Memoirs of an editor : fifty years of American journalism / Edward P. Mitchell.

40

MEMOIRS OF AN EDITOR

down the avenue to Thirteenth Street, then by University
Place and Eleventh Street to Broadway and to Fulton
and Fulton Ferry, started nominally from the Croton
Cottage at the corner of Fortieth Street; really from the
stable that preceded the Century Club in Forty-third
Street. This route by Broadway afforded a continuing
view of the turmoil and side-swipings of vehicular traffic
in that mighty thoroughfare, particularly when I was
able to clamber up and sit alongside the driver. There
was also the aesthetic satisfaction of riding in a conveyance
adorned with a beautiful oil-painting on each side of its
fat body, a feature not displayed by the rival stages. I
came to know these pictures by heart and watched eagerly
for favorites in the gallery. We used to believe that eminent artists, in the Tenth Street studio building, for example, eked out insufficient incomes by decorating the
omnibuses. Who knows?
The Sixth Avenue route had its own attractions. It
penetrated the mysterious region around Carmine and
Varick Streets wherein was visible a lofty bell-tower for
fire-alarms, and also plunged suddenly into the whitewashed inwards of a block at the end of College Place.
The rail-ends at Vesey Street and Broadway were shared
by George Law's Eighth Avenue horse-cars, and there
was the excitement of seeing the arrivals and departures
of a line foreign to your own. It was an important terminal. Every fifth or sixth car entering or leaving exhibited
the sign, "Colored Persons Allowed in This Car."
The first thing to do upon descending at Broadway was
to inspect the ballad market. On strings stretched along
the iron fence on the Vesey Street side of Saint Paul's
churchyard were hung by wooden clips not only the latest

issues of ballad literature, but also its antiques. There
were noisy venders of ephemeral stuff and silent merchants,
experts in the rarities. You could walk along well back
toward Church Street and take your pick. Prices, as