As a race we appreciate spectacles: we love the gleam of metal, the concourse of people, the rolling of drums, and the fanfare of trumpets. We love a parade, and we fall into paroxysms of patriotism when a hero appears. We have only one limit: we do not wish our

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enthusiasms to be remembered against us. When wc tell a hero that he is a demigod and can have the Presidency of the United States for the asking, we resent being taken too seriously.

"-^^""^^m

A TOW GOING OUT TO SEA

Chapter V Along the Manhattan Shore

IT may not be a generally appreciated fact that Manhattan Island is the very home of modesty. From the earliest times the habit of New York has been rather to do things than to talk about them after they are done. The shore-line that stretches northward from the Battery has been the scene of exploits enough to inspire a volume of epics or to make the lasting reputation of a dozen ordinary cities. The traditions of the ri\'er shore are marked usually by a simple directness that suggests the Chronicles of the Hebrews. They fill here and there a few lines of an old journal, or are parenthetically referred to in some manual of obsolete events. So and so did such and such a deed, and there was an end of it. We have a sample of such tales in the following veracious narrative: Previous to 1812, a riverman, or some one connected with one of the markets alongshore, was impressed by the captain of a British vessel. The people of the neighbourhood, roused by this highhanded proceeding, seized a boat belonging to the said captain, broke it up, and burned it. They then coni-