sun set behind the low Jersey hills, and perhaps to inspect the review
of the Tompkins Blues, or the Pulaski Cadets. There was fierce rivalry
between these two commands, one under Captain Vincent, and the other
under Captain McArdle, and each corps had its admiring sympathizers.
Both Blues and Cadets presented a fine, martial appearance as they swung
across the Battery, marching like veterans who had faced fire and would
not flinch. "Sure it was," a flippant chronicler has recorded, "both had
an undisputed reputation for charging upon a well-loaded board with a
will that left no tell-tale vestige." Very likely, in the throng, all
were not of New York. There were doubtful strangers, too, looking with
yearning eyes out over the dancing waters of the blue bay--swarthy,
weather-beaten men with huge earrings. They called themselves
"privateers-men." But there were those who smiled at the word, for
romance had it that there were still buccaneers in the Spanish Main.

In many families that daily visit to the Battery was all the summer
change. Mr. Dayton, in his "Last Days of Knickerbocker Life," informed
us that neither belle nor gallant lost caste by declining to participate
in the routine of watering place life, simple and inexperienced as it
then was. Yet there were summer resorts, and they were patronized by the
best and most prominent citizens of the country. The springs at Saratoga
had already been discovered, and there were many New Yorkers who made
the then long and arduous trip.

But nearer at hand was the "Beach at Rockaway," sung by the military
poet, George P. Morris, and Coney Island. At the latter resort
conditions were primitive. Unheard were the blaring of bands, and the
raucous cry of the "Hot-Dog man," and the riot and roar of the rabble.
Mr. Blinker, of O. Henry's "Brick Dust Row," could not then have seen
his vision and found his light. For there was no mass of vulgarians