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Chap. XVI.
ITS EXTERNALS.
335

men, who fished along its banks and guided their bark canoes over the surrounding waters, New York, under the names of Brooklyn, Williamsburgh, and four or five others, has spread itself on Long Island, Staten Island, and the banks of the Hudson. Brooklyn, on Long Island, which occupies the same position with regard to New York that Lambeth and Southwark do to London, contains a population of 100,000 souls. Brooklyn, Williams-burgh, Hoboken, and Jersey City are the residences of a very large portion of the merchants of New York, who have deserted the old or Dutch part of the town, which is consequently merely an aggregate of offices. Floating platforms, moved by steam, with space in the middle part for twelve or fourteen carriages and horses, and luxurious covered apartments, heated with steam-pipes on either side, ply to and fro every five minutes at the small charge of one halfpenny a passenger, and the time occupied in crossing the ferries is often less than that of the detention on Westminster Bridge. Besides these large places, Staten Island and Long Island are covered with villa residences. Including these towns, which are in reality part of this vast city, New York contains a population of very nearly a million! Broaway, which is one of the most remarkable streets in the world, being at once the Corso, Toledo, Regent Street, and Princes Street of New York, runs along the centre of the city, and is crossed at right angles by innumerable streets, which run down to the water at each side. It would appear as if the inventive genius of the people had been exhausted, for, after borrowing designations for their streets from every part of the world, among which some