NEW YORK.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume III, Issue 643, 23 May 1882, Page 2

NEW YORK.

No description of New York can be perfect which omits the superlative adjectives ; for one of the foremost ambi-' tions of the builders of the city has been to secure superlative effects. Nor are the standards of comparison American only; for the harbor is more beautiful, the streets more unclean,'" Broadway more brilliant, the municipality more corrupt, the commercial buildings more pretentious, the tene- ' rnent houses more crowded, the parks*; more lovely, than the similar appurtenances of the cities of Europe and Asia, with but a few exceptions*.,. Pope’s celebrated characterisation of Lord Bacon, superlative in praise and in censure, wisest, brightest, meanest might be paraphrased as an epigram on New York. It is popularly known as the Empire City ; but Irving, its most honored son, also, called it Gotham, the home of wiseacres, after the stupid old village of , Nottinghamshire, and this title, too, is , in common use. As Mr G. H. Holy- , oake has expressed it: “ New York * itself is a miracle which a large book would not be sufficient to explain. When I stepped ashore there I thought I was in a larger Rotterdaih ; when I found my way to Broadway it seemed to me as though I was . in Paris, and that Paris had taken top business. There were quaintness, grace ■ and gaiety, brightness and grimness, all" about.” Mr Moncare D. Conway says : “ There isn’t a city so attractive, elsewhere on earth. ‘See Naples;i