The streets of New York are well laid off, and are paved with an excellent quality of stone. The side-walks generally consist of immense stone "flags." In the lower part of the city, in the poorer and business sections, they are dirty, and always out of order. In the upper part they are clean, and are often kept so by private contributions.
The avenues on the eastern and western extremities of the city are the abodes of poverty, want, and often of vice, hemming in the wealthy and cleanly sections on both sides. Poverty and wealth are close neighbors in New York. Only a block and a half back of the most sumptuous parts of Broadway and Fifth Avenue, want and suffering, vice and crime, hold their court. Fine ladies can look down from their high casements upon the squalid dens of their unhappy sisters.
The City of New York is governed by a Mayor, a Board of Aldermen and a Board of Common Councilmen. The Mayor has been stripped by the Legislature of the State of almost every power or attribute of power, and is to-day merely an ornamental figure-head to the City government. The real power lies in the Boards named above, and in the various "Commissioners" appointed by the Legislature. These are the Commissioners in charge of the streets, the Croton Aqueduct, Public Charities and Corrections, the Police and Fire Departments.
We do not seek to lay the blame for the mismanagement and infamy of the government of this City on any party or parties. It is a fact that affairs here are sadly mismanaged, whoever may be at fault.
In place of any statements of our own concerning this branch of our subject, we ask the reader's attention to the following extracts from a pamphlet recently published by Mr. James Parton. He says:
The twenty-four Councilmen who have provided themselves with such ample assistance at such costly accommodation are mostly very young men,--the majority appear to be under thirty. Does the reader remember the pleasant description given by Mr. Hawthorne of the sprightly young bar- keeper who rainbows the glittering drink so dexterously from one tumbler to another? That sprightly young barkeeper might stand as the type of the young men composing this board. There are respectable men in the body. There are six who have never knowingly cast an improper vote. There is one respectable physician, three lawyers, ten mechanics, and only four who acknowledge to be dealers in liquors. But there is a certain air about most of these young Councilmen which, in the eyes of a New-Yorker, stamps them as belonging to what has been styled of late years "our ruling class,"--butcher-boys who have got into politics, bar-keepers who have taken a leading part in primary ward meetings, and young fellows who hang about engine-houses and billiard-rooms. A stranger would naturally expect to find in such a board men who have shown ability and acquired distinction in private business. We say, again, that there are honest and estimable men in the body; but we also assert, that there is not an individual in it who has attained any considerable rank in the vocation which he professes. If we were to print the list here, not a name would be generally recognized. Honest Christopher Pullman, for example, who leads the honest minority of six that vainly oppose every scheme of plunder, is a young man of twenty- seven, just beginning business as a cabinet maker. Honest William B. White, another of the six, is the manager of a printing office. Honest Stephen Roberts is a sturdy smith, who has a shop near a wharf for repairing the iron work of ships. Morris A. Tyng, another of the honest six, is a young lawyer getting into practice. We make no remark upon these facts, being only desirous to show the business standing of the men to whom the citizens of New York have confided the spending of sundry millions per annum. The majority of this board are about equal, in point of experience and ability, to the management of an oyster stand in a market. Such expressions as 'them laws,' 'sot the table,' '71st rigiment,' and 'them arguments is played out,' may be heard on almost any Monday or Thursday afternoon, between two and three o'clock, in this sumptuous chamber.