" In 1684 eight watchmen were appointed at twelve-pence a
night. But read them for yourselves,--they are worth the trouble you
will have to find them!
There were many queer trades in New York, and all of them, or nearly
all, advertised in the daily journals. In column on column of yellowed
paper and quaint f-for-s printing, we read exhortations to employ this
or that man, most of them included in the picturesque verse whose
author I do not know:
_"Plumbers, founders, dyers, tanners, shavers,
Sweepers, clerks and criers, jewelers, engravers,
Clothiers, drapers, players, cartmen, hatters, nailers,
Gaugers, sealers, weighers, carpenters, and sailors!"_
And read the long-winded, yet really beautiful old obituary notices;
the simple news of battles and high deeds; the fiery, yet pedantic,
political editorials. Oh, no one knows anything about Father
Knickerbocker until he has read the same newspapers that Father
Knickerbocker himself read,--when he wasn't writing for them!
The Revolution had passed and Greenwich was a real village, and
growing with astonishing rapidity, even in that day of lightning
development.
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