that he would appear in Macbeth on a certain evening, at this place. Edwin Forrest, the American tragedian, had not been well received in England a few years before, owing to the alleged influence of Macready, and as Forrest was extremely popular with a certain order of people in New York, the spirit of retaliation was easily provoked. A howling mob gathered in Astor Place to drive Macready from the stage during the performance of the play. The Opera House was filled with one of New York's best audiences; but disaffected persons were distributed through the building, and no sooner did Macready appear on the stage than he was greeted with hisses, and a shower of eggs, chairs, and other missiles. The utmost confusion and terror prevailed, ladies crept under the seats for safety, the police made a few arrests, order was temporarily restored, and the play proceeded. By this time the mob outside numbered some twenty thousand, extending far back into Lafayette Place, and it was composed of the worst class in the city, with piles of paving-stones at hand, where the street sewers were being repaired, to be used as deadly weapons of warfare. Three hundred policemen were driven back after a gallant struggle to disperse the angry rioters who were making violent attempts to force the entrances to the Opera House. Doors and windows were hurriedly barricaded from within, but assailed with terrible fury, some of the pavingstones passing through the glass and lighting in the midst of the assemblage. It was a wild scene never to be forgotten by the pallid-faced ladies and gentlemen who momentarily expected the resistless multitude would burst into the building. In this fearful emergency the Seventh Regiment was summoned by the civil authorities, and at nine o'clock appeared in Astor Place, preceded by mounted men ten abreast. The volley of stones which met them rendered the horses unmanageable, but the citizen soldiers marched bravely forward in platoons, through Astor Place to Third Avenue, then back, driving the mob from Eighth Street, throwing a guard of police across at each end, and moving through Broadway a second time into Astor Place. With howls and cries the stones were flying in every direction, many persons were injured and some killed, and all efforts to appease the infuriated multitude proved fruitless; thus authority was given to fire. The first volley was purposely aimed high, but not the second. Seventeen persons were killed instantly, and others died soon after from their wounds. Then pressing hard upon the flying mob the troops soon cleared Astor Place. The rioters rallied after a few moments and returned to the attack, but a third volley scattered them, completely ending the riot and liberating the imprisoned audience. The city was disorderly for the next three days and the military were constantly on duty. Fifty or

sixty of the rioters were wounded, and not less than twenty killed. Of the gallant Seventh Regiment one hundred and fifty of the officers and men were seriously injured by the stones, seventy of whom were carried to their homes-but subsequently recovered. Judge Robert Emmet, son of the great lawyer, Thomas Addis Emmet, assisted Macready to escape

from the Opera House, and secreted him in his own dwelling in Clinton Place, for two days and nights, then drove him disguised in his own carriage to New Rochelle, and thence to Boston, whence he sailed for England.

Not long after the riot the Opera House was purchased and remodeled for the uses of the Mercantile Library, which had been founded in the winter of 1821 with seven hundred volumes, and since 1830 had occupied Clinton Hall, corner of Nassau and Beekman Streets. This hall received

its name from De Witt Clinton, who gave the first book to the library—a History of England. The new Astor Place home, also called Clinton Hall, was opened April 19, 1854, with interesting ceremonies, and addresses from Governor Seymour, John Romeyn Brodhead, the historian, and President King, of Columbia College. This location was then considered the best in New York for the promotion of the welfare of such a library; and for more than one full generation it has steadily progressed in usefulness, containing at this writing two hundred and seven thousand volumes, with a reading-room including all the chief publications of our own country and of Europe.

Lafayette Place has been conspicuous as the starting-point for innumerable parades and processions, some of them historical in their consequences, through its convenient situation and comfortable breadth. Here the Seventh Regiment, "bowered in flags and streamers, amid outbursts of cheers and songs, and fresh tears and farewell gestures from the overlooking windows," formed on that eventful 19th of April, 1861, for its march to the war; and here the Orangemen formed and started on the 12th of July, 1871—a parade that ended in a serious and memorable riot. But the historic houses in Lafayette Place, formerly graced by brilliant assemblages of fair women and brave men, have not, like those in Wall Street of an earlier date, been converted, when Fashion became uneasy and moved on, into great monetary institutions, nor, as in some other patrician quarters, transformed into furniture salesrooms and milliner shops. The intellectual character of this locality has been, through all the process of change, grandly sustained. Scholars and book-worms, in constantly increasing numbers, have been attracted to Astor Library, and an epidemic of literature, so to speak, has swept through the length and breadth of the quiet and attractive little Place. It has broken out literally with periodicals. The Churchman occupies one of the historic homes in the Terrace; the Christian Union is issued weekly from another historic dwelling, which is also the abode of Frederick Warne & Company, the London agents of the Century magazine; the Critic drew inspiration for a successful career from "talking walls" in the same historic atmosphere; and the North American Review and the Magazine of American History together occupy, with their editorial and business offices, the antique Sands mansion, which appears in the picture on page 13, adjoining the historic home of Mr. William B. Astor. Thus, guarded by its two libraries, the Astor and the Mercantile, with the New York Society and Historical libraries and the Bible House and Cooper Union just outside, as if on picket duty, and its two great printing-houses of Little and De Vinne,

with prominent publishers on every side, not only within, but just beyond its borders-as, for instance, Routledge, Johnson, the Appletons, Baker and Taylor, Scribners, Cassell, Armstrong, Dodd and Mead, Orange Judd, Ivison, Blakeman and Taylor, and a host of others-Lafayette Place is becoming in fact as well as prophecy the literary and publishing centre of the metropolis.

It is possible that to the average New Yorker of to-day Lafayette Place is almost as much of an unknown quantity as it was to the citizen of fifty years ago; to those who are on the wave of hurry and bustle, whether of business or pleasure, with no pressing needs for the consulta. tion of books of reference, and no overmastering desire for knowledge beyond that already attained in the school-room and from experience in life's affairs, the whole story of the career of this little corner of the metropolis will undoubtedly be new. But, on the other hand, a not inconsiderable portion of the oldest and most cultivated element of the community have been in one way or another associated with the life of Lafayette Place during its distinguishing period of more than one-third of a century as the "Court End of the town," and thus are familiar with its scenes and incidents, and ready at all times to add to its delightful reminiscences. And strangers who visit the city from every part of the known world never think of leaving it until they have seen, among its most important features, the Astor Library, irrespective of any desire they may have to study within its halls and alcoves. The locality can never be divested of its varied and peculiar historic charms.

Martha I Lamb

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THE DONGAN CHARTER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK

ITS TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY

The most dramatic event in the history of New York occurred in September, 1664.

Four English ships, in the bay, on which were five hundred soldiers, trained one hundred guns against the little Dutch Fort of New Amsterdam, then in a dilapidated condition, and commanded by hills within pistol shot. Connecticut colonists, under John Winthrop, and English settlers from Long Island, both always hostile to the Dutch, swelled the invading force. Transports were landing troops just below Breuckelen; and arms glistened from float and barge, as the invaders crossed the bay. Stuyvesant, the stout and war-worn director, with his two hundred and fifty men and a few rounds of powder, still determined to strike a blow for his province; and, standing on one of the outer bastions, pointed his guns at the hated ships. Men, with matches lighted at his side, ready for the signal to fire! A throng of the notables-Burgomasters, Schepens, and Burghers—pressed about him, begging him to surrender, and exhibiting the hopeless condition of the little city. Finally, Dominie Megapolensis and his son, imploring the director not to commence hostilities, which must end in destruction, led him, between them, protesting and sorrowful, from the ramparts.

With arms fixed, drums beating, colors flying, and matches lighted, according to the honorable terms of capitulation, the Dutch soldiers marched down Beaver Lane to the water-side; thence to embark for Holland; there to gain glory in its defense against Louis XIV. and his invading hosts. The Dutch tricolor came down; and, that evening, the red cross of St. George and the white cross of St. Andrew, combined in the Union Jacque, waved over the fort, which then became Fort James, "New Amsterdam" became "New York," and England became mistress, all along the Atlantic coast, from Acadia to Florida.

At a last session of the Magistrates, a plaintive lament went over from the Stad Huys to Vaderland, addressed "To the Right Honorable prudent Lords, the Lords Directors of the Honorable West India Company." The memorial relates the history of the siege, and concludes thus: "Meanwhile, since we have no longer to depend on your honor's promises cr protection, we, with all the poor surviving and abandoned commonalty here,