for a background; on the fence is a string of favorite ballads and popular songs; a mock auctioneer shouts from one door, and a silent wax effigy gazes from another.  Pisani, who accompanied Prince Napoleon in his yacht-voyage to America, calls Broadway a bazaar made up of savagery and civilization, a mile and a half long; and M. Fisch, a French pasteur, was surprised at the sight of palaces six or seven stories high devoted to commerce and les figures fines et gracieuses, la demarche legere et libre des femmes, les allures vives de toute la population.  The shopkeepers are urbanely courteous, says one traveller.  “Horses and harness are fine, but equipages inferior,” observes another; while a third remarks, after witnessing the escapade of vehicles in Broadway:  “American coachmen are the most adroit in the world.”

It has been said that a Paris gamin would laugh at our fetes; and yet, if such a loyal custodian as one of the old sacristans we meet abroad, who has kept a life-vigil in a famous cathedral, or such a vigilant chronicler as was Dr. Gemmelaro, who for years noted in a diary the visitors to AEtna, and all the phenomena of the volcano,—­if such a fond sentinel were to have watched, even for less than a century, and recorded the civic, military, and industrial processions of Broadway, what a panoramic view we should have of the fortunes, development, and transitions of New York!  The last of the cocked-hats would appear with the final relics of Dutch and Quaker costume; the celebration of the opening of the Erie Canal would seem consummated by the festivals that signalized the introduction of Croton, and the success of the Atlantic Telegraph; the funeral cortege of Washington would precede that of scores of patriots and heroes, from Hamilton and Lawrence to John Quincy Adams and General Wadsworth; Scott would reappear victorious from Mexico, Kossuth’s plumed hat wave again to the crowd, grim Jackson’s white head loom once more to the eager multitude, and Lafayette’s courteous greetings win their cheers; St. Patrick’s interminable line of followers would contrast with the robes and tails of the Japanese,—­the lanterns of a political battalion, with the badges of a masonic fraternity,—­the obsolete uniform of the “Old Continentals,” with the red shirts of the firemen and the miniature banners of a Sunday-school phalanx,—­the gay citizen soldiers who turned out to honor Independence or Evacuation Day, with the bronzed and maimed veterans bringing home their bullet-torn flags from the bloody field of a triumphant patriotic war,—­the first negro regiment raised therefor cheerily escorted by the Union League Club, with the sublime funeral train of the martyred President.  Including party demonstrations, popular ovations, memorable receptions and obsequies,—­Broadway processions, historically speaking, uniquely illustrate the civic growth, the political freedom, the cosmopolitan sympathies, and the social prosperity of New York.