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[Written for Dodge’s Literary Museum.)
-MY GRANDFATHER’S GRAVE.
BY W. ~ S0orr ABBOTT.
WHEN day was creeping down the west,
T sought the lowly mound
Where Grandfather was laid to rest,
Low in the silent ground.
_ The wild rose-tree was bright in bloom,
: That, bending o’er his head,
Wreathed fragrant garlands for his tomb,
And strewed them on his bed.
The merry birds oft gather there, -
At closing of the day,
And sing upon the twilight air
A plaintive roundelay.
_ And Iam told an old gray stone
, Once marked the sacred spot
« Where laid the sleeper; but ’tis gone—
Ay, crumbled and forgot.
But he whose dust is resting there,
Upon its mother’s breast,
* Whose spirit sped through upper air
Toitseternal rest;
Though time has steadily flown on,
Fond Memory, at her task,
Has kept alive his name upon
Her record of the past,
Fame's trump ne’er breathed a note for him,
No laurel crown was wrought;
No pewan lofty swelled his name,
He's deified in nought.
He lived, a simple, good old man,
. He died as good men die;
As good men, he will live again
In blest eternity.
And ages hence that lowly mound
Will greet the stranger's eye,
Who cannot tell if in that ground
Rests Grandfather or I.
East Barnarp, Vr, July 2st, 1854.
{Written for Dodge's Literary Museum.
A Sketch of /
WASHINGTON MARKET, New ‘York.
“ BY PHGNIX..
ase GTON, formerly called “ Old
Bear Market,” extends from Vesey
street to Fulton, and from Washington street
to the Hudson river, on the western side of
New York city.
: The older part of the. fabric isa a large,
square, one-story building, reared many
years ago, in'the most substantial manner ;
the whole being supported by massive stone
pillars, that seem to wrestle with time as
successfully as did the pyramids of Egypt.
The commerce of this great mart of trade
is perhaps unequaled by that of any other
market in the world. _Ifere_ you may pur-
chase every luxury of the season; andthe
delicious fruits of tropical climes can. be
bought even at mid-winter, in this noble em-
porium of trade, that wields its scepter from
the frozen North to the isles of the Caribbean
Sea. Here the epicure may purchase trout
and salmon, sweet and fresh from the, north-
ern wilds of Maine; and oysters from Vir-
ginia’s ‘‘ Old Dominion,” of a- far better
flavor than any ever imported from Britta-
ny to tickle the palates of Rome’s pampered
Emperors. Pine-apples and. bananas, from
the Isle of Cuba; cheese and butter from
the rich dairies of Orange county ; the
peach: of New Jersey: the.. cranberry of
Cape Cod, and the delicious strawberry from
the eastern shore of Maryland, we think can
yield a banquet that would do honor to the
richest and 3 most fertils empire of the
world.
Stop! let us take a , tum through this vast
edifice. We will enter the principal door
on the Washington street side, nearly oppo-
site Smith & McNiel’s dining saloon, one of
the best and most famous establishments of
which New York city can boast. ,
Ah! here we are, lost in a wilderness of
- Dodye's Literary Flascwm.
joints, roasts, and sirloins, snowy stalls and
spotless frocks. Can it be possible that there
is to be a seven years’ famine in the land,
and some prudent Joseph has been gather-
ing the provisions of the earth together to
guard against the terrible event? Not a
bit of it! ’Tis an every-day occurrence. It
is nothing more than Washington Market,
“up and dressed for the day,” squaring off
at Famine like a game pugilist, while itseems
to exclaim :
“Now, old fellow, tackle me if you dare!”
Why, what asea of jolly, good-natured
faces, always smiling and attentive, ready to
wait on their numerous customers at a mo-
ment’s notice !
“ Ah, madam, what can I have the honor
of serving you with to-day?”
There ! could D’Orsay or Chesterfield do
it better? We doubt it very much; be-
sides, in this case, the expression is the warm
sentiment of the heart, and in the other, it
might originate in Snobdom, and be used
merely for effect.
Many a boasting Briton will try to con-
vince you that Leadenhall and’ Covent-
Garden Markets, in summer, beat old Wash-
ington clear out of sight; that the “ros’
beef and mutton ’ere his not ’aff so good as
hit his hin Hingland.”
Now we don’t doubt that they mean it.
We believe that once a fortnight is about as
often asan Englishman smells of roast beef
in his own country, and it is considered about
as great a rarity as the first shad caught in
the Connecticut; but here, like the Israelites
in the Desert, they grumble at-their daily
feast of manna, though angels might live on
it without a’ murmur. The fact is, when
they come here, they get too much accus-
tomed to good living.
We remember taking the starch out of a
subject of Queen Vie.’ He was addicted to
boasting of every thing that appertained to
Britain : and the British, He said to us, one
day,
“ Tingland j is the most beautiful country
on the globe ! ! ’Er scenery his the most mag-
nificent, hand ’er works of nature and hart
the most sublime. Why, we ’ave a river in
Hingland, called the Tames, that would ride
all the navies of the world! hand hit his hat
least a ’undred hand fifty miles long!”
“Squire,” we replied, “ what you tell us
is wonderful, indecd; but we have some
things in this country that will nearly equal
it. ‘We have a small stream called the Mis-
sissippi, that runs from Canada to the Gulf
of Mexico, a distance of about two thousand
five hundred miles, and another little rivulet
that pours into it, called the Missouri, that
measures four thousand five hundred.” \
“Hold on! Don’t go yet, Squire,” we
continued, as he tarned away from us in
high dudgeon; “we were just going to tell
you about Niagara Falls, and the great Nat-
ural Bridge of Virginia. But-no matter;
some other time will do just as well.”
‘He never was a Particular friend of ours
afterwards, :
. For our own part, we believe ‘that the
usual quality of the beef and mutton sold by
the worthy dealers in Washington Market
is equally as good: as’ that ‘raised by’ the
Dutch of South Africa; or the English of
Durham and: Lancashire. ‘Can you, from
any class of mechanics, pick more intelligent
or finer-looking men ? And the mechanics
are ‘generally the most intelligent class in
large cities, No, it is impossible. Find me
a Washington Market butcher, if you can,
who does not. take from three to. five daily
Papers, and the like ‘number of weeklies;
for he will certainly be a greater euriosity
than the Feejee Mermaid or Joice Heath.
The fact is, they are well posted in’ the af-
fairs of the world, from Newfoundland to
farther India, and more familiar with’ his-
tory than the cotton broker of. Wall street
or the dry goods merchant. of Grand street.
The reason is simply this: they devote their
leisure hours to literature, the lecture-room,
or the drama—three schools that make a
man a Crichton among his fellows.
Nor does the chain of knowledge cease,
if we leave the stall of the butcher for that
of the fruit or oyster-dealer.
That thick-set, blue-eyed man who deals
in peas and water-melons, can solve you
any question of Bonnycastle or Euclid, as
quickly and accurately as the best mathe-
maticians of Yale or Harvard.
That man with an Italian cast of counte-
nance, who is shelling bivalves as a farmer
would corn, is the author of a successful
novel, and some of the most brilliant essays
of the Sunday Press are from his pen.
But the. dealers of Washington Market
are not sluggards i in fun or enjoyment. Ask
any one,
“Who drives the fastest horses on the
Third avenue, or who sports the whitest
kids at the ball-room or opera?”
You have only to'attend Fourteen’s an-
nual festival, to revel in a blaze of beauty
and splendor that it would puzzle the ¢lite
of Bleeker and Bond streets to equal.
If’ ever you visit Washington Market,
you ought to make the acquaintance of the
best-natured fellow in the world—one whose
jolly phiz and humorous stories you will be
apt to remember for many a Jong day.
They call him “Big Charlie;” ‘and with
reason, too, for he is of Herculean propor
tions. H{e may ask you to feel his muscle,
but don’t be afraid—he is only joking—for
he would not harm a worm, though he is
known to be as brave as a-lion. If a
thousand such as him had held the city of
Ghent against Philip’ Van Artavelde, -he
might have been forced to raise the siege.
He is the very “dientical gentleman,”
(as Captain Cuttle would say,) who crown-
ed George Washington Dixon with a wreath
of onions the night that worthy individual
took his last “benefit” at the old Franklin,
when the boxes were lowered to sixpence,
and the pit to three cents, in order to run
opposition to the’ National. That night,
when a vocalist who said he was from the
“Theater Royal, Drury Lane, London,”
made his first and last appearance in a sen-
timental song, and’ who, not taking the
gentle hint to retire, when the pit-boys all
joined in the chorus of the first verse,
found himself mixed up with a sixty- pound
stove, a bag of flour, and an oak plank, at
the close of the second. | It was the same
night when" Norris, the ‘manager, ‘(who
owned a voice like’a penny trumpet) ¢ came
before the curtain and exclaimed,
“* Neow, ' gentlemen, if yeou don’t jist
stop this ’ere noise, I'll put every one on
you right eout of the house.” At which
threat, “the crowd, as every body knows, was
terribly scared.
You should make the acquaintance’ of
Charlie, and, take our word for it, he can
learn you all. the ropes of New “York life;
and a truer, more honest, or better-hearted
man does not wield a cleaver in the world.
Why Washington’ Market was formerly
called ‘ Bear Market,” we could never toa
certainty’ ascertain, though one reason we
have heard assigned, is, that‘a bear was the
first meat sold in the ‘edifice. Perhaps
some of the. old Knickerbockers can give
us information on the subject.
*
The quantity of fruit that comes in the
Market, during the season, is almost incred-
ible. We know, for a fact, that fifty tons
of strawberries were brought in on a single
day, and we have known peaches of the
best quality, and. most delicious flavor, sold
for a dime a bushel, while thousands of bas-
kets of an inferior kind were thrown over-
board, as totally unsalable.
Washington Market has produced many
eccentric characters. Poor ‘old Adams
(now deceased,) was known and pitied by
every one. . We never could imagine what
his lungs were made of. Gutta percha or
sheet iron would have worn out with the
tremendous bursts of oratory he was con-
tinually giving forth, from morning till
night.: lis actions reminded one of a mad
dervish, and the tone of voice in which he
declaimed, was a succession of screams.
Poor fellow! “ After life’s fitful fever, he
sleeps well!” :
Another individual, who now makes
Washington Market his sanctuary, is Ferdi-
nand Count Van Der Bogart.. He isa tall,
lank, goblin-looking individual, who styles
himself “John the Baptist in disguise,”
though we believe he prefers coffee and
cakes, now, to locusts and wild honey. He
gives you an idea of famine every time you
look at him, and still always avers that he
is excessively hungry. He borrows six-
pence of you to-day, and another to-mor-
row to make it an even shilling, and then a
shilling to make ‘it an even quarter, and
then a quarter to make it an even half, till
you are so lost in problems of arithmetical
progression that you feel glad to'rub out
the old score and start anew. Like the
story Daboll tells, of a man who purchased °*
a horse-shoe at a penny the first nail, two
for the second, four for the third, and: so
on, you find you must hold up, or be ruin-
ed, to a dead certainty.
Daniel Lewis, Esq., is another great actor
in the drama of the Washington Market.
When polities run high, Daniel is ‘the
worthy individual who generally votes on
both sides of the question, which of course
is very beneficial to all parties. Very little
is known of Daniel’s ancestry; there was a
rumor, once, that he was descended from
the Emperor of Turkey, and there is a pie-
ture of a young Moslem in the saloon of
Mr. Ferris, that is said to have been Dan-
iel’s portrait when a child... We have no
means of finding out. whether it is a like-
ness of our hero or not, but there is cer-
tainly a little resemblance about the ears.
The greatest feature of Daniel’s charac-
ter is his invincible presence of mind. -We
have known him, when a chicken escaped
froma coop in the Market, to rush into a/:
store near at hand, seize a. new broom and
break: off the handle. to knock: the’ fowl
down with, in less time than we: have been
relating the circumstance.
with him for so doing; but Daniel cut him
short by saying, : > | re
“ Not one man ina thousand would have
‘thought of it, you unreasonable fellow!”
We believe the chicken escaped, but that
fact did not weaken Daniel’s argument.
There have been’ rumors rife that Wash-!
ington Market was to come down, and a
new market to be reared in its stead... We
may be wrong, but we think it would be a
useless expenditure to the city for a number
of years to come. It is firmly and substan-
tially built, and with ‘thorough’ repairing,
would last longer! than many .a modern
structure. Besides, it would throw a large
number of the.most valuable and induistri-
To be sure, the: :
store-keeper, (foolish fellow!) expostulated .
—