Chapter III

Bowling Green—fine place for pasturing cows—a perquisite of the late corporation—formerly ornamented with a statue of George the Third—people pulled it down in the war to make bullets—great pity; it might have been given to the Academy—it would have become a cellar as well as any other.—Broadway—great difference in the gentility of streets—a man who resides in Pearl street, or Chatham Row, derives no kind of dignity from his domicil; but place him in a certain part of Broadway, anywhere between the Battery and Wall street, and he straightway becomes entitled to figure in the beau monde, and strut as a person of prodigious consequence!—Query, whether there is a degree of purity in the air of that quarter which changes the gross particles of vulgarity into gems of refinement and polish? A question to be asked, but not to be answered—New brick church!—What a pity it is the corporation of Trinity church are so poor!—if they could not afford to build a better place of worship, why did they not go about with a subscription?—even I would have given them a few shillings rather than our city should have been disgraced by such a pitiful specimen of economy—Wall street—City Hall, famous place for catch-poles, deputy sheriffs, and young lawyers; which last attend the courts, not because they have business there, but because they have no business anywhere else. My blood always curdles when I see a catch-pole, they being a species of vermin who feed and fatten on the common wretchedness of mankind, who trade in misery, and in becoming the executioners of the law, by their oppression and villainy, almost counterbalance all the benefits which are derived from its salutary regulations—Story of Quevedo about a catch-pole possessed by a devil, who, on being interrogated, declared that he did not come there voluntarily, but by compulsion; and that a decent devil would never, of his own free will, enter into the body of a catch-pole; instead, therefore, of doing him the injustice to say that here was a catch-pole bedeviled, they should say, it was a devil be-catch-poled; that being in reality the truth—Wonder what has become of the old crier of the court, who used to make more noise in preserving silence than the audience did in breaking it—if a man happened to drop his cane, the old hero would sing out “silence!” in a voice that emulated the “wide mouthed thunder”—On inquiring, found he had retired from business to enjoy _otium cum dignitate_, as many a great man has done before. Strange that wise men, as they are thought, should toil through a whole existence merely to enjoy a few moments of leisure at last! why don’t they begin to be easy at first, and not purchase a moment’s pleasure with an age of pain?—mem. posed some of the jockeys—eh!