conduct the business of the Police Court, and have at their disposal a captain of the watch, at 800 dollars per annum, who superintends a night-patrol from 10 o'clock till daylight, and 25 constables for day-duty only. The judge of the Municipal Court, at a salary of 1400 dollars a year, presides over this court, in which are trieď all persons indicted by the grand jury of the county of Suffolk, in which Boston is placed, for offences not punishable with death; and one of the justices of the Police Court presides there over trials of civil causes not involving a larger sum than 20 dollars in dispute.

There is also a Probate-office for wills, in which are preserved the most perfect records of the genealogy of nearly all the families descended from the first pilgrim settlers of the country, and a Register-office for deeds; with all the requisite establishments of legal and financial officers, in the city solicitor, city auditor, assessors, &c., so that the municipal government may be said to be very complete, having every useful and no superfluous offices; all its members well paid, but none extravagantly rewarded, and their duties, consequently, well performed.

The annual revenue of the city for the year ending in April, 1838, was 560,000 dollars, arising chiefly from rents of lands, leases of wharves, markets, &c., belonging to the corporation, of which one wharf alone lets at 10,000 dollars a year. The purposes to which this revenue is applied embrace, among others, the following:

Salaries of the teachers in the Public Schools
Repairs, fuel, and contingent expenses of ditto
Land and buildings for Primary Schools

Paving and repairs of Streets.

Widening and extending Streets

Dollars

.

85,000

10,000

12,500

40,000

The markets of Boston are excellent, and well provided with every requisite of animal and vegetable food, as well as fruits in great variety, in their respective seasons. The most prominent of the public markets is that running from Faneuil Hall to the sea, called Quincy Market. Its length is 530 feet, and its breadth 65. The ground floor is devoted to the market, and above it are four ranges of stores, with granite fronts to each street, one of these streets being 65 feet, and the other 102 feet wide. In the centre of the entire range is a fine dome, and at either end is a portico and pediment, making, in the whole, one of the finest public markets in this country, and not surpassed in elegance and convenience by any that I remember elsewhere.

The public places of amusement in Boston are fewer than in

opened for equestrian exercises, and ranked with Astley's Amphitheatre at home. It has been occasionally used for melo-dramatic performances; but, like the first theatre of Boston, converted into the Odeon, the Lion is about to be transformed into a lecture-room, for which there is a greater demand than for theatres.

It is undoubtedly true, though the fact has been questioned in England, that the taste for theatrical entertainments does not exist among the generality of Americans. It has been asked, How is it possible to reconcile this with the fact that so many actors and actresses from England have made fortunes in the country? The answer is this. There is a great desire among all classes in the country to hear and see everything that is new, especially if it has had any celebrity in England; for, with all the jealousy that is felt of foreign superiority, and this is not a little, there is a great deference to English taste, and a desire on the part of every one to test this by examining for themselves the performances of all those who come to America with a high character for excellence at home. Accordingly, almost every one goes to see the new actor or hear the new singer for once; and this, repeated in every one of the large cities of the country, will accumulate a fortune for any one; but the second visit of the actor or singer is rarely or never successful; and a new person of much less talent will draw larger houses than one already seen or heard who might come again.

It is thus that each new actor is almost sure of a good reception; for, however mediocre their talents, they are sure to be seen once, and this is enough. Few retain their success for any length of time; and even when their own native favourite actor, Mr Forrest, plays, he is rarely engaged for more than three or four nights at a time, in any one city, after which he removes to some other. The resident families, even then, are not frequenters of the theatre or the concert to any great extent. It is the strangers and visiters in the city who furnish the audiences; and when it is remembered that there are hardly ever less than 50,000 foreigners and strangers in New-York, and that 125 stage-coaches, railroad-cars, steamboats, and other public conveyances arrive in Boston every day, there will be found in these more than sufficient to form the largest audiences that the theatres contain; and these, probably, only frequent them because they are from home, and have neither the inducements of domestic comfort nor the fears of public opinion to keep them away.

The first museum in Boston was opened in the year 1791. Like most of the infant museums scattered through the country towns of America at present, it consisted of a few wax figures and some curiosities in nature and art. It was entirely destroyed by fire in 1803. Another was erected in 1806, five stories high, and soon began to fill; but in 1807 this was also destroyed by fire, with all its con

BOSTON MUSEUM.-FIRES.

371

tents. A third was erected on the same spot, and opened in the same year; but in 1825 it was sold for 5000 dollars to a new body of proprietors, who established the New-England Museum, which is the one now existing, and was opened in 1818. This, too, was extensively injured by fire in 1832; and though it has received many additions since then, and its collection of curiosities is large, it is deficient in scientific arrangement and good taste. Like all the other museums we had yet seen in the country, it is regarded more as a place of amusement than a repository of specimens of the various productions of Nature in her several kingdoms; and all its arrangements are made to conduce rather to entertainment than to scientific information. It is made, indeed, a matter of profit, the admission of visiters being paid for at twenty-five cents each; and whatever is most likely to attract the greatest number of visiters is therefore sought out for the Museum.

Though fires seem to have so often committed their ravages on the Boston Museum, we were struck with the fact that this was the only city in the United States in which we had been residing for so long a time without seeing or hearing of a fire. I had at first thought we were in a peculiarly fortunate quarter of the town, and that fires might have happened in other streets without our seeing or hearing of them, until I met with the following paragraph, in which this fact was announced as a wonder, in the following

terms:

"No FIRES IN OCTOBER!-During the month of October, which ended yesterday, our citizens have been remarkably favoured in their exemption from fires, not one having occurred which was not extinguished without the aid of the Fire Department, and but one in which the department was alarmed. The following is a comparison of the number of fires, alarms, &c., in the same month in this and the two preceding years: October, 1836, Fire alarms, 9. October, 1837, Fire alarms, 6. October, 1838, Fire alarms, 1.

Fires in the city, 3.
Fires in the city, 2.
Fires in the city, 0.

Out of the city, 2.
Out of the city, 1.
Out of the city, 0.

There are three principal causes of this change and improvement: one is, the greater substantiality of all the new buildings, the gradual disappearance of wooden, and the substitution of stone and brick edifices; another is, the great decrease of intemperance among servants and others, from whose carelessness many of the fires of former days arose; and a third is, the excellence of the municipal arrangements of watch and police, and the promptness of the fire department, by all of which a great mass of property and many lives are annually saved from destruction.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Commerce and Manufactures.-Shipping compared with New-York.-Bay and Harbour of Boston.-Navy-yard.-Dry-dock and Ropewalk.-Ships of War, the Ohio and Columbus.-Statistics of the American Navy.-Efficiency of their Ships, Officers, and Crews.-Causes of this, as compared with the British Navy.-Number and Classes of American Naval Officers.-Total annual Expense of the American Navy.

THE manufactures and commerce of Massachusetts have been spoken of in describing the revenues of the state. The commerce of Boston is not so extensive nor so varied as that of New-York, but its merchants are more substantially opulent, and its operations are on a larger and more comprehensive scale. The trade with India and China is either carried on direct from Boston and Salem, or the capital for conducting it is furnished from thence, though the ships may nominally sail from and arrive at New-York. Many ships are engaged in the whale-fisheries from this port; and the Pacific Islands and the west coast of South America are frequently visited by Boston vessels. There are no sailing packets from hence to London, and only an occasional ship to that port or to Liverpool; New-York possessing almost the monopoly of trade to these ports, from her great natural advantages. The ships of Boston, though not so numerous as those of New-York, are large, substantial, and handsome vessels; and, like all American merchant ships, are abundantly well fitted in everything necessary to their safety, at anchor or at sea. Their crews are also composed of an adequate number of seamen, at good wages, and the ships are constantly kept in the best possible order and repair. In all these respects, as well as in that of uniting in their beautiful models the three qualities of good stowage, fast sailing, and riding well in a gale, they are decidedly superior to the average run of British vessels of the same class; consequently, they make better voyages, and return larger profits to their owners, officers, and crews.

An estimate may be formed of the comparative extent of shipbuilding and commerce in New-York and Massachusetts, by the statement of the commerce of the two states, and the number and class of vessels built in each in the year ending 1837, which was as follows:

Imports and exports of New-York State, 28,920,638 dollars.
Imports and exports of Massachusetts,

10,380,346.

The commerce of Massachusetts is scarcely, therefore, more than one third of the amount of the commerce of New-York, because New-York carries on the commerce of nearly all the interior states of the South and West as well as her own. In ship-building, how* The Cunard line of steam-packets has been since established.