Such as came from Great Britain were always crowded with emigrants, of whom more than five thousand arrived annually. Since 1819 some thirty-four thousand aliens had been landed in the city. Seven eighths of these were artisans, laborers, and skilled workmen, and, while some found homes in the West or went off to other cities or to inland towns, a large proportion remained and constituted an element hard to govern, for the machinery of government was of the rudest kind. Despite its growing wealth and commercial importance, New York was in many respects but a town. Population had poured into it with such rapidity that it had become large in area before it had ceased to be small in customs, usages, and the administration of affairs. Over it presided a mayor, a recorder, the aldermen, and a few officials in charge of what have since become departments of city government, some of which now expend more money each year than in 1825 was used in governing the entire State. The mayor was elected by the aldermen, who, one from each ward, were elected by the people, and were required two at a time to serve as judges in the Court of General Sessions for the city and county. The few departments in existence were of a humble kind, and were aided in the discharge of the duties assigned them by the citizens. There was a superintendent of streets, but he had little to do with cleaning them. Every occupant of a dwelling house or other building, every owner of a vacant lot on any paved street, must twice a week, from April to December, scrape and sweep the pavement before his premises as far as the middle of the roadway, must gather the dirt in a heap, and on it must place the ashes and rubbish brought out from his house or cellar. The city was responsible for nothing but the removal of the rubbish and the sweeping of paved streets before unoccupied houses at the cost of the owner. Between December and April no street-cleaning was attempted, and the sole scavengers became the hogs, who were suffered to range at large provided they had rings in their noses. There was a rude sort of fire department, consisting of the chief engineer and his assistants, of the firewardens, and the firemen, hosemen, hook-and-ladder men, whose duty it was to 1825. CITY GOVERNMENT. 125 drag the engines to the burning building and attach the hose. Each firewarden was assigned to a particular engine, was responsible for the supply of water, and formed the citizens in two lines stretching from his engine to the nearest pump or well. Up one line went the full buckets; down the other came the empty ones. These buckets belonged to the citizens. Each occupant of a house was still required to have in his front hall the old-fashioned leather bucket marked with his initials, the number of his house, and the name of his street. If his house had three or less fireplaces, he must keep one bucket; three to six fireplaces, two buckets; six to nine fireplaces, four buckets; which on the alarm of fire he must put out on the sidewalk to be carried off by the first passer-by. After the fire had been extinguished the owner must seek his property at the City Hall. At night the watch cried the name of the street in which the burning building was, and every occupant of a house put a lighted candle in his window. The peace of the city was kept in the day by the constables, and in the night by the watch. The city was marked out into four districts, over each of which presided two "captains of the night watch." One served every other night, had command of as many watchmen as the Common Council saw fit to give him, assigned the men to their "rounds," and saw that they kept sober and were diligent. The high constable, the constables, and the marshals enforced the ordinances, some of which are curious enough to be mentioned. In the crowded part of the city-that south of Grand Street on the east side and Vestry Street on the west —no horse attached to a carriage, gig, chaise, or coach could be driven faster than "slow trot," and must turn every corner walking. No drayman or cartman could sit on his wagon unless by reason of old age a special dispensation was given him by the aldermen. He must walk beside his horse. No team driven tandem could go faster than a walk. On Sunday drivers of vehicles and horsemen must walk very slowly past churches and places of worship during divine service. If a congregation pleased, chains could be hung across the street before the place of worship during service, and all passing of horses and carriages stopped. Nobody could fish on the Lord's Day; nor drive nor wade a horse into the waters of either river; nor deliver milk between nine in the morning and five in the afternoon; nor buy nor sell; nor bring anything into nor take anything out of the city. Restrictions of this sort were by no means peculiar. Indeed, there was little in the city government of New York that could not be paralleled in that of Philadelphia. There, too, were a mayor, a recorder, fifteen aldermen, and select and common council. The people elected councils. But the Governor of Pennsylvania appointed the recorder and the aldermen to hold office during good behavior, and the councils each year elected one of the aldermen to serve as mayor. Even in the selection of so important an officer as the constable the people had little to say. Annually the voters of each ward were required to elect two persons fit to be constables, and one of them must be appointed to the office by the mayor. In Philadelphia, as in New York, occupants of houses must have the pavement before their premises swept to the middle of the street every Friday or pay a fine of five shillings. These sweepings the city would remove; but ashes, mud, shavings, or refuse not arising "from common housekeeping" must be removed at the cost of the housekeeper. There, too, each tenant must have fire buckets and a canvas bag hanging in his hall, and must lend a hand in the extinguishment of fires. There, too, on Sundays the streets were chained in the neighborhood of churches and houses of public worship. There, too, the constables preserved the peace during the day and the superintendent of the night watch and his men guarded the city by night. To the watch belonged the care of the oil, wicks, lamps, and utensils used in illuminating the streets, and the duty of lighting the lamps each night at sundown and keeping them burning till dawn. As far back as 1816 an effort was made to introduce gas, and the manufacture of what was called carbonated hydrogen was begun by a Dr. Kugler. Peale promptly put the apparatus in his museum, and informed the public that on certain nights the hall would be illuminated with "gas-lights which will burn without wick or oil." The managers of the new 1825. THE INTRODUCTION OF GAS. 127 theatre next introduced it into their building as an attraction. Finally, a citizen put one of Kugler's gas machines in his dwelling house, and invited councils to come and see the new light. A committee was accordingly sent, and, after visiting Peale's Museum, the theatre, and Mr. Henry's residence, recommended that a standing committee on gas-light should be appointed to watch the progress of the new invention and report from time to time. The public having satisfied its curiosity, the new light shared the fate of the velocipede just then exhibited in the museum, and was forgotten. In 1820, however, attention was again drawn to gas by the Masons, who, when they built their new hall, lighted it with Kugler's carbonated hydrogen. The whole neighborhood complained of the stench, and voted the Lodge Gas Works a nuisance. But the experiment proved so successful that in 1822 the Masons applied to councils for leave to lay pipes in the streets and furnish gas to such as were willing to burn it. The petition was rejected. Councils had no desire to encourage an innovation so dangerous, so offensive, and one likely to injure the business of candle makers and oildealers. In other cities the friends of the new light fared better. Gas as a means of street lighting was adopted by Boston in 1822, and by New York in 1823, when the New York GasLight Company was incorporated. The work of actual introduction was slow, for there was not a foundry in the country where long iron pipes were cast, and every foot of the street main was brought from England. An exhibition of Kugler's gas at Peale's Museum in Baltimore in 1816 led to the formation of a gas-light company in that city in 1817. There also the process of pipe-laying was slow, so that 1820 came before the company began business with three customers. Now that Philadelphia had fallen behind her sister cities in enterprise, another attempt was made to introduce gas, and in 1825 a bill to incorporate the Philadelphia Gas-Light Company and give it power to lay pipes in the streets and furnish gas was reported in the Legislature. But again public prejudice defeated the scheme. Gas was denounced as an unsafe, unsure means of illumination; its manufacture was described as a nuisance, and its use cited as one of the follies of the age. Common lamps were good enough.* Two years later, when the matter was once more before the public, the struggle waxed hotter. Some one said that if gas was used to light the streets crime would be lessened. This was scoffed at, and the public was reminded that a burglar with a spade could in a few minutes destroy a gas main and leave whole squares in darkness. A burglar, it was answered, can blow out the lamps and leave whole squares in darkness. The night watch, was the reply, can relight a lamp, but not a gas-jet when the main is cut. When gas, said another, was tested in 1820, and the Masons built works in the rear of their hall, the stench tainted provisions and sickened whole families, and drove people from Peale's Museum. Peale denied the statement, and asserted that when his museum was illuminated with gas the cost was least, the attendance greatest, and his income doubled. The application was rejected by councils, and Philadelphia was without gas till 1837. Much the same difficulty attended the introduction of a new fuel destined in time to increase the comforts of life, facilitate the use of steam, and revolutionize manufactures. That anthracite coal abounded in Pennsylvania had been known for more than thirty years, and as early as 1792 a tract of land was purchased in Lehigh County at a place where the coal cropped out and could be quarried at the surface, and the Lehigh Coal Mine Company was formed, and the vein opened. Like scores of other enterprises called into existence by the revival of confidence and the good times that followed the establishment of Government under the Constitution, the Lehigh company was far in advance of the ideas of the people and the conditions of the day. There was no market, and no way to get to market had one existed. The company, however, built a road from its mine to a landing on the river nine miles away, and when the water was high enough sent its first shipment to Philadelphia. But to a people who had wood in * United States Gazette, February, 1825. † American Daily Advertiser, February 2, 13, 14, 15, etc., 1827. |