I READ about it when it was called New Amsterdam. A thousand people, and it was just a straggling little town. Pearl Street they called “De Perel Straat.” The folks were very proud of this street; there were forty-three houses on it! One man thought his fortune was made because he had bought a lot two years before for fifty dollars, and was offered two hundred and fifty for it. And the lot was thirty feet wide and over a hundred feet deep! Think of a New York man to-day buying a lot of that size for two hundred and fifty dollars! My father says it would take a fortune to buy such a lot.

Henry Stuart.

My cousin and I had great fun reading about a family who took a long journey from New York to Albany. They went on a river steamer; started at daylight and reached Albany at sunset, and thought they had done a big thing. There were no railroads to ride on; not a single train going out of New York City! That was in 1827. It seems strange that such wonderful things can take place in one century. I think this is the grandest century we ever had.

Robert Campbell.

I spent a week in New York, and boarded very near Madison Square. I was on Twenty-third Street, pretty near to Fifth Avenue, and Broadway streaks across the city right there, so I had a chance to see almost everything; because those who know anything about New York City know that if you see what is on those streets, why, you have seen a good deal. It is Broadway and Fifth Avenue going criss-cross that make Madison Square. There are lots of hotels around there. The park is just magnificent; I like it better than Central Park, because it is right there, you know. There is a splendid fountain in the middle, and a drinking fountain somewhere else, and statues of Seward and Farragut. Seward is sitting down, and looks as though he didn’t care.

If I had room I could tell you lots of things about Madison Square; but since you only let us have a few lines, what will a fellow do? I’m going to the Christian Endeavor meeting in July, and that will give a good chance to study up that part of the city, because the meeting is to be in Madison Square.

David G. Dunlap.

My mother used to be a pupil in Cooper Institute, and when I went to New York a few months ago father took me to see it. It is very large; it cost more than six hundred thousand dollars. Peter Cooper built it about thirty-five years ago; and then he gave three hundred thousand dollars to keep the free library going which belongs to it. They have all sorts of schools in the building. You can learn how to telegraph, and to write on the type-writer, and how to draw and paint. My mother was in the painting school, and she paints beautifully. We went up to the reading-room; it is on the third floor; there are rows and rows and rows of books! It makes me dizzy to think of so many. The books are all covered, so they don’t look very pretty. There are long tables and lots of chairs; you are given a check made of brass, or tin, or something, when you go into the room; then if you want a book or magazine you go to the desk and ask for it, and give that check in return; you cannot get out of the room without that check, so you are apt to carry your book back when you are done with it, and get your check again. After all there are only about twenty thousand books on the shelves. I was disappointed; I thought there were millions.

Emmeline Andrews.

Dick Walters is in our “General Information” class, and when Trinity Church was talked about Dick declared he had been in the old building which was put there in 1697. I knew better, because my great-grandfather told about its being burned in the fire of 1776. But we couldn’t make Dick Walters give up the notion that he was in the very identical church built two hundred years ago. At last Professor Townley explained that it was the old site, but a new church built in 1846. Since we had our fuss about it I have been there myself. It is a splendid building, I think, if it isn’t two hundred years old. The steeple is two hundred and eighty-four feet high, and the chimes are lovely. It is an old brown church, and looks solemn and still; it is right on Broadway, but when you step inside it seems just as still! You can hear the birds chirp on the trees in the churchyard, though there is a terrible roar of noise outside. Alexander Hamilton is buried in Trinity churchyard.

Robert Paxton.

I suppose everybody will write about Central Park; but I can’t help it, I want to tell some things about it myself. I was there in June. We went up to Fifty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue and took a carriage. We drove through the Scholars’ Gate; this took us straight to the menagerie, and we saw the bear-pits and everything, though they say they don’t have the menagerie there any more. We took a row on the lake, and we saw the Bethesda Fountain with its real angel—well, I mean a carved one, of course—bending over the water. Then we walked through The Ramble, which I think is the loveliest part of the park, only they won’t let you break off the least little speck of a flower or leaf. There are lots of birds, and they seemed busier and happier than any birds I ever saw. We saw a sign directing us to the “Dairy,” so we went there and got some splendid milk and some bread and butter. We children wanted to go to “The Carousal”; that is a sign which points out the way to the children’s playground, where there are swings and everything; but father said we hadn’t time, and that we could have “carousals” enough at home.

Laura J. Westover.

Laura has written a letter about Central Park, and hasn’t mentioned the obelisk. Ho, ho! if that isn’t just like a girl. I have studied up about it since I was there. They had an awful time bringing it over here from Egypt. They had to cut a hole in the bow of the boat that brought it to get it in; and then mend the hole, of course, before they could start. And when the steamer reached New York it took thirty-two horses to draw just the pedestal down to Central Park!

The carvings on the obelisk are called hieroglyphics, and used to mean writing; but scholars have had a great time trying to find out what the writing says. They don’t agree about it, but they think it is a lot of stuff about some heathen gods. There are carved hawks on the top of the column, and these are said to be the birds that belonged to one of the gods, because they could fly the highest and could look at the sun. The obelisk is sixty-nine feet high, and it weighs three hundred and twenty tons. I don’t exactly see what we wanted of it; but it is rather nice to look at it and think it came all the way from Egypt and was presented to us by Ismail Pasha.

Reuben T. Westover.

The nicest ride I had while in New York was along Fifth Avenue. We started at Washington Square and went up to Central Park. It is almost three miles, and all the way there were such beautiful houses and churches to look at, and the road was as smooth as the floor. We passed the white marble house built by A. T. Stewart; it cost three million dollars, and the people who now rent it pay thirty-seven thousand dollars a year for it. Only think! and we get three hundred a year for our house, and call it a good rent; but then, it didn’t cost three millions. Then we passed the elegant Vanderbilt houses, and the magnificent Lenox Library building, and O, dear! I can’t think what others. I thought I knew a great deal about them when I began, but they are all mixed up in my mind. But what I wanted to say was, that the drive from Washington Square away up to Eighty-first Street must certainly be the very splendidest in the world. I know I never saw so many beautiful buildings before; and I do like grand houses and grand churches and everything.

Kate W. Glover.