66

a desire to see the President. So he goodnaturedly walked a few minutes on the stoop, with his hat off, and then quietly went in. On leaving, he gave a half-joe and a kiss to the inn-keeper's daughter. Jonah Willets, an eccentric Quaker, was plowing in his field with several yokes of oxen, and Washington stopped to look at him. Some one told Jonah who his visitor was. George Washington, eh?" said Jonah. "Gee up!" and went on in his furrow. We miss the reporter in trying to collect information about those times. But the traditions of the Young family state that Washington seemed pleased with everything, and wished to avoid giving trouble. His colored servants, however, "did the aristocratic" for the whole Presidential party. They ordered the host's darkies to do the President's work. This brought on rebellion, correction, and, finally, restoration of order. Miss Keziah Young, a child of the family, afterward Mrs. Major William Jones, used to boast that she had been kissed by General Washington. Mrs. Young distributed most of the furniture used by Washington among her grandchildren, but the old house still preserves, in the room where he slept, the bed, its high posts draped with homespun linen with a blue-flower pattern, some blue china, and the pewter teapot from which his cup

But musty papers ought not to shut out the summer sun, nor the cool salt air of the Sound. So I left the old cabinet for the canoe, and resumed my way on the waves toward the harbors of Huntington, my last port. Lloyd's Neck, on the west side of the entrance, was once an important post. During the Revolution, the British built on the hill a stockade that can still be traced. The fort was called Fort Franklin, in honor of the Tory governor of New Jersey. He was at the head of the detested Board of Associated Loyalists, composed of lukewarm partisans of the King, of refugees, and of wood-choppers. Their head-quarters were here at Fort Franklin. They had quite a fleet of small boats, that plundered along the Sound and made Oyster Bay their rendezvous. Their operations were directed chiefly against individual Whigs of either shore of the Sound, and were generally petty affairs of cruelty and robbery. Their atroc

ities, indeed, roused in the patriots a spirit of retaliation that often forgot all claims of common humanity; and their freebooting at last produced such manifest injury to both parties that the British dissolved the Association of their own accord, and evacuated the fort on Lloyd's Neck. This whaleboat warfare was a peculiar feature of the Revolutionary struggle on the waters about New York. When the British were firmly settled in New York and its neighborhood, they tempted the Americans of both parties with the profits of bartering products of the soil for the luxuries coming from Europe. A brisk business was established; in fact, "London trading," as it was called, became even a dangerous element in the contest, by giving the English very necessary supplies. From almost every inlet along the sound light boats, freighted with provisions, darted back and forth between the shores and the British ships in the channels. These boats, like those used by whalers, were long, sharp, and light; they were manned by from four to twenty oars, and were perfectly arranged for quick and silent work. This trade became so profitable that honest means of supply did not meet the demand. Then many of these whale-boats became armed pirates. They plundered friend and foe for both parties had representatives in this disgraceful practice. So expert and daring were these boatmen, that they and their methods were often employed by both armies for perilous but legitimate military purposes. Thus the bays about New York, Staten Island, and along the sound sometimes witnessed stirring and honorable adventures as well as desperate crimes.

The inhabitants consequently lived in daily fear of their lives and in uncertain possession of their property. The dread of robbery led them to the most varied experiments in concealment, for there were no banks to keep their money, nor safe investments for securing it. The people buried their coin under the hearth-stone or under the roots of a tree, hid it in a hollow bed-post, even under a pile of rubbish, stored it behind a rafter or a beam, or in a hole in the great stone chimney. When the robbers came, they tortured the men with beating and burning to make them reveal the hiding-place. They whipped the women and even murdered the children, and, very often, they succeeded thus in getting a part or all of the hidden treasures. But some of the money lay so long in its hole that it was forgotten. Even at this

late day, some of these little piles of English coin are discovered when old buildings are torn down, old fence-posts dug up, and old pear-trees removed from the garden.

Sometimes their expeditions were bent on quite considerable captures. In July, 1781, two whale-boats from Fort Franklin crossed the sound, and landed thirty-eight men near Norwalk. When the good people of Darien were assembled for worship, these whaleboat men surrounded the church, robbed the congregation, and brought away fifty men and forty horses. The prisoners were then taken to Oyster Bay; and there on the village green, where the liberty-pole stands, they were ironed together in pairs by riveting hoop-iron around their wrists. This inhuman treatment was but the beginning of their sufferings, for they were then marched to the provost in New York. These boatmen sometimes attacked crafts much larger than their own light boats. In November, 1779, two small privateers of four guns each, flying the British colors, ran into Oyster Bay. There they found and captured four wood-vessels and a large English brig.

The last days of my cruise were as delightful as the first had been. A part of them were spent in a carpenter's shop, in Huntington, repairing the Allegro, after she had been run into by a sloop in a heavy blow. Then I paddled about the harbors, which are intricate and curious in form. The bay as a whole resembles the track of a bird. The rear claw is the narrow entrance from the sound, the center of the foot is the main body of water, and three or four claws are spread from this westward, southward, and eastward. Each long, narrow harbor is diversified with many points and coves that surprise you as you explore it. You pass farther and farther inland, among the wooded hills and along the clean sand beaches. sloping field here and there, an orchard covering a low farm-house, or a villa on a commanding knoll, are minor points in the charming panorama of the shores. In-andout, in-and-out is the course of land and water; and in their devious ways they play many tricks at hide-and-seek, and draw you on from nook to nook by the most attractive pictures. At last you reach the head of the harbor, with its salt meadow of waving grass, its old tide-mill, its pond, and the shady village sheltered among the encircling hills. You can explore still farther with pleasure by following the roads and lanes through scenes of unusual beauty.

A

VOL. XXII.-16.

He who would hope to heal the ills of a great city need not look beyond Hippocrates's formula: Pure Water, Pure Air, and a Pure Soil. These being secured, and their permanence guaranteed, all other conditions of public healthfulness shall be added.

The importance of the best condition of the public health has been well stated by Dr. Beddoe: "By a good state of public health we may understand, without unduly stretching the meaning of the term, not merely a low rate of mortality, but a high average of vigour and capacity for labour, physical or mental, in the individuals composing the nation; and if that average be high, we may expect it to tell not only in lessening the rates of mortality and sickness, but in diminishing crime and poverty, and increasing the diffusion of comfort, happiness, and perhaps even virtue."

The first term of our formula is reasonably well secured to New York. Its watersupply is not strictly clean, but its quality is not to be considered as an element in the causation of disease.

We have seen, in the description given in the previous paper, that the soil of the city, whatever its natural condition, is very generally subject to serious contaminations; and that the causes of its contamination are permanent and increasing, for, aside from the dangers due to its excessive saturation in certain localities, the water with which it is saturated is of the foulest character. No remedy can be regarded as at all complete or satisfactory which does not entirely reverse this condition. Its saturation must be prevented, at least within reach of the cellars and foundations of houses, and such water as exists in the soil at any depth must be the pure water of rain filtration, unfouled with any manner of organic waste.

The air not only of the streets and yards, but the air of the houses, and equally the air occupying the interstices of the soil, must be kept as free as possible from pollution by the gases of organic decomposition. The universal operation of the law of the diffusion of gases, especially as favored by the free winds to which the city is subject, may be trusted to counteract the evils due to the enormous consumption of fuel, and, with reasonable provisions for house ventilation, of those

due to the exhalations of the people. These latter need never enter into the calculation when it is a question of keeping the air of the city pure. What does concern us in this connection-and it concerns us most vitally is the prevention of a foul condition of the atmosphere of the soil which is freely received into houses through their cellars, the freeing the air of the streets from the exhalations of organic decomposition, and the freeing the air of houses from the much more serious pollution due to those varied conditions which are included in the general term "bad drainage."

In seeking these ends,-the cost of the improvement being always a controlling element of the calculation,-account must be taken of all existing conditions, and existing work must, as far as possible, be made available and turned to good use. The city cannot be torn down, and its sewers and drains dug up, and the whole work begun de novo. We must take houses and house-drains, streets and sewers, as we find them, make the best possible use of them, and supplement them with such amendments as are needed to secure a complete result. As these recommendations are intended for a practical end, and are offered in the belief that they will, sooner or later, be carried into effect, they will be restricted to what it will be possible to carry out without undue cost. As it is not to be supposed that any man's suggestions will be accepted without question, or that extensive new works will be undertaken without experiment, they will be confined in the main to what may be tried on a small scale and subjected to the test of practical working.

To begin with the general sewerage and drainage of the city, we have to consider four important elements:

1. The removal of the great bulk of the rain-fall which is received by the roofs of houses and by the spaces in the interior of the blocks-the yard drainage.

2. The subsoil water; that which, falling upon the surface, sinks into the ground, and saturates the soil about the foundations of houses and makes cellars wet.

3. The rain which falls on the surface of the streets.

4. The enormous water-supply flowing

constantly into the city, distributed through every house, fouled by domestic and manufacturing use, and delivered as unclean sewerage by the house-drains.

The first and second of these the clean water discharged upon roofs and paved yards, and the subsoil drainage-should be carried directly into the present system of sewers. The catch-basins at the corners of the streets now communicating with these sewers should be disconnected, abandoned, and filled up. The man-holes communicating with these sewers should be preserved, in order that they may be used in rare cases of need: but to prevent their interference with traffic, and to insure a complete sealing of the sewers, their covers should be placed two feet below the surface of the ground. As this work progresses, the sewers should be made completely and absolutely clean. This change, of course, can be made only after other provision shall have been secured for the other offices which the sewers now perform; but when completed, the whole present system of sewers should be relegated solely to the work of removing the clean water of rains and of soil drainage.

The proper drainage of the streets involves their proper paving. With rare exceptions, this will involve the entire repaving of the city. The cobble-stone pavements are unfit, and they cannot be made fit, for the uses of a closely built city, and for obvious reasons. The stone-block pavement, where in good condition, offers an excellent surface; but little, if any, of the block pavement of New York is in good condition. It admits a considerable percolation of surface-water, and, what is of much more importance, it leads to the constant working up to the surface of earth from below, adding enormously to the amount of street dirt to be removed by sweeping or by wash, and adding the element of that dirt which is most difficult to remove, and which, being washed into the rivers, is most speedily deposited.

The recent report of Lieutenant Greene on the paving of Washington, which is in its better streets a model for the world, reduces the list of admissible pavements practically to two items: a thoroughly well made and indestructible asphalt pavement for streets of lighter traffic; and for heavy traffic a stone-block pavement laid on gravel, and its joints made thoroughly tight by the bedding of the blocks in asphaltum. These pavements absolutely prevent the rising of soil of any kind to the surface of the street; prevent the entrance of rain-water into the

ground below, and reduce the fouling of the surface substantially to the droppings of the horses, and the insignificant amount of rubbish deposited by the population. The objection to the stone-block pavement so constructed is the noise of its traffic; but this is no greater than that with which all New York is now familiar. The objection to the asphalt pavement, and it is a slight one, is the slippery character of the surface during rains. This is not at all so serious an objection as is indicated by the condition of the single block of pavement in Fifth Avenue, between Twenty-sixth and Twentyseventh streets. Even there the slipping is not a great objection, and it is noticed almost entirely at the two ends, where horses drawing a vehicle over a road of greater resistance come suddenly upon the asphalt. In Washington, where whole streets are so paved, slipping is almost unknown, as the traction is uniform.

In considering the policy of making such a radical change in the paving of the city, the sanitary benefit, and the abolition of the racket and roar on residence streets, should be more than controlling considerations. Incidentally, the reduction of the rate of cab fare which would be sure to follow the substitution of smooth and regular pavements for the irregular surfaces over which horses and vehicles are now so rapidly worn out, is well worth considering.

Aside from all questions of cost, whether in sweeping or in wear and tear, the importance of retaining on the surface of the street, as far as possible, every drop of rain that reaches it, may well be regarded as conclusive. The experience of Baltimore has demonstrated so effectually the importance of retaining rain-water on the surface that all propositions looking to the general sewerage of that city have been resisted by the most influential of its people, for the reason that the removal of the street wash would withdraw the most important cleansing effect of rain. It is true that Baltimore is a hilly city, that the cleansing effect of the rain-fall is greater there than it would be in New York, and that the water is much more rapidly removed; but in Baltimore all of the rain that falls on the streets, on the houses, or on the back yards, as well as the waste water of the houses themselves, is removed by surface gutters. Here the roof and yard water, being delivered directly into the present sewers, the accumulation of the gutter flow would be proportionately less, while foul wastes are otherwise removed. Prob