Lights and Shadows of New York Life Part 12

III. STEAM RAILWAYS.

The great necessity of New York is some sure means of rapid transit between the upper and lower parts of the island. The average New Yorker spends about an hour or an hour and a half each day in going to and from his business, and an immense amount of valuable time is thus lost, which loss is often increased by delays. For the past few years the citizens of the metropolis have been seeking to procure the construction of a road from the Battery to Harlem to be operated by steam, and it seems probable now that a few years more will witness the completion of such a road.

Public opinion is divided between two plans, and it is probable that both will be tried, and that the city will soon contain a steam railway elevated above the street and a similar road under the ground.

The elevated railway has already been tried to a limited extent, but is not regarded with much favor by the citizens. This line extends along Greenwich street and Ninth avenue, from the Battery to Thirtieth street.

The track of this road is laid on iron posts, at an elevation of about sixteen feet above the street. The cars are so constructed that it would be impossible for one of them to fall from the track. Dummy engines furnish the motive power. The running time from the present southern terminus at Courtlandt street to Thirtieth street, a distance of about three miles, is fifteen minutes. The road is p.r.o.nounced perfectly safe by competent engineers, but the structure appears so light to the unscientific public that nine out of ten view it with distrust, and it is doubtful whether it will ever meet with the success the company hope for.

The only other elevated road at present contemplated, and for which a liberal charter has been obtained, is known as the _Viaduct Road_. It is proposed to build this on a series of arches of solid masonry, the streets to be spanned by light bridges. The line of the road is to be in the centre of the blocks along its route. The estimated cost of the road, including the sum to be paid for the right of way, is about $80,000,000; and it seems certain that this immense cost will necessitate radical changes in the original plan.

[Picture: TUNNEL UNDER BROADWAY.]

The underground plan has many supporters in the city, these basing their hopes upon the success achieved by the underground railway of London.

There are several plans proposed for an underground road. The first is known as the _Arcade Railway_. It is proposed by the friends of this plan to excavate the streets along which it pa.s.ses to a depth of about twenty feet, or in other words, to make a new street twenty feet below the level of those already in existence. This new street is to be provided with sidewalks, gas-lamps, telegraph lines, hydrants, etc., and upon the sidewalks the bas.e.m.e.nts of the present buildings will open, thus adding an additional and valuable story to the existing edifices. The lower street is to be arched over with solid masonry, rendered water-tight, and supported by heavy iron columns. Large gla.s.s plates, similar to those now used for lighting the cellars of stores, will be placed in the sidewalks of the street above, and will furnish light to the lower street during the day. The roadway of the lower street will be entirely devoted to the use of railway trains. The proposed route of the _Arcade_ line is from the Battery, under Broadway, to Union Square.

Thence the eastern branch is to extend along Fourth avenue to the Harlem River, while the western is to continue along Broadway to the junction of Ninth avenue, whence it will be prolonged to the northern end of the island.

The _Underground Railway_ proper is to extend from the lower to the upper end of the island, and is to pa.s.s through one or more tunnels, after the manner of the Underground Railway of London.

The third plan for an underground road, is the only one that has yet been attempted. It is known as the "Beach Pneumatic Tunnel." A small section, several hundred yards in length, has been constructed under Broadway, and the company owning it claim that they have thus demonstrated their ability to construct and work successfully a road extending from the Battery to the upper end of the island.

The tunnel is eight feet in diameter. It commences in the cellar of the marble building of Messrs. Develin & Co., at the southwest corner of Broadway and Warren street, and extends under the great thoroughfare to a point a little below Murray street. It is dry and clean, is painted white, and is lighted with gas. It pa.s.ses under all the gas and water pipes and sewers. The cars are made to fit the tunnel, and are propelled by means of atmospheric pressure. A strong blast of air, thrown out by means of an immense blowing machine, is forced against the rear end of a car, and sends it along the track like a sail-boat before the wind. This current of course secures perfect ventilation within the car. The company claim that they will be able, when their road is completed, to transport more than 20,000 pa.s.sengers per hour, each way.

XII. HORACE GREELEY.

The best known man in New York, in one sense, and the least known in others, is Horace Greeley. If there is a man, woman, or child in all this broad land who has not heard of him, let that person apply to Barnum for an engagement as a natural curiosity. And yet how few know the man as he really is. The most absurd stories are told of him, and the likeness most familiar to the public is a ridiculous caricature.

He was born in Amherst, New Hampshire, on the 3d of February, 1811, and is consequently 61 years old. His parents were poor, and Horace received but a very plain education at the common schools of the vicinity. The natural talent of the boy made up for this, however, for he read everything he could lay his hands on. He was a rapid reader, too, and had the faculty of retaining the information thus acquired. He was kept too busy at work on his father's sterile farm to be able to read during the day, and he was too poor to afford to use candles at night, and so his early studies were carried on by the light of pine knots. He served a severe apprenticeship at the printing business, commencing it at a very early age, and finding employment first on one country paper, and then on another, working at his trade, and occasionally writing for the journals he put in type.

In 1831 he came to New York, convinced that the great city offered him a better opportunity for success than any other place, and resolved to win that success. He was very boyish in appearance, frail, delicate-looking, but hopeful and resolved. For ten years he worked hard in the various offices of the city, sometimes setting type and sometimes writing editorials. Sometimes he published his own journal, but generally found this a "losing business." Failure did not discourage him, and he kept on, acquiring greater experience and becoming better known every year.

He has himself told so well the story of his early struggles to so large an audience that I need not repeat it here.

In 1841, ten years from the time he wandered along Na.s.sau street, without money or friends, and with all his worldly possessions tied up in a handkerchief, he began the publication of the _New York Tribune_, having succeeded in obtaining the necessary capital. It was a venture, and a bold one, but it proved a great success. He chose the name of the journal himself, and became its responsible editor. Though others have a.s.sisted him in his efforts, the success of the paper is his work. He has made it a great power in the land, and he is naturally proud of his work. Those who know him best say that the t.i.tle dearest to his heart is that of "Founder of the New York Tribune."

Mr. Greeley's career has been one of incessant labor. His friends say he was never known to rest as other men do. When he goes to his farm in Westchester County for recreation, he rests by chopping wood and digging ditches. His editorial labors make up a daily average of about two columns of the _Tribune_, and he contributes the equivalent of about six _Tribune_ columns per week to other journals. He writes from fifteen to twenty-five letters per day; he has published several large works; he goes thoroughly through his exchanges every day, and keeps himself well posted in the current literature of the times; he speaks or lectures about five or six times a month, and makes monthly visits to Albany and Washington, to see what is going on behind the scenes in the capitals of the State and Nation. He is constantly receiving people who come on business or from curiosity, and yet he never seems tired, though he is not always even-tempered.

He is somewhat peculiar in his personal appearance. Most people in thinking of him picture to themselves a slouchy looking man, with a white hat, a white overcoat, with one leg of his breeches caught over the top of his boot, his whole dress shabby and not overclean, and his pockets stuffed full of newspapers, and many have imagined that he "gets himself up" so, in order to attract attention on the streets. The true Horace Greeley, however, though careless as to outward appearances, is immaculately neat in his dress. No one ever saw him with dirty linen or soiled clothes except in muddy weather, when, in New York, even a Brummel must be content to be splashed with mud. Mr. Greeley's usual dress is a black frock coat, a white vest, and a pair of black pantaloons which come down to the ankle. His black cravat alone betrays his carelessness, and that only when it slips off the collar, and works its way around to the side. Mr. Greeley is five feet ten inches in height, and is stout in proportion. He is partly bald, and his hair is white. He has a light, pinkish complexion, and his eyes are blue, small, and sunken. His mouth is well-shaped, and his features are regular. His beard is worn around the throat and under the chin, and is perfectly white. His hands are small and soft; but his feet and legs are awkward and clumsy, and this gives to him a peculiar shuffling motion in walking. He is abstracted in manner, and when accosted suddenly replies abruptly, and as some think rudely.

One of his acquaintances thus describes him in his editorial office:

"We walk through the little gate in the counter, turn within the open doorway on our left, climb a short, narrow flight of stairs, and find ourselves in a small room, ten by fifteen, furnished with a green carpet, a bed lounge, an open book-rack, a high desk, a writing-desk, three arm-chairs, a short-legged table, and a small marble sink.

"Mr. Greeley's back is toward us. He is seated at his desk. His head is bent over his writing, and his round shoulders are quite prominent. He is scribbling rapidly. A quire of foolscap, occupying the only clear s.p.a.ce on his desk, is melting rapidly beneath his pen. The desk itself is a heap of confusion. Here is Mr. Greeley's straw hat; there is his handkerchief. In front of him is a peck of newspaper clippings, not neatly rolled up, but loosely sprawled over the desk. At his left a rickety pair of scissors catches a hurried nap, and at his right a paste-pot and a half-broken box of wafers appear to have had a rough-and-tumble fight. An odd-looking paper-holder is just ready to tumble on the floor. An old-fashioned sand-box, looking like a dilapidated hour-gla.s.s, is half-hidden under a slashed copy of _The New York World_. Mr. Greeley still sticks to wafers and sand, instead of using mucilage and blotting-paper. A small drawer, filled with postage stamps and bright steel pens, has crawled out on the desk. Packages of folded missives are tucked in the pigeon-holes, winking at us from the back of the desk, and scores of half-opened letters, mixed with seedy brown envelopes, flop lazily about the table. Old papers lie gashed and mangled about his chair, the _debris_ of a literary battle field. A clean towel hangs on a rack to his right. A bound copy of _The Tribune Almanac_, from 1838 to 1868, swings from a small chain fastened to a staple screwed in the side of his desk; two other bound volumes stand on their feet in front of his nose, and two more of the same kind are fast asleep on the book-rack in the corner. Stray numbers of the almanac peep from every nook. The man who would carry off Greeley's bound pile of almanacs would deserve capital punishment. The Philosopher could better afford to lose one of his legs than to lose his almanacs. The room is kept scrupulously clean and neat. A waste paper basket squats between Mr. Greeley's legs, but one half the torn envelopes and boshy communications flutter to the floor instead of being tossed into the basket. The table at his side is covered with a stray copy of _The New York Ledger_, and a dozen magazines lie thereon. Here is an iron garden rake wrapped up in an _Independent_. There hangs a pair of handcuffs once worn by old John Brown, and sent Mr. Greeley by an enthusiastic admirer of both Horace and John. A champagne basket, filled with old sc.r.a.p-books and pamphlets, occupies one corner. A dirty bust of Lincoln, half hidden in dusty piles of paper, struggles to be seen on the top of his desk. A pile of election tables, dirty, ragged and torn, clipped from some unknown newspaper, looks as if they had half a mind to jump down on the 'Old Man's' bald head. A certificate of life membership in some tract or abolition society, and maps of the World, New York, and New Jersey hang on the wall. A rare geological specimen of quartz rock, weighing about ten pounds, is ready to roll down a high desk to the floor on the first alarm. Dirty pamphlets are as plentiful as c.o.c.kroaches.

His office library consists of 150 volumes.

"Pen, ink, paper, scissors, and envelopes are in unfailing demand. The cry, 'Mr. Greeley wants writing paper!' creates a commotion in the counting-room, and Mr. Greeley gets paper quicker than a hungry fisherman could skin an eel.

"Mr. Greeley can lay Virginia worm fences in ink faster than any other editor in New York City. He uses a fountain-pen, a present from some friend. He thinks a great deal of it, but during an experience of three years has failed to learn the simple principle of suction without getting his mouth full of ink, and he generally uses it with an empty receiver.

He makes a dash at the ink-bottle every twenty seconds, places the third finger and thumb of his left hand on his paper, and scratches away at his worm fence like one possessed. He writes marvellously fast. Frequently the point of his pen p.r.i.c.ks through his sheet, for he writes a heavy hand, and a snap follows, spreading inky spots over the paper, resembling a woodcut portraying the sparks from a blacksmith's hammer. Blots like mashed spiders, or crushed huckleberries, occasionally intervene, but the old veteran dashes them with sand, leaving a swearing compositor to scratch off the soil, and dig out the words underneath.

"Mr. Greeley's ma.n.u.script, when seen for the first time, resembles an intricate ma.s.s of lunatic hieroglyphics, or the tracks of a spider suffering from _delirium tremens_. But, by those accustomed to his writing, a remarkable exactness is observed. The spelling, punctuation, accented letters, and capitalizing are perfect. The old type-setters of the office prefer his ma.n.u.script above that of any other editor, for the simple reason that he writes his article as he wishes it to appear, and rarely, if ever, cuts or slashes a proof-sheet. And this punctuality is, in a great measure, a feature of his life. He is always in time, and never waits for anybody. He employs no private secretary, and when he receives a letter, answers it on the instant. No matter how trivial the request, the next outward-bound mail will carry away one of his autographs, if he thinks an answer necessary.

"He knows we have entered his room, yet he continues his writing. The only sound we hear within the sanctum is the scratch of his pen. He has the power of concentrating all the strength of his mind on the subject of his editorial, and will pay no attention to any question, however important, until he finishes his sentence. If the cry of 'Fire!' should resound through the building, Greeley would finish his sentence and ring his bell before he would leave his room. The sentence complete, he places the forefinger of his right hand at the end of the word last written, seizes the handle of his pen in his teeth, and looks his tormentor full in the face. It is a glance of inquiry, and the questioner, intuitively conscious of this fact, repeats his interrogation. Mr. Greeley divines the question before it is finished, and answers it pithily and quickly. The pen is then s.n.a.t.c.hed from his mouth, dexterously dipped into his inkstand, and his fingers again travel across his transverse sheet of foolscap like a 'daddy-long-legs' caught in a storm. If his questioner is importunate, and insists on wasting his time, he continues his writing, never looking up, and either answers absent-mindedly, or in a low, impatient tone, tinged with a peculiar boyish nervousness. If his visitor is ungentlemanly enough to still continue his teasing importunities, a storm breaks forth, and the uncourteous person will trot out of the sanctum with an answer ringing in his ears that should bring a flush to his cheek.

"To Mr. Greeley time is more valuable than money or even friendship.

When busy, he is no respecter of persons. President or hod-carrier, general or boot-black, clergyman or express-driver, auth.o.r.ess or apple-woman--all are treated alike. Eminent men have left his room under the impression that they have been deliberately slighted, while Horace still slashed away at his inky pickets, totally unconscious of any neglect."

Mr. Greeley's home is at Chappaqua, in Westchester County, New York, about thirty miles from the city. He owns a fine farm of about forty acres, which has cost him more money than he would care to tell.

Agriculture is one of his great hobbies, and he tests here all the theories that are presented to him. His friends say that his turnips cost him about ten dollars apiece to produce, and bring about fifty cents per bushel in the market, and that all his farming operations are conducted on the same principle.

[Picture: HORACE GREELEY.]

Mr. Greeley married when quite young, and has had three children. Two daughters, aged about twenty and twelve, are living, but his son, a bright and unusually promising child, died some years ago. Mr. Greeley is one of the princ.i.p.al stockholders in the _Tribune_, and is a rich man.

He is liberal and generous to those in need, and is a warm friend to benevolent enterprises of all kinds.

The chief reason of his popularity is the general confidence of the people in his personal integrity. Not even his political enemies question his honesty--and surely in these days of corruption and crime in public life, an honest man is one that can not well be spared.

XIII. THE TOMBS.

Turn out of Printing House Square, leaving the City Hall on your left, and pa.s.s up Centre street for about a quarter of a mile, and you will come to a ma.s.sive granite edifice in the Egyptian style of architecture.

It occupies an entire square, and is bounded by Centre and Elm, and Leonard and Franklin streets. The main entrance is on Centre street, and is approached by a broad flight of granite steps, which lead to a portico supported by ma.s.sive Egyptian columns. The proper name of the edifice is _The Halls of Justice_, but it is popularly known all over the Union as _The Tombs_, which name was given to it in consequence of its gloomy appearance. It occupies the site of the old Collect Pond which once supplied the citizens of New York with drinking water, was begun in 1835 and completed in 1838.

The outer building occupies four sides of a hollow square, and is 253 by 200 feet in size. It was built at a time when New York contained scarcely half its present population, and has long since ceased to be equal to the necessities of the city. The site is low and damp, and the building is badly ventilated. The warden does all in his power to counteract these evils, and keeps the place remarkably neat, but it is still a terribly sickly and dreary abode. It was designed to accommodate about 200 prisoners, but for some years past the number of prisoners confined here at one time has averaged 400, and has sometimes exceeded that average. The Grand Jury of the County have recently condemned the place as a nuisance, and it is believed that the city will ere long possess a larger, cleaner, and more suitable prison.

[Picture: THE TOMBS.]

When the prison was built the Five Points, on the western verge of which it lies, was a much worse section than it is now. It is bad enough at present, but then the Tombs const.i.tuted a solitary island in a sea of crime and suffering. A terrible island it was, too.

Entering through the gloomy portal upon which the sunlight never falls, the visitor is chilled with the dampness which greets him as soon as he pa.s.ses into the shadow of the heavy columns. Upon reaching the inner side of the enclosure, he finds that the portion of the prison seen from the street encloses a large courtyard, in the centre of which stands a second prison, 142 feet long by 45 feet deep, and containing 148 cells.

This is the male prison, and is connected with the outer building by a bridge known as the _Bridge of Sighs_, since it is by means of it that condemned criminals pa.s.s from their cells to the scaffold at the time of their execution.

The gallows is taken down and kept in the prison until there is need for it. Then it is set up in the courtyard near the Bridge of Sighs. All executions are conducted here in private, that is, they are witnessed only by such persons as the officers of the law may see fit to admit.

But on such days the neighboring buildings are black with people, seeking to look down over the prison walls and witness the death agonies of the poor wretch who is paying the penalty of the law.

[Picture: THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.]

The interior of the male prison consists of a narrow and lofty hall, upon which open four tiers of cells, one above another; those above the ground floor being reached by light iron galleries. Each gallery is guarded by two keepers. The cells are narrow, and each is lighted by a small iron-barred window at the farther end. Light and air are also admitted by the barred door of iron opening upon the corridor. There are eleven cells of especial strength, in which convicts condemned to death or to the State Prison are confined. There are six other cells, which are used for the confinement of persons charged with offences less grave, and six more, which are used for sick prisoners. The cells are generally full of criminals. Some of them are well furnished, and are provided with carpets, chairs, a table, and books and paper, which are bought at the expense of the prisoner or his friends. Some of the inmates shrink from the observation of visitors, but others are hardened to crime and shame, and not unfrequently cause the visitor's ears to tingle with the remarks they address to them. No lights are allowed in the cells, and the aspect of the place is very gloomy, the whole prison is kept scrupulously clean, the sanitary regulations being very strict, but the lack of room necessitates the crowding of the prisoners to a fearfully demoralizing extent.

[Picture: INTERIOR OF MALE PRISON.]