facturer; Reynolds kept a beer shop; "The Pewter Mug" was the favorite drinking place of the Tammany braves, and Simon Thomas, a gentleman of color, was the fashionable caterer. " The Forum " was a debating society to which the chief spouters of the town belonged. The list of prom inent citizens is long. The lawyers, poli ticians, office-holders, and military persons are too numerous to mention. The editors who were also poets were Bryant, and Woodworth, author of "The Old Oaken Bucket"; those who wrote only prose were Coleman, Noah, Spooner, and John Lang (over whose door was a bust of Franklin, preserved by the New York Historical Society). The great doctors were Mitchell, Hosack, Fran cis, Quackenboss, and MacNevin; and Home and Dc Angclis were notorious quacks. Bronaugh was the leading surgeon. Jarvis was the swell portrait painter, and Dunlop was painter and historian of Ameri can art. Jacob Sherred was painter and glazier. Bishop Hobart was the chief ec clesiastic. Colden was the principal histor ian. Paulding was the favorite novelist. Charles King was president of Columbia College. The great merchants were Astor, Mumford, William Bayard and Benjamin Bailey. Mitchell and Hosack were emi nent in science, and James E. De Kay was
a zoologist. Philip Brasher was an epi cure, Baron von Hoffman a society imposter, and Potter a ventriloquist. The best known mayors were De Witt Clinton, Philip Hone and Colden; the county clerks, James Lent and Giles Gilbert; justices of peace, Chris tian and Warner; the sheriff, James L. Bell, and the court crier, "Barty" Skaats. The crack military company was Murray's Guards. The favorite foreign authors seem to have been Lady Morgan and Mmc. De Stael, and Trumbull and West were ac counted great painters. Special mention is made of every one of the foregoing, and merciless fun is made of most of them by "The Croakers." The only judicial officer to whom much attention is paid is "The Recorder." The annual flight of the New York city politicians and office-holders was a serious journey of several days by stage coach in those days, very different from the two-hours trip, alleviated by poker-playing, in a parlor-car compartment, which is the present rule. Therefore the poet wrote "A Lament for Great Ones Departed," i. e. gone to Albany, in which he finds "Some consolations still remain, For Dicky Riker still is left us '"
and thanks to the poet's witchery this quaint and picturesque legal figure of the olden time is still left us.
