this island, it is in the shape of a siphon upside down, sloping for 1300 feet under the river, and then rising 400 feet straight up through the Manhattan Island bank of the stream. It cost nearly $27,000,000, and it brings, without pumping, by the incline of the tunnel, nearly 100 gallons of water a day for each of the 1,900,000 persons in the city, or about 171,000,000 gallons of water a day for all of us. It is a solid cube of water running at the rate of two miles an hour, eight or ten feet thick, and ten or a dozen feet high.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD WAY.]

We are in the habit of saying that the water we drink comes from Croton Lake, thirty miles north of the city in Westchester County, but that is only a part of the truth. The fact is, that Croton Lake was made by damming the Croton River when our system was begun in 1835-42. We now take that water, and the water of several other lakes, ponds, and rivers that are in a great valley or depression in the earth called the Croton watershed. We keep stored up and ready for use about 17,000,000,000 gallons of water in the following natural and artificial reservoirs: Croton Lake, Lake Mahopac, Lake Gilead, and Kirk Lake, Middle Branch, East Branch, Bog Brook, and Barrett Pond. Their names sufficiently describe the character of these great goblets of crystal water which nature and man have arranged for the needs of the great city. But these are so insufficient that, although it is believed we could draw 250,000,000 gallons a day even in dry weather, we are going to take into our system three more reservoirs, which will allow us to store 13,000,000,000 gallons more than we can store at present. And as even these will not long supply our growing needs, we are about to build the greatest dam the world ever saw. It is already called the Quaker Bridge dam. It is to be built five miles south of Croton Lake, back of the town of Sing Sing, where the great State-prison is. It will be a great pyramidal-shaped wall of solid masonry 264 feet high, and 1500 feet long, and will cost, the officials think, at least $6,000,000. When it is finished, a magnificent rich farming country will be flooded and turned into one immense gla.s.s of water for old Father Knickerbocker (as we call our patron saint) and his children. The water that will bank up against that dam will rise up over many, many farms and houses and barns and villages for a distance of no less than sixteen miles, and the present dam at Croton Lake will be thirty-five feet under the surface of the water. Now we store 17,000,000,000 gallons of water, but then we will have a liquid treasure of 84,600,000,000 gallons.

We are apt to think about water as free because Nature evidently intended that it should cost no more than fresh air. And so it is free, so long as we are satisfied to use very little, and to go and dip up that very little out of a stream and carry it to our homes. But when we demand the full fruits of modern civilization, when we insist upon the building of huge dams and vast reservoirs and tunnels and pumping-stations, we must buy the water they bring in order to pay for the cost of the convenience. What we pay in New York amounts to about $1.75 a head for every man, woman, and child in the city, or more than $3,000,000 a year. This great tax, called the "water rents," is used to pay the interest on the debt we owe for our aqueduct, to keep the system in repair, and to swell a sinking fund which we have established. The water rents are not paid according to the amount of water each person uses, but for the quant.i.ty that pa.s.ses into each house, office building, factory, brewery, and stable. The house-owners each pay between four dollars and eighteen dollars a year, and the men who use great quant.i.ties--such as brewers, makers of mineral water, sugar refiners, and the like--in the course of their business all pay special rates, which seem very large indeed when we read the sums in print.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CAMERA CLUB]

This department is conducted in the interest of Amateur Photographers, and the editor will be pleased to answer any question on the subject so far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor Camera Club Department.

MEMORY ALb.u.mS

What a wonderful thing the memory is! Grandmamma, who counts, perhaps, her threescore years and ten, sees a piece of faded calico, and her mind goes back to the time when, a little girl of eight, she was dressed in a new gown, of which this faded sc.r.a.p is a remnant, and taken to town for "general training." She sees again the soldiers and the officers in their uniforms, she almost smells the cards of gingerbread, and hears the bustle and stir in the streets. She may not have thought of this special day for long, long years, but this bit of calico has brought it all back to her memory.

Since the advent of cameras into nearly every family one has the opportunity of making actual pictures of festal occasions which occur, such as the birthday parties, the family picnics, John's new bicycle and his first unsuccessful attempt to ride it, the Hallowe'en frolic, the Christmas tree--any special day or event can be preserved in gelatine, and in a few years these pictures will have for one more interest and value than many made from much finer negatives. Now we want to suggest to our young amateurs that they start memory alb.u.ms at once.

Begin the alb.u.m by looking over your collection of plates, and select such as have been made on special occasions. From these make prints, and be sure and look up the exact date on which the picture was taken. Do not reject a "memory picture" because it is not as clear a plate or the grouping as artistic as one could desire. For the alb.u.m itself, buy the alb.u.m leaves which are almost as cheap as card mounts, and they can be added to from time to time as one makes new pictures. Arrange your pictures in chronological order--that is, the earliest date first, etc., marking under each picture its proper date.

A person who has used a camera for two or three years will find he has quite a number of "memory pictures," and one who starts a memory alb.u.m should make it a rule to add the pictures to his collection as soon as they are made. One can use blue prints for such alb.u.ms, for a good blue print seldom fades or discolors, while aristo or alb.u.men prints, unless very carefully finished, are apt to grow yellow or discolor. In after-years our memory alb.u.ms will be considered of as much value as any of our possessions.

SIR KNIGHT ALFRED C. BAKER asks "If he can become a member of the Camera Club, and what are the duties of a member?" We shall be very glad to enroll Sir Alfred a member of our Camera Club, and as he says he owns two or three cameras, and finishes his own pictures, he will doubtless be a great addition to our club. The duties of a member have never been exactly defined, but we expect our members to take an active interest in the work, and they are requested to send to the club any new or improved way of doing anything in photography. We also want each one of our members to become a _specialist_ along some special line of photographic work. We hope soon to organize a correspondence and exchange club.

Sir Alfred would like to correspond on photography with some of the members of the club. He has also a Kombi camera which he would like to sell or exchange.

THE MERRIEST TIME.

The merriest time? Why, kite-time, Or the time for playing ball; Or maybe you like rolling hoop The very best of all.

But, "Here's my own opinion,"

With a little laugh, cries Moll.

"The best is when I take a walk, And carry my parasol.

"When m.u.f.fs are packed in camphor, And tippets put away, When you needn't always wear your cloak In the middle of the day.

"Yes, I declare, the merriest time."

With a dimpling laugh, says Moll, "Is when I go to take a walk, And carry my parasol."

M. E. S.

A MESSENGER-BOY'S ADVENTURE.[1]

BY EDWARD W. TOWNSEND.

Danny Cahill had been a district messenger for a year, and it seemed to him that he had been on every street and across every park in the great city of New York. Mr. Kean, who had helped him to become a newsboy, had secured him a position in a down-town messenger office, where he could easily learn his duties, and gradually became acquainted with the city, for most of his "calls" there were from offices which wanted messengers for short errands, and he was only occasionally sent far up town. But after six months he was transferred to an office in the fashionable part of the city, near Fifth Avenue, and then he began to go on long journeys which gave him rides on the elevated roads from one end of the city to the other; "from the Battery to the Harlem River," as the saying is.

The work was hard, though, and more so for Danny, because, after or before his long hours on duty, he went every day or night to the school in the Newsboys' Lodging-house where he lived. If he had been on night duty, no matter how late he had been up, nor how many miles he had walked, he was at school the next morning, and if on day duty, he did not go to bed until he had attended the night cla.s.s. I cannot say that Danny liked this, for he would much rather have gone with the other boys on their pleasure excursions about the city, but Mr. Kean had urged Danny to put in all the time he could spare in school. He promised him that if he did so he would find him a better position when he was far enough advanced to take one.

One evening, when it was nearly time for Danny to go off duty, a messenger call came in the office, and as he was "next" he had to answer it. It took him to a big fashionable house where he had often been before, and he expected as usual to have a short errand with a note to some neighboring house or shop. But when a servant let him into the big hall he was soon joined by a maid who gave him a bundle to carry, and told him he was to take it, and pilot her to the Tenement Mission, "wherever that may be," said the maid, crossly.

Danny knew well enough where it was, for it was situated only a few blocks from the place he once called "home," where he had lived with his uncle who had made him beg, and whom he had never seen since the day he escaped, by Mr. Kean's aid, from the policeman who had arrested both him and his uncle.

What he could not understand was what so grand a house as he was then in could have to do with the Tenement Mission, and he said so to the maid when they were on the street walking toward the Third Avenue elevated station.

"I don't wonder at your surprise," said the maid. "The lady in charge of that nasty mission is the young lady of our house, and I'm her maid.

What she wants to go down among those trash for I'm sure I don't know."

"Say," exclaimed Danny, in amazement, "de yer mean dat Barstow lives where we's just come from?"

"Sure, Miss Barstow," answered the maid, "but how do you know?"

"Everybody down dare where I useter live knows her, and calls her 'a tenement angel,'" Danny replied. "But she don't dress grand--not so grand as you."

The maid laughed at this, and then said: "Well, she has a right to dress as she pleases, and go where she pleases, I suppose; but I don't know what right she has to telegraph me to come down there with jelly and wine and broth that you have in that bundle. I'll just tell her that I ain't going to nurse any of her poor sick she's so fond of, if I have to give up my place."

"Say, I guess she isn't tinkin' dat you won't nurse n.o.body," Danny said, "because she'd get fooled, for I don't believe you'd know how."

"And I don't want to know how," snapped the maid.

When the Tenement Mission was reached Miss Barstow was not there, but a note had been left for the maid directing her to come, with the messenger, to an address which was given.

"Where is the place?" asked the maid, showing Danny the note.

"Oh, dat's a back tenement-house in Roosevelt Street," Danny answered.

"Dare is Italians dare," he added, for he knew the place well, his old home with his uncle having been in the same block.

"Is it any worse than this?" the maid asked, in a voice which showed she was getting frightened.

"Dis is Fift' Avenue compared to dat," Danny said.

The girl began to whimper, and said at last, "I won't go. I'm scared to death already. I won't go to her nasty sick poor, and get the small-pox and everything else."

At first Danny did not know what to do. He tried to persuade the maid to go, but she was thoroughly frightened now, and half hysterical. Finally Danny took up the bundle, saying: "Well, I'm going, anyway. If Miss Barstow wants dese things she is goin' to have dem, and you can do what you like. I don't tink you are much good except for show, anyhow."

"I'll stay here until some one comes and takes me home," cried the girl, as Danny went out of the mission.