The Caledonian. May 5, 1838
The following amusing article from the New York Express, will give the reader an idea of the 1st day of May in that City, when a large portion of its inhabitants change their residence.
A WEEK OF UNHAPPINESS, NEW YORK IN TRAVAIL. May day is coming, every body knows—not the sweet May day of the Poets, known in England, or known in our Southern land, the May day of Flowers, and Balls, and Poesy,—but the May day of New York—the Rent Day—the day of whitewashing—of cleaning and scouring and trucking and removing—when wives, sisters, and sweethearts even, are cross—when there is not a place for a man's foot even in his own house, or his hat—or his coat, and when he goes hungry and wet, and torn, and ragged—the most miserable of all the days of his life. Home is topsy-turvy. The carpet is up, and is being shaken. The chairs are piled on heaps. The old chests are ransacked, and disgorged of their contents. Boots long thrown away come to light. The spiders are hunted down. The cobwebs are gathered together. The broom pursues you in every nook, and by-place, and there is no couch for your wearied body, nor resting place for your unhappy foot. The dinner is picked up, and what a dinner! The odds and ends of every thing are hashed. The calf mingles with the sheep, and the ox and the hog embrace each other. The remnants of forty days plenty eke some ten days of fast. Dishes go through all sorts of metamorphose. The boiled victuals of to-day become the baked victuals of to-morrow, and then baked is turned into fried—and the fried then goes back to the boiled, and becomes fricasseed, so that of what beast man is eating, or on what vegetable he lives, no human power can tell. Oh, save us from this week of moving.
It may be, gentle reader, that you may be so happy as to have a fixed home, and not a home on trucks, that the cartmen cart about the every first day of May. But of such home you cannot now sing, “sweet home, there is no place like home.” Your wife, if you have one, and if you have not, not much matter now, beyond a doubt has at least two negroes whitewashing with all their might and main. Your breakfast is mingled with whitewash, and your supper too. Every thing in your closet is put in a state of disorder. Be you invited out, you have not a vest, it may be, that you can find, or a stock, or a collar, or a shirt, that can be found till it is too late to go abroad. Do you wish to read? there is not a book to be found,—or to write? there is not a leaf of paper unsoiled, or your manuscripts are put in irrevocable disorder. The women are cleaning, you are told,—or, horror on that word, or reforming, and all mankind must be made miserable till the reform is over.—The first week before May is thus made a week of misery, and the week after, there is no peace for this misery. Your wives, or your sisters, or your sweethearts, are turned into hags almost in their dresses. They get up in their nightcaps, and keep them on till noon. They go slipshod, and have holes in their hosiery. Their curls are wild draggling things that straddle down their cheeks. The red flies from their lips, and the coal dust gathers on them. There is not a chance for a kiss even,—and as for a blush, it cannot appear thro' the thick cloud of dust they have round them. With them, it is all broom, broom, broom. They broom you as you enter the door, as you eat up the picked up dinner of unmentionable things jumbled together,—and they sweep you at morning, and they sweep you at night; and with them, it is all 'sweep, oh! sweep,' from the rising to the going down of the sun.
But then even this picture is a Paradise, compared with the fate of him, who is a moving. Three hundred thousand people all in one day a moving! Think of it, reader in the Country, and think of the sad fate of the denizen of this city. The spectacle is already beginning to be. The beds are emptied into the streets, and the straw fire is blazing. The bedsteads, and trunks, and old chests, already line the side walks. Many a head now rests itself on the carpet on the floor, with but the cloak for a covering. The whole city is like a Tartar tent. We are all Loco Focos,—all squatters now,—all wandering Arabs. We don't live anywhere,—we only stay. We have no home, or what we have, we only divide another. As our wives and children go out one side of the door, some other body's wife and children are going in. What scowling there is, from woman to woman! How the young cherubs fight over the fragments of cradles, about cats, and kittens, and pokers and shovels! How the keen eye of scandal runs wild over another's affairs domestic, and how the sharp tongue waxes warm in hitting off this woman's bedclothes, or that man's wardrobe! The secrets of sly piles are discovered,—and the concealments of a year are dragged forth to light.
Happy on a moving day, is the humble Irishman who, with his wife, can shoulder his bed and bedding, and walk off with all that is his own. The more things a man has then, the worse for him. But what is a man good for on the day of a moving, but to be the butt of his wife, and to bear her wrath with the patience of a Christian. He cannot fold bed quilts well; he cannot take care of the pots and kettles. If the mirror is broken he is held accountable. If the sofa is scratched, he is scratched too. In whatever damage is done, all the scolding falls on him. A blockhead he must be expected to be called,—and if his head is not made a block of, thrice happy he. A woman is not expected to be a woman on a day of moving. She turns Furiband,—and has its prerogative.
After all, though the people in the country do have mud and mire,—no side walks,—no theatres,—no concerts,—no steam ships,—but few Balls, and less fun and frolic than we, yet they have a home, and are not all a moving on the 1st day of May. When they die, they are not dug up as we are. When they steal, their neighbors know it, whereas we don't know those who live next door to us, and might be sent to Sing Sing, and we never find it out. There they can have scandal, and tea parties, and taste all the tit-bits of gossip going about, but the city is too big for them. For our dirt and bricks and mortar they have flowers, and mud and mire, that they wallow in, on the roads. But they don't move, all of them on the 1st day of May, and are not then all made miserable at once. They are not scoured, cleansed, and whitewashed to death by their wives, or their mothers,—for if they are, we pity them from the bottom of our hearts. And is there no way for us to escape it? Can no physician discover a state of torpor that can be returned from? Is there no medical trance in which we can sleep a fortnight, or must we take,—and if so, oh, do let us take it with philosophic devotion.
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The number of children in the U. S. is estimated at four millions—of this number it is stated that one million are growing up without being instructed in reading or writing! Many thousands of the signatures of petitions to Congress consist merely of the marks of individuals who are unable to write their names! Such deplorable ignorance ought not to exist in this country. If we wish to transmit our republican government to posterity, we must extend the opportunities for intellectual and moral instruction. INTELLIGENCE and VIRTUE are the only safeguards of our free institutions.
