Preface - Page 2

in the year of our Lord one
thousand eight hundred, it was but a little more than five
millions. In 1800, the population of New-York was somewhat less than
six hundred thousand souls; to-day it is probably a little less than
two millions seven hundred thousand souls. In 1800, the town of
New-York had sixty thousand inhabitants, whereas, including Brooklyn
and Williamsburg, which then virtually had no existence, it must have
at this moment quite four hundred thousand. These are prodigious
numerical changes, that have produced changes of another
sort. Although an increase of numbers does not necessarily infer an
increase of high civilization, it reasonably leads to the expectation
of great melioration in the commoner comforts. Such has been the
result, and to those familiar with facts as they now exist, the
difference will probably be apparent in these pages.

Although the moral changes in American society have not kept even pace
with those that are purely physical, many that are essential have
nevertheless occurred. Of all the British possessions on this
continent, New-York, after its conquest from the Dutch, received most
of the social organization of the mother country. Under the Dutch,
even, it had some of these characteristic peculiarities, in its
patroons; the lords of the manor of the New Netherlands. Some of the
southern colonies, it is true, had their caciques and other
semi-feudal, and semi-savage noblesse, but the system was of short
continuance; the peculiarities of that section of the country, arising
principally from the existence of domestic slavery, on an extended
scale. With New-York it was different. A conquered colony, the mother
country left the impression of its own institutions more deeply
engraved than on any of the settlements that were commenced by grants
to proprietors, or under charters from the crown. It was strictly a
royal colony, and so continued to be, down to the hour of
separation. The social consequences of this state of things were to be
traced in her habits unlit the current of immigration became so
strong, as to bring with it those that were conflicting, if not
absolutely antagonist. The influence of these two sources of thought
is still obvious to the reflecting, giving rise to a double set of
social opinions; one of which bears all the characteristics of its New
England and puritanical origin, while the other may be said to come of
the usages and notions of the Middle States, proper.

This is said in anticipation of certain strictures that will be likely
to follow some of the incidents of our story, it not being always
deemed an essential in an American critic, that he should understand
his subject. Too many of them, indeed, justify the retort of the man