dream yourself into the far south lands with little effort of the imagination. There are the odors, the vivid colors and the dreamy laziness of the tropics. The tumble-down old sheds have a true southern aspect, the vessels

MARKET HAND-CART, FULTON MARKET.

drawn close together in their berths are blis- | tered and whitened with heat. The people alone have the touch of northern vigor, and they are slightly tamed by the strange atmosphere and aspect of the place. Yonder is a schooner unloading a cargo of bananas from Baracoa, which are scattered on the dock, waiting for removal in the wagons that are stationed on the wharf. The crew are idling on the forward deck, stretched out at luxurious full-length and covered by a tattered old sail. The hatches are off the hold, and, glancing down, we see the depths of fruit. The bottom of the boat is lined with cocoa-nuts, which serve as ballast, and the bunches of bananas are carefully packed in upright positions. It is a tender fruit, and sometimes an entire cargo is ruined on the passage. Prowling about the wharf are several women and girls, hucksters by trade, who buy the damaged and over-ripe portions, selling them from their stands at street corners with no little profit. On the deck are more bananas packed in crates and raised on boards to allow the water to pass underneath. Alongside this vessel is another, weighted down with pine-apples, also from Baracoa, which are piled on the deck and are deep in the hold. This, too, is a fruit upon

which shippers suffer heavy losses, a whole cargo occasionally proving unfit for the market. The hatches should always be open, and when rough weather makes it necessary to close them, the loss is very

a

great. Thunder-storms are also fatal to the fruit. An instance is recorded of a vessel which arrived off lower Quarantine one night and was detained there for several hours. During the delay heavy thunder-storm occurred, and the pineapples on board were almost totally destroyed. Nevertheless, the trade is very extensive, and two firms in New York City alone buy at least half a million annually for canning. Large numbers are also sent hence by rail; they are imported from Eleuthera, San Salvador, Matanzas, Havana, Abaco and Baracoa.

Cocoa-nuts come from Baracoa, San Blas, Roca del Tora, Ruatan, and other West Indian and South American ports. About one-fifth of the quantities shipped is lost on the voyage through decay. As with pine-apples, however, a considerable business is done in them, and one firm in New York desiccates and cans about 150,ooo of them monthly. As we linger on the wharf a third vessel enters laden with oranges. This fruit is gathered by men and boys, after which it is assorted by women, wrapped in paper by young girls, and finally packed in boxes, the oranges without stems being rejected. Such care is only taken in the gardens on the Mediterranean coast, and is exceptional in the West Indies. There the oranges are often shaken or beaten from the trees; sometimes carted from the interior by ox-teams over rough roads, and frequently shipped in a damaged condition. Not many other kinds of tropical fruit than these we have described are brought to the city. Limes are received in increasing numbers every year, and a small number of mangoes are sometimes seen in the market, but they are very delicate, and it is almost impossible to bring them to New York. All foreign fruits are sold at auction in lots of not less than twenty boxes soon

after their arrival. About $4,000,000 of capital are invested in the trade. The supply of American fruits in the New York markets is also ample and of the best kind. The choicest of the peninsular peach-growers' crop is brought here, with blackberries from New Jersey and Delaware; raspberries from the Hudson River towns, watermelons from the South; pears and grapes from California. Whatever is richest in the products of America is contributed to the daily food-supply of the great sea-board metropolis.

Ice is provided for the city by five companies with an aggregate capital of $3,750,ooo. The Knickerbocker Company owns an ice area of 283 acres at Rockland Lake, a few miles from the Hudson River, opposite Sing Sing, 20 ice-houses with a capacity for storing 500,000 tons, 600 delivery wagons, 36 barges, and about 1,000 horses. During the ice harvest they employ about 5,000 men. The capital of this company alone is $2,000,000. The Washington Ice Company has a capital of $1,000,000, 10 ice-houses between Esopus and Coeyman's on the Hudson River, with a capacity for storing 300,000 tons, 180 wagons, 300 horses, and 20 barges,-3,000 men are employed during the har

vest. The three other companies have $250,000 capital each, and own 7 ice-houses, 90 wagons,

160 horses, and 10 barges, giving employment to 1,500 men during the harvesting. The manner of gathering the crop is interesting in the extreme. The houses front on the rivers or lakes from which the ice is taken, and have a storage capacity varying between 10,000 and 50,000 tons. They are built of wood, with two frames, the space between which is closely packed with sawdust from top to bottom; the first floor is also of two thicknesses of planking similarly packed. Forty feet higher is another floor of one thickness, covered with salt-hay, and above that a flat or pitched roof protected with gravel. The house is divided into spaces of 50 feet each, by partitions, which, like the walls, are packed from ground to roof with sawdust, impenetrable to heat. Each partition has an elevator upon which the ice is raised. After the | water has frozen, all snow is removed from

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE depositors in the Poor Man's Savings Bank were favored with only one day for the run which they had determined to make upon its ready funds. On the second morning a receiver took possession of it, the door was closed upon the gathering crowd, and a placard, stating the facts, was posted upon it. Many of those who assembled in front of Mr. Benson's house, and prevented his egress, were those who had been turned away from the bank,-men of desperate fortunes and desperate purposes, who were only restrained from violence by the presence of a body of police.

Mr. Benson's note, stating that he was too ill that morning to make his appearance at the bank, was received; and it was concluded to let him alone that day, for rest and recovery, as he would need all his strength for the investigation determined upon.

To Mr. Benson, with his active habits, his accustomed freedom, and his long command of circumstances, the day seemed interminable. To be caged in his own house, with a lost dog for his only companion; to have the attention of the whole city called to his fall by the miserable mob before his dwelling; to be besieged and menaced by the men and women who had so reverenced and bowed down to him, filled him with anger and shame. He could see no way out of it. Why should he care to live? What would there be left to him when his reputation and money were both gone? Even should he escape the punishment of a prison, he could be nothing but an outcast. The heap of ashes in the street, from which he had called his brute companion, would be his home, and no cry nor whine that he might raise would move to beckoning the hands of sympathy and mercy. The mark of Cain was upon him.

[Copyright, Scribner & Co., 1877.]