The House of Eefuge is on the southern part of the island, opposite One Hundred and Seventeenth Street. There youthful criminals are kept free from the contaminating influence of old ofi'enders, are taught useful trades, and are continually subjected to reforming influences. Good homes are furnished them when they leave the institution, and in this way the children of depraved parents who have entered upon a career of crime, have their feet set in the paths of virtue, usefulness, and honour.]

Near the southern border of "Jones's "Woods" is "The Coloured Home," where the indigent, sick, and infirm of African blood have their physical, moral, and religious wants supplied. It is managed by an association of women, and is sustained by the willing hands of the benevolent.

A little farther south, on the high bank of the East Eiver, at Fiftyfirst Street, is the ancient family mansion of a branch of the Beekman family, whose ancestor accompanied Governor Stuyvesant to New Amsterdam, now New York. There General Howe made his headquarters after the battle on Long Island and his invasion of New York, in 1776; and there he was made Sir William Howe, because of those events, by knightly ceremonies performed by brother officers, at the command of the king. Captain Nathan Hale, the spy, whose case and Major

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Andre's have been compared, was brought before General Howe at this place soon after his arrest. He was confined during the night in the conservatory, and the next morning, without even the form of a trial, was handed over to Cunningham, the inhuman provost marshal, who hanged him upon an apple-tree, under circumstances of peculiar cruelty. The act was intended to strike the minds of the Americans with terror ; it only served to exasperate and strengthen them.*'