They are looking forward anxiously to the spring, when Lieutenant Peary
has promised that he will take them home.

* * * * *

January 1st will be an important day for the citizens of New York.

It will be the birthday of the city of Greater New York, which will take
its rank as the second largest capital in the world.

The mayor, Mr. Strong, is anxious to have some celebration which shall
mark the passing away of the old New York city.

Many people are, however, opposed to this. They think that the first
thing in people's minds should be the glory of the great new city which
is to be born, and declare that anything else would only amount to
holding funeral services over the old city.

This view seems hardly the correct one to take. There is so much of the
nation's early history wound around the old city of New York, that it
seems only fit and proper that some suitable exercises should be held,
to impress upon the younger generation the importance of the old city,
before it passes away and loses its identity in the larger city.

If Boston was the scene of the beginning of the War of Independence, New
York witnessed its close.

On November 25th, 1782, the British finally evacuated the city of New
York, their last stronghold, and the long and painful war was over.