One hundred and
seventy-four years had elapsed since Hendrick Hudson landed upon the
shores of Manhattan; but the town could only boast a population of
twenty-three thousand. In ten years the population doubled; in twenty
years trebled. Washington Irving was a baby seven months old, at his
father's house in William Street, on Evacuation Day, the 25th of
November, 1783. On coming of age he found himself the inhabitant of a
city containing a population of seventy thousand. When he died, at the
age of seventy-five, more than a million of people inhabited the
congregation of cities which form the metropolis of America.
The beginnings of great things are always interesting to us.
New-Yorkers, at least, cannot read without emotion the plain,
matter-of-fact accounts in the old newspapers of the manner in which
the city of their pride changed masters. Journalism has altered its
modes of procedure since that memorable day. No array of headings in
large type called the attention of readers to the details of this
great event in the history of their town, and no editorial article in
extra leads commented upon it.
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