444 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



those who have not yet availed themselves of the cheap 

 facilities of railroad travelling, to visit New York, to 

 fancy themselves taking a stroll with us among heca- 

 tombs of oxen, mountains of mutton, pyramids of pork, 

 and piles of poultry, in Fulton Market. Do not fancy 

 you will see a palace nor a market house that is an orna- 

 ment to the city, like those of some of the towns in 

 Canada, nor like Quincy Market, at Boston. On the con- 

 trary, you will find it a common, dirty -looking, one-story 

 building, with an arched roof, about two hundred feet 

 square, three sides of which are elevated so as to form 

 basement rooms underneath the floor that contains the 

 butchers' stalls, which extend in a double line along two 

 sides of the house, while the third is occupied by a scaly 

 company, composed of all manner of fish that swim in the 

 waters between Cape Cod and Cape Fear. 



The central portion, which is on a level with the street, 

 is also roofed over, paved, and is occupied with a mixed 

 multitude of everything that is eatable, to say nothing 

 of that portion which is not. Here you will see an 

 uncounted and uncountable quantity of barrels, boxes, 

 baskets, tubs, and stacks of vegetables and fruit; and 

 tons of poultry, eggs, butter, cheese, lard, and tallow, in 

 all sorts of packages, except those in which neatness is 

 particularly predominant. Upon one side of the square, 

 is a row of dreary-looking cells, in which a large number 

 of people are continually eating a great number of oys- 

 ters, stewed, raw, and roasted. The quantity of this kind 

 of food consumed in this city, if it could be correctly 

 ascertained, would surpass belief. 



Around the market house, upon the pavement, are the 

 retailers of apples, nuts, cakes, and all sorts of trinkets 

 and nick-nacks. Here sits an old woman knitting, by the 

 side of the same table at which she has sat for many a 

 long year. She not only sells the products of her own 

 labor, but that of a great number of sets of knitting 

 needles, busily plied around some country fires. A little 

 further on, sits another and another, selling all manner 



