FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote B: A similar story is told of the Confederate President.
Challenged by a sentinel, he said, "Look at me and you will see that I
am President Davis." "Well," said the soldier, "you _do_ look like a
used postage-stamp. Pass, President Davis!"]




LETTER III

New York a much-maligned City--Its Charm--Mr. Steevens' Antitheses--New
York compared with Other Cities--Its Slums--Advertisements--Architecture
in New York and Philadelphia.


NEW YORK.

Many superlatives have been applied to New York by her own children, by
the stranger within her gates, and by the stranger without her gates, at
a safe distance. I, a newcomer, venture to apply what I believe to be a
new superlative, and to call her the most maligned city in the world.
Even sympathetic observers have exaggerated all that is uncouth,
unbeautiful, unhealthy in her life, and overlooked, as it seems to me,
her all-pervading charm. One must be a pessimist indeed to feel no
exhilaration on coming in contact with such intensity of upward-striving
life as meets one on every hand in this league-long island city,
stretching oceanward between her eastern Sound and her western estuary,