"Oh, when shall I visit the land of my birth,
The loveliest land on the face of the earth?
When shall I those scenes of affection explore,
Our forests, our fountains,
Our hamlets, our mountains,
With the pride of our mountains, the maid I adore?"
--MONTGOMERY.
It was truly news for an American, who had been so long cut off from
intelligence from home, thus suddenly to be told that some of the scenes
of the middle ages--scenes connected with real wrongs and gross abuses
of human rights--were about to be enacted in his own land; that country
which boasted itself, not only to be the asylum of the oppressed, but
the conservator of the right. I was grieved at what I had heard, for,
during my travels, I had cherished a much-loved image of justice and
political excellence, that I now began to fear must be abandoned. My
uncle and myself decided at once to return home, a step that indeed was
required by prudence. I was now of an age to enter into the full
possession of my own property (so far as "new laws and new lords" would
permit); and the letters received by my late guardian, as well as
certain newspapers, communicated the unpleasant fact that a great many
of the tenants of Ravensnest had joined the association, paid tribute
for the support of "Injins," and were getting to be as bad as any of the
rest of them, so far as designs and schemes to plunder were concerned,
though they still paid their rents. The latter circumstance was ascribed
by our agent to the fact that many leases were about to fall in, and it
would be in my power to substitute more honest and better-disposed
successors for the present occupants of the several farms. Measures were
taken accordingly for quitting Paris as soon as possible, so that we
might reach home late in the month of May.
"If we had time, I would certainly throw in a memorial or two to the
legislature," observed my uncle, a day or two before we proceeded to
Havre to join the packet. "I have a strong desire to protest against the
invasion of my rights as a freeman that is connected with some of their
contemplated laws. I do not at all like the idea of being abridged of
the power of hiring a farm for the longest time I can obtain it, which
is one of the projects of some of the ultra reformers of free and equal
New York. It is wonderful, Hugh, into what follies men precipitate
themselves as soon as they begin to run into exaggerations, whether of
politics, religion, or tastes. Here are half of the exquisite
philanthropists who see a great evil affecting the rights of human
nature in one man's hiring a farm from another for as long a term as he
can obtain it, who are at the very extreme in their opinion on free
trade! So free-trade are some of the journals which think it a capital
thing to prevent landlords and tenants from making their own bargains,
that they have actually derided the idea of having established fares for
hackney-coaches, but that it would be better to let the parties stand in
the rain and higgle about the price, on the free-trade principle. Some
of these men are either active agents in stimulating the legislature to
rob the citizen of this very simple control of his property, or passive
lookers-on while others do it."
"Votes, sir, votes."
"It is indeed votes, sir, votes; nothing short of votes could reconcile
these men to their own inconsistencies. As for yourself, Hugh, it might
be well to get rid of that canopied pew----"
"Of what canopied pew? I am sure I do not understand you."
"Do you forget that the family-pew in St. Andrew's Church, at
Ravensnest, has a wooden canopy over it--a relic of our colonial
opinions and usages?"
"Now you mention it, I do remember a very clumsy, and, to own the truth,
a very ugly thing, that I have always supposed was placed there, by
those who built the church, by way of ornament."
"That ugly thing, by way of ornament, was intended for a sort of canopy,
and was by no means an uncommon distinction in the State and colony, as
recently as the close of the last century. The church was built at the
expense of my grandfather, General Littlepage, and his bosom friend and
kinsman, Colonel Dirck Follock, both good Whigs and gallant defenders of
the liberty of their country. They thought it proper that the
Littlepages should have a canopied pew, and that is the state in which
they caused the building to be presented to my father. The old work
still stands; and Dunning writes me that, among the other arguments used
against your interests, is the fact that your pew is thus distinguished
from those of the rest of the congregation."
"It is a distinction no man would envy me, could it be known that I have
ever thought the clumsy, ill-shaped thing a nuisance, and detestable as
an ornament. I have never even associated it in my mind with personal
distinction, but have always supposed it was erected with a view to
embellish the building, and placed over our pew as the spot where such
an excrescence would excite the least envy."
"In all that, with one exception, you have judged quite naturally. Forty
years ago such a thing might have been done, and the majority of the
parishioners would have seen in it nothing out of place. But that day
has gone by; and you will discover that, on your own estate, and in the
very things created by your family and yourself, you will actually have
fewer rights of any sort, beyond those your money will purchase, than
any man around you. The simple fact that St. Andrew's Church was built
by your great-grandfather, and by him presented to the congregation,
will diminish your claim to have a voice in its affairs, with many of
the congregation."
"This is so extraordinary, that I must ask the reason."
"The reason is connected with a principle so obviously belonging to
human nature generally, and to American nature in particular, that I
wonder you ask it. It is envy. Did that pew belong to the Newcomes, for
instance, no one would think anything of it."
"Nevertheless, the Newcomes would make themselves ridiculous by sitting
in a pew that was distinguished from those of their neighbors. The
absurdity of the contrast would strike every one."
"And it is precisely because the absurdity does not exist in your case,
that your seat is envied. No one envies absurdity. However, you will
readily admit, Hugh, that a church and a church-yard are the two last
places in which human distinction ought to be exhibited. All are equal
in the eyes of Him we go to the one to worship, and all are equal in the
grave. I have ever been averse to everything like worldly distinction in
a congregation, and admire the usage of the Romish Church in even
dispensing with pews altogether. Monuments speak to the world, and have
a general connection with history, so that they be tolerated to a
certain point, though notorious liars."
"I agree with you, sir, as to the unfitness of a church for all
distinction, and shall be happy on every account to get rid of my
canopy, though that has an historical connection, also. I am quite
innocent of any feeling of pride while sitting under it, though I will
confess to some of shame at its quizzical shape, when I see it has
attracted the eyes of intelligent strangers."
"It is but natural that you should feel thus; for, while we may miss
distinctions and luxuries to which we have ever been accustomed, they
rarely excite pride in the possessor, even while they awaken envy in the
looker-on."
"Nevertheless, I cannot see what the old pew has to do with the rents or
my legal rights."
"When a cause is bad, everything is pressed into it that it is believed
may serve a turn. No man who had a good legal claim for property, would
ever think of urging any other; nor would any legislator who had sound
and sufficient reasons for his measures--reasons that could properly
justify him before God and man, for his laws--have recourse to slang to
sustain him. If these anti-renters were right, they would have no need
of secret combinations or disguises, blood-and-thunder names, and
special agents in the legislature of the land. The right requires no
false aid to make it appear the right; but the wrong must get such
support as it can press into its service. Your pew is called
aristocratic, though it confers no political power; it is called a
patent of nobility, though it neither gives nor takes away, and it is
hated, and you with it, for the very reason that you can sit in it and
not make yourself ridiculous. I suppose you have not examined very
closely the papers I gave you to read?"
"Enough so to ascertain that they are filled with trash."
"Worse than trash, Hugh; with some of the loosest principles, and most
atrocious feelings, that degrade poor human nature. Some of the
reformers propose that no man shall hold more than a thousand acres of
land, while others lay down the very intelligible and distinct principle
that no man ought to hold more than he can use. Even petitions to that
effect, I have been told, have been sent to the legislature."
"Which has taken care not to allude to their purport, either in debate
or otherwise, as I see nothing to that effect in the reports."
"Ay, I dare say the slang-whangers of those honorable bodies will
studiously keep all such enormities out of sight, as some of them
doubtless hope to step into the shoes of the present landlords, as soon
as they can get the feet out of them which are now in. But these are the
projects and the petitions in the columns of the journals, and they
speak for themselves. Among other things, they say it is nobility to be
a landlord."
"I see by the letter of Mr. Dunning, that they have petitioned the
legislature to order an inquiry into my title. Now, we hold from the
crown----"
"So much the worse, Hugh. Faugh! hold from a crown in a republican
country! I am amazed you are not ashamed to own it. Do you not know,
boy, that it has been gravely contended in a court of justice that, in
obtaining our national independence from the King of Great Britain, the
people conquered all his previous grants, which ought to be declared
void and of none effect?"
"That is an absurdity of which I had not heard," I answered, laughing;
"why, the people of New York, who held all their lands under the crown,
would in that case have been conquering them for other persons! My good
grandfather and great-grandfather, both of whom actually fought and bled
in the revolution, must have been very silly thus to expose themselves
to take away their own estates, in order to give them to a set of
immigrants from New England and other parts of the world."
"Quite justly said, Hugh," added my uncle, joining in the laugh. "Nor is
this half of the argument. The State, too, in its corporate character,
has been playing the swindler all this time. You may not know the fact,
but I as your guardian do know, that the quit-rents reserved by the
crown when it granted the lands of Mooseridge and Ravensnest, were
claimed by the State; and that, wanting money to save the people from
taxes, it commuted with us, receiving a certain gross sum in
satisfaction of all future claims."
"Ay, _that_ I did not know. Can the fact be shown?"
"Certainly--it is well known to all old fellows like myself, for it was
a very general measure, and very generally entered into by all the
landholders. In our case, the receipts are still to be found among the
family papers. In the cases of the older estates, such as those of the
Van Rensselaers, the equity is still stronger in their favor, since the
conditions to hold the land included an obligation to bring so many
settlers from Europe within a given time; conditions that were fulfilled
at great cost, as you may suppose, and on which, in truth, the colony
had its foundation."
"How much it tells against a people's honesty to wish to forget such
facts, in a case like this!"
"There is nothing forgotten, for the facts were probably never known to
those who prate about the conquered rights from the crown. As you say,
however, the civilization of a community is to be measured by its
consciousness of the existence of all principles of justice, and a
familiarity with its own history. The great bulk of the population of
New York have no active desire to invade what is right in this anti-rent
struggle, having no direct interests at stake; _their_ crime is a
passive inactivity, which allows those who are either working for
political advancement, or those who are working to obtain other men's
property, to make use of them, through their own laws."
"But is it not an embarrassment to such a region as that directly around
Albany, to have such tenures to the land, and for so large a body of
people to be compelled to pay rent, in the very heart of the State, as
it might be, and in situations that render it desirable to leave
enterprise as unshackled as possible?"
"I am not prepared to admit this much, even, as a general principle. One
argument used by these anti-renters is, for instance, that the patroons,
in their leases, reserved the mill-seats. Now, what if they did? Some
one must own the mill-seats; and why not the patroon as well as another?
To give the argument any weight, not as law, not as morals, but as mere
expediency, it must be shown that the patroons would not let these
mill-seats at as low rents as any one else; and my opinion is, that they
would let them at rents of not half the amount that would be asked, were
they the property of so many individuals scattered up and down the
country. But, admitting that so large an estate of this particular sort
has some inconveniences in that particular spot, can there be two
opinions among men of integrity about the mode of getting rid of it?
Every thing has its price, and, in a business sense, everything is
entitled to its price. No people acknowledge this more than the
Americans, or practise on it so extensively. Let the Rensselaers be
tempted by such offers as will induce them to sell, but do not let them
be invaded by that most infernal of all acts of oppression, special
legislation, in order to bully or frighten them from the enjoyment of
what is rightfully their own. If the State think such a description of
property injurious in its heart, let the State imitate England in her
conduct toward the slaveholders--_buy_ them out; not _tax_ them out, and
_wrong_ them out, and _annoy_ them out. But, Hugh, enough of this at
present; we shall have much more than we want of it when we get home.
Among my letters, I have one from each of my other wards."
"'Still harping on my daughter,' sir!" I answered, laughing. "I hope
that the vivacious Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke, and the meek Miss Anne
Marston, are both perfectly well!"
"Both in excellent health, and both write charmingly. I must really let
you see the letter of Henrietta, as I do think it is quite creditable to
her; I will step into my room and get it."
I ought to let the reader into a secret here that will have some
connection with what is to follow. A dead-set had been made at me,
previously to leaving home, to induce me to marry either of three young
ladies--Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke, Miss Anne Marston, and Miss
Opportunity Newcome. The advances in the case of Miss Henrietta
Coldbrooke and Miss Anne Marston came from my uncle Ro, who, as their
guardian, had a natural interest in their making what he was pleased to
think might be a good connection for either; while the advances on
account of Miss Opportunity Newcome came from herself. Under such
circumstances, it may be well to say who these young ladies actually
were.
Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke was the daughter of an Englishman of good
family, and some estate, who had emigrated to America and married, under
the impulse of certain theories in politics which induced him to imagine
that this was the promised land. I remember him as a disappointed and
dissatisfied widower, who was thought to be daily growing poorer under
the consequences of indiscreet investments, and who at last got to be so
very English in his wishes and longings, as to assert that the common
Muscovy was a better bird than the canvas-back! He died, however, in
time to leave his only child an estate which, under my uncle's excellent
management, was known by me to be rather more than one hundred and
seventy-nine thousand dollars, and which produced a net eight thousand a
year. This made Miss Henrietta a belle at once; but, having a prudent
friend in my grandmother, as yet she had not married a beggar. I knew
that uncle Ro went quite as far as was proper, in his letters, in the
way of hints touching myself; and my dear, excellent, honest-hearted,
straightforward old grandmother had once let fall an expression, in one
of her letters to myself, which induced me to think that these hints had
actually awakened as much interest in the young lady's bosom, as could
well be connected with what was necessarily nothing but curiosity.
Miss Anne Marston was also an heiress, but on a very diminished scale.
She had rather more than three thousand a year in buildings in town, and
a pretty little sum of about sixteen thousand dollars laid by out of its
savings. She was not an only child, however, having two brothers, each
of whom had already received as much as the sister, and each of whom, as
is very apt to be the case with the heirs of New York merchants, was
already in a fair way of getting rid of his portion in riotous living.
Nothing does a young American so much good, under such circumstances, as
to induce him to travel. It makes or breaks at once. If a downright
fool, he is plucked by European adventurers in so short a time, that the
agony is soon over. If only vain and frivolous, because young and
ill-educated, the latter being a New York endemic, but with some
foundation of native mind, he lets his whiskers grow, becomes fuzzy
about the chin, dresses better, gets to be much better mannered, soon
loses his taste for the low and vulgar indulgences of his youth, and
comes out such a gentleman as one can only make who has entirely thrown
away the precious moments of youth. If tolerably educated in boyhood,
with capacity to build on, the chances are that the scales will fall
from his eyes very fast on landing in the old world--that his ideas and
tastes will take a new turn--that he will become what nature intended
him for, an intellectual man; and that he will finally return home,
conscious alike of the evils and blessings, the advantages and
disadvantages, of his own system and country--a wiser, and it is to be
hoped a better man. How the experiment had succeeded with the Marstons,
neither myself nor my uncle knew; for they had paid their visit while we
were in the East, and had already returned to America. As for Miss Anne,
she had a mother to take care of her mind and person, though I had
learned she was pretty, sensible and discreet.
Miss Opportunity Newcome was a belle of Ravensnest, a village on my own
property; a rural beauty, and of rural education, virtues, manners and
habits. As Ravensnest was not particularly advanced in civilization, or,
to make use of the common language of the country, was not a very
"aristocratic place," I shall not dwell on her accomplishments, which
did well enough for Ravensnest, but would not essentially ornament my
manuscript.
Opportunity was the daughter of Ovid, who was the son of Jason, of the
house of Newcome. In using the term "house," I adopt it understandingly;
for the family had dwelt in the same tenement, a leasehold property of
which the fee was in myself, and the dwelling had been associated with
the name of Newcome from time immemorial; that is, for about eighty
years. All that time had a Newcome been the tenant of the mill, tavern,
store, and farm, that lay nearest the village of Ravensnest, or Little
Nest, as it was commonly called; and it may not be impertinent to the
moral of my narrative if I add that, for all that time, and for
something longer, had I and my ancestors been the landlords. I beg the
reader to bear this last fact in mind, as there will soon be occasion to
show that there was a strong disposition in certain persons to forget
it.
As I have said, Opportunity was the daughter of Ovid. There was also a
brother, who was named Seneca, or Seneky, as he always pronounced it
himself, the son of Ovid, the son of Jason, the first of the name at
Ravensnest. This Seneca was a lawyer, in the sense of a license granted
by the Justices of the Supreme Court, as well as by the Court of Common
Pleas, in and for the county of Washington. As there had been a sort of
hereditary education among the Newcomes for three generations, beginning
with Jason, and ending with Seneca; and as the latter was at the bar, I
had occasionally been thrown into the society of both brother and
sister. The latter, indeed, used to be fond of visiting the Nest, as my
house was familiarly called, Ravensnest being its true name, whence
those of the "patent" and village; and as Opportunity had early
manifested a partiality for my dear old grandmother, and not less dear
young sister, who occasionally passed a few weeks with me during the
vacations, more especially in the autumns, I had many occasions of being
brought within the influence of her charms--opportunities that I feel
bound to state, Opportunity did not neglect. I have understood that her
mother, who bore the same name, had taught Ovid the art of love by a
very similar demonstration, and had triumphed. That lady was still
living, and may be termed Opportunity the Great, while the daughter can
be styled Opportunity the Less. There was very little difference between
my own years and those of the young lady; and, as I had last passed
through the fiery ordeal at the sinister age of twenty, there was not
much danger in encountering the risk anew, now I was five years older.
But I must return to my uncle and the letter of Miss Henrietta
Coldbrooke.
"Here it is, Hugh," cried my guardian, gayly; "and a capital letter it
is! I wish I could read the whole of it to you; but the two girls made
me promise never to show their letters to any one, which could mean only
you, before they would promise to write anything to me beyond
commonplaces. Now, I get their sentiments freely and naturally, and the
correspondence is a source of much pleasure to me. I think, however, I
might venture just to give you one extract."
"You had better not, sir; there would be a sort of treachery in it, that
I confess I would rather not be accessory to. If Miss Coldbrooke does
not wish me to read what she writes, she can hardly wish that you should
read any of it to me."
Uncle Ro glanced at me, and I fancied he seemed dissatisfied with my
_nonchalance_. He read the letter through to himself, however, laughing
here, smiling there, then muttering "capital!" "good!" "charming girl!"
"worthy of Hannah More!" etc., etc., as if just to provoke my curiosity.
But I had no desire to read "Hannah More," as any young fellow of
five-and-twenty can very well imagine, and I stood it all with the
indifference of a stoic. My guardian had to knock under, and put the
letters in his writing desk.
"Well, the girls will be glad to see us," he said, after a moment of
reflection, "and not a little surprised. In my very last letter to my
mother, I sent them word that we should not be home until October; and
now we shall see them as early as June, at least."
"Patt will be delighted, I make no doubt. As for the other two young
ladies, they have so many friends and relations to care for, that I
fancy our movements give them no great concern."
"Then you do both injustice, as their letters would prove. They take the
liveliest interest in our proceedings, and speak of my return as if they
look for it with the greatest expectation and joy."
I made my uncle Ro a somewhat saucy answer; but fair dealing compels me
to record it.
"I dare say they do, sir," was my reply; "but what young lady does not
look with '_expectation_ and joy' for the return of a friend, who is
known to have a long purse, from Paris?"
"Well, Hugh, you deserve neither of those dear girls; and, if I can help
it, you shall have neither."
"Thank'ee, sir!"
"Poh! this is worse than silly--it is rude. I dare say neither would
accept you, were you to offer to-morrow."
"I trust not, sir, for her own sake. It would be a singularly palpable
demonstration were either to accept a man she barely knew, and whom she
had not seen since she was fifteen."
Uncle Ro laughed, but I could see he was confoundedly vexed; and, as I
loved him with all my heart, though I did not love match-making, I
turned the discourse, in a pleasant way, on our approaching departure.
"I'll tell you what I'll do, Hugh," cried my uncle, who was a good deal
of a boy in some things, for the reason, I suppose, that he was an old
bachelor; "I'll just have wrong names entered on board the packet, and
we'll surprise all our friends. Neither Jacob nor your man will betray
us, we know; and, for that matter, we can send them both home by the way
of England. Each of us has trunks in London to be looked after, and let
the two fellows go by the way of Liverpool. That is a good thought, and
occurred most happily."
"With all my heart, sir. My fellow is of no more use to me at sea than
an automaton would be, and I shall be glad to get rid of his rueful
countenance. He is a capital servant on _terra firma_, but a perfect
Niobe on the briny main."
The thing was agreed on; and, a day or two afterward, both our
body-servants, that is to say, Jacob the black and Hubert the German,
were on their way to England. My uncle let his apartment again, for he
always maintained I should wish to bring my bride to pass a winter in
it; and we proceeded to Havre in a sort of incognito. There was little
danger of our being known on board the packet, and we had previously
ascertained that there was not an acquaintance of either in the ship.
There was a strong family resemblance between my uncle and myself, and
we passed for father and son in the ship, as old Mr. Davidson and young
Mr. Davidson, of Maryland--or Myr-r-land, as it is Doric to call that
State. We had no concern in this part of the deception, unless
abstaining from calling my supposed father "uncle," as one would
naturally do in strange society, can be so considered.
The passage itself--by the way, I wish all landsmen would be as accurate
as I am here, and understand that a "voyage" means "out" and "home," or
"thence" and "back again," while a "passage" means from place to
place--but our passage was pregnant with no events worth recording. We
had the usual amount of good and bad weather, the usual amount of eating
and drinking, and the usual amount of ennui. The latter circumstance,
perhaps, contributed to the digesting of a further scheme of my uncle's,
which it is now necessary to state.
A reperusal of his letters and papers had induced him to think the
anti-rent movement a thing of more gravity, even, than he had at first
supposed. The combination on the part of the tenants, we learned also
from an intelligent New Yorker who was a fellow-passenger, extended much
further than our accounts had given us reason to believe; and it was
deemed decidedly dangerous for landlords, in many cases, to be seen on
their own estates. Insult, personal degradation, or injury, and even
death, it was thought, might be the consequences in many cases. The
blood actually spilled had had the effect to check the more violent
demonstrations, it is true; but the latent determination to achieve
their purposes was easily to be traced among the tenants, in the face of
all their tardy professions of moderation, and a desire for nothing but
what was right. In this case, what was right was the letter and spirit
of the contracts; and nothing was plainer than the fact that these were
not what was wanted.
Professions pass for nothing, with the experienced, when connected with
a practice that flatly contradicts them. It was only too apparent to all
who chose to look into the matter, and that by evidence which could not
mislead, that the great body of the tenants in various counties of New
York were bent on obtaining interests in their farms that were not
conveyed by their leases, without the consent of their landlords, and
insomuch that they were bent on doing that which should be
discountenanced by every honest man in the community. The very fact that
they supported, or in any manner connived at, the so-called "Injin"
system, spoke all that was necessary as to their motives; and, when we
come to consider that these "Injins" had already proceeded to the
extremity of shedding blood, it was sufficiently plain that things must
soon reach a crisis.
My uncle Roger and myself reflected on all these matters calmly, and
decided on our course, I trust, with prudence. As that decision has
proved to be pregnant with consequences that are likely to affect my
future life, I shall now briefly give an outline of what induced us to
adopt it.
It was all-important for us to visit Ravensnest in person, while it
might be hazardous to do so openly. The Nest house stood in the very
centre of the estate, and, ignorant as we were of the temper of the
tenants, it might be indiscreet to let our presence be known; and
circumstances favored our projects of concealment. We were not expected
to reach the country at all until autumn, or "fall," as that season of
the year is poetically called in America; and this gave us the means of
reaching the property unexpectedly, and, as we hoped, undetected. Our
arrangement, then, was very simple, and will be best related in the
course of the narrative.
The packet had a reasonably short passage, as we were twenty-nine days
from land to land. It was on a pleasant afternoon in May when the
hummock-like heights of Nevesink were first seen from the deck; and an
hour later we came in sight of the tower-resembling sails of the
coasters which were congregating in the neighborhood of the low point of
land that is so very appropriately called _Sandy_ Hook. The light-houses
rose out of the water soon after, and objects on the shore of New Jersey
next came gradually out of the misty background, until we got near
enough to be boarded, first by the pilot, and next by the news-boat; the
first preceding the last, for a wonder, news usually being far more
active, in this good republic, than watchfulness to prevent evil. My
uncle Ro gave the crew of this news-boat a thorough scrutiny, and,
finding no one on board her whom he had ever before seen, he bargained
for a passage up to town.
We put our feet on the Battery just as the clocks of New York were
striking eight. A custom-house officer had examined our carpet-bags and
permitted them to pass, and we had disburdened ourselves of the effects
in the ship, by desiring the captain to attend to them. Each of us had a
town-house, but neither would go near his dwelling; mine being only kept
up in winter, for the use of my sister and aunt, who kindly took charge
of her during the season, while my uncle's was opened principally for
his mother. At that season, we had reason to think neither was tenanted
but by one or two old family servants; and it was our cue also to avoid
them. But "Jack Dunning," as my uncle always called him, was rather more
of a friend than of an agent; and he had a bachelor establishment in
Chambers Street that was precisely the place we wanted. Thither, then,
we proceeded, taking the route of Greenwich Street, fearful of meeting
some one in Broadway by whom we might be recognized.