1855. 



NEW ENGLAND FAR^^IER. 



395 



far the Nf^in /midland Farmer. 



SEEING THE CITY. 



Country people who visit the city for the first 

 time, usu.illy go to the Common, the Navy Yard, 

 the State House, the Monument, the Custom House, 

 the AVhar\-Bs, and a few other prominent points 

 which their incliuLitions or their guides may suggest, 

 during the day, and in the evening they x-isit the 

 Museum, or some other j)lace of amusement, or 

 take a stroll in Washington Street hy gas-light. — 

 This done, they return home well sitisfied that they 

 have seen the city. And so indeed they have — that 

 part of it which is "on exhibition." They saw the 

 streets filled with well-dressed people, and the shops 

 and stores they passed or entered, with genteel and 

 polite men and women, who appeared to hive plen- 

 ty of leisure and plenty of money. They looked in- 

 to windows of clear glass and of wonderful siz?, 

 filled with gold and silver ware, rich crockery, costly 

 silks, gay ril)bons, gilded liooks, carved furniture, 

 cutlery, carpetings, pictures — every thing that heart 

 can wish or tancy conceive, until they wondered, 

 where the money is to come from to pay for all 

 these things. They heard the noise and bustle of 

 the crowded streets, and looked upon the wliirl of 

 the monng multitude, till the very stones of tlie 

 pavements and the bricks of the buildings, like the 

 people on the side-walk, seemed conscious th it they 

 were city bricks and city stones, and j)roud of tlie 

 part they were placing in this animating scene. — 

 They gazed at the residences on Be icon Street or 

 Pemberton Square, with their swelled fronts and 

 granite stej^s, and perhaps caught themselves con- 

 trasting their own humble homes with these prince- 

 ly mansions, and really felt a few twinges of envy 

 do^vn in some sly corner of the heart, or with a 

 strange bitterness, suppressed the inquiry. Who raa- 

 keth thee to differ from another ? 



In tliis way peojile generally see the city ; in this 

 way the city is made to be seen ; and I am not siu'e 

 that it ought to be seen in any other way. 



The dark side, the opposite of all tliis glitter and 

 show, — a degree of ])overty and wretchedness as 

 much below, as all this dis])lay of magnificence and 

 wealth is above the real wants of our nature, — mav 

 be found hiding in the cellars and garrets of all 

 great cities; but is so loathsome an exhibition desi- 

 rable? would it do good? Is it not well that mis- 

 ery seeks retirement; and that the wretched and 

 the vicious are content to pine or revel in obscurity ? 



Without any disposition, then, to set out the dark 

 side of city life as an antidote agiinst the tendencies 

 of its bright side, I have often thought it would be 

 an improvement on the usual style of city-seeing, 

 were \asitors allowed to gain some little knowledge 

 of the way in which city mechanics and laboring 

 people generally work and Hvc. 



F"or every well-dressed j)erson that one sees play- 

 ing the gentleman and lady, during a day's ramble 

 in the streets of Boston, there are ])robal)ly, at all 

 times, within a stone's throw, a score or two of be- 

 grimmed mechanics of both sexes busy at work in 

 shops "in the rear," "overhead," or ""in tlie l)ase- 

 ment;" over the entrances to which is painted in 

 large letters, "Positively no Admittance, except on 

 business," an enactment, however, tint, like other 

 "prohibitory" laws in Boston, is enf )rced or not, as 

 the "proprietors" see fit. Taking our curiosity as 

 the "higher law," then, suppose we venture up that 

 dirty flight of stairs jetted in there between the 



fi'ont windows of those two stores. Reaching the 

 first landing, where are we? Two more flights, one 

 to the right, the other to the left, lead to still liigh- 

 er " flights," while a passage-way directly forwards 

 takes us through the front building into one in the 

 rear that fronts on no street, but is entirely sur- 

 rounded by and connected with buildings which do 

 front on two or more streets, or "Places," as "head- 

 ed-in" streets are often called. But I shall not have 

 time to describe these various shops and offices, if 

 we visit them, so we will merely read "The Du'ec- 

 tory of this Building," as it hangs, in the shape of a 

 great sign, right before us. "No. 1, John Doe, At- 

 torney and Counsellor at Law." "No. 2, Nathaniel 

 Grinder, ])entist." These arc the two front cham- 

 bers, nicely carj)eted, and away from the clatter of 

 the engine, which is putHng away in the basement 

 of the building. Then we have a Tailor's shop, a 

 Manufacturing Jeweller, a Printing office or two, a 

 Cort'ee-grinder, a Gold-beater, a Book-binder, a Car- 

 penter's shop, &c. &:c., in all some ten or fifteen 

 different establishments occupy the five stories of 

 which the building consists, and employ perhaps 

 some hundreds of indinduals of both sexes. Here 

 men and women ply their busy tasks, with almost 

 as little acquaintance with their fellow-laborers in 

 other parts of the building, although passing and 

 repassing the same threshold daily, as they hrtve 

 with people in other cities. And yet this swarming 

 hive of city laborers presents a crystal front to the 

 street, and perhaps a half-dozen starched clerks are 

 the only represent itives of this busy multitude that 

 can be seen from the sidewalk. 



High rent necessitates the economy of room ; and 

 operatives are consequently crowded into the small- 

 est space consistent with the nature of their em- 

 ployment. 'Worldng almost entirely by the job or 

 "piece," and incited by the example and weekly bills 

 of the fastest workmen, a spirit of emulation is 

 roused, and as a general thing, I believe hands work 

 harder in large than in small comi)anies — harder in 

 the city than they do in the country, at the s<ime 

 business. The demand for money, likewise, to meet 

 the higher rate of house-rent, and of almost every 

 thing else, in the city, as well as the contagion of 

 an almost universal example by all classes of a des- 

 perate effort to "keep up appearances," are among 

 the extra spurs which the city furnishes to move 

 the hands faster in the shop, and the feet faster in 

 the streets, than they were wont to do in the coim- 

 try. 



But I must close this article. My yarn has sjjun 

 out bej'ond my expectations. I have not said any 

 thhig of how city mechanics live, and l)ut little of 

 what I intended to ha\e said of how they work. — 

 But ])crhaps enough to show that an oi)inion of city 

 life and city employments, based upon what is to be 

 seen in a day's walk through the jjrincipal streets, 

 mav be a very incorrect one. 



hoslon, July, 1855. A City Mecii.^^ic. 



IIoMK ]Made Ciilokidf. of Lime. — Professor 

 Nash says, take one barrel of Hme, and one bushel 

 of salt ; "dissolve the salt in as little water as will 

 dissolve tlie whole ; slack the lime with tlie water, 

 putting on more tiian will dry slack it, so much that 

 it will form a very thick paste; this will not take 

 all the water; |m: on, therefore, a little of the re- 

 mainder dail), uiiiil the lime has taken the whole. 

 The result will be a sort of impure chloride of lime , 



