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112 16 Miscellaneous At the time of the riot, we had emerged from the Sunday school room into the body of the church, and Mr. Raymond was preaching with great acceptance, so far as the greater part of his congregation was concerned. But his politics and some of his liberal ideas had made him enemies among an old and somewhat influential clique. The fact was that the church was out of date a little. It contained few men of brains or cultivation. Among these I must mention our family physician, Dr. Richardson, one of the best of men, for whom I formed a strong liking. But then, after losing his first partner, a good Presbyterian named Clary, he had taken in a fine-looking, scientific gentleman, who was looked at with horror by the good as being a, “Swedenborgian,” whatever that monster might be, and not one of them could have told, except that it was a kind of Parsee and Mahometan and Infidel who believed in ghosts. As a consequence, perhaps, of the shortage of men, the prayer meetings were largely dependent upon the women, and of these we were not by any means destitute. They were the strength of the church and, in spite of the misrenderings of St. Paul, I was confident that not one man in the meetings was at all the superior, if he was at all the equal, of my own mother. She never appeared more graceful, dignified, and altogether in her right place, than when she was addressing a crowded assemblage of men and women. The drift of events went on, after a troublesome fashion to my father and some other people, and the day came when Mr. Raymond gave it up and left the pulpit to take charge of the Daily Chronicle, a journal with pronounced antislavery tendencies, which was only a few years too far in 113 miscellaneous advance of the times for pecuniary success. It was, at least, an out and out good paper and had a good circulation to begin with, but it had no party behind it, for the Republican Party was as yet unborn.1 At the close of the next Summer, I had been in the bookstore a year and a half. Aided by my other enterprises, as to pocket money, I had been able to lay up nearly two thirds of my vast salary, of seventy-five dollars per annum. It was the year of the first World’s Fair in America [1853], and the wonderful Crystal Palace had been built for it in the city of New York.2 My father promptly consented when I proposed to him to go and see that palace and to travel elsewhere, as far as my money would take me, especially to see our relatives in Connecticut and the old family places. My wardrobe was in good condition and filled a small, old, hair trunk, while my plans and expectations would have filled several larger caskets than that. I went as far as Albany by rail and the baggage management of the Albany and Schenectady road was emphasized by the fact that I did not see my trunk delivered as its check required. I found it in a corner of the depot at Albany, where it had been forgotten by the careful baggage master. I had heard that similar forgetfulness had been even chronic and that a number of trunks theretofore missing had never been found at all. My trip down the river was performed by boat for two good reasons. One was that I wished to see the Hudson River, and the other was that rival steamboats were running a fierce competition, so that the fare was only one York shilling. They may have been losing less money from the fact that both boats were floating restaurants and did not give away their provisions. On arriving at the city, I went over to Brooklyn, to visit with the two boys of my father’s old-time Richmond partner, Mr. Heaton. They were prime good fellows and we went and caught a mountain of crabs in what was then Gowanus Bay and is now covered by blocks of buildings. I also went to see Mr. Rollo, at A. S. Barnes & Co.’s, and as I entered the store he came forward to meet me, saying, “How are you, Willie!” He had not seen me since I was seven, but explained that it was one...

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