the centre of the boat. The truck wagons and passengers would be placed on the deck along the two sides. Farmers and young work hands used to come into the city from Long Island by this ferry to market their crops. They all put up at the "Bull's Head." They were good customers of mine, these Long Island farm hands. Usually they were glad to get to the city, like a sailor to get to port. About all they thought of was to have a good time and see the sights, and would swap the farm produce they had fetched with them for board at my tavern. So I didn't have to buy much farm truck for my table. These Long Island farm hands were good-natured boys, and trustful; they left all the book-keeping to the host. Also, if they had any money, they gave it to me to take care of for them, while they were seeing the city.

In fact, besides my work as a tavern-keeper, I was also at this time a kind of banker. Because, with a village growing up around the tavern, there was no other place where money could be kept. So a big safe was built into the wall of the "Bull's Head," at the rear of the tap-room. It wasn't much like the bank safes to-day. This one was just a big iron box with double doors, and opened with an ordinary house-key. Here I would put the money that the people wanted me to take care of. Sometimes I had so much of it on hand that I was able to take it down to the banking houses in

the city and invest it there. Seeing that I kept the money for my guests, I didn't have the trouble which some hotel-keepers have to-day, of people jumping their tavern bill. When a man would hand me his money to keep, I would put it into an unsealed envelope-a kind of a kind of open

wallet
wallet-and

lock it away in the safe. Since I was the only one that had the key, I thus had the first call on that money. So, if a man got losing all the money he had and more too, gambling - there was a back room upstairs where "crack-loo" was played, and sometimes drovers would keep at it all night and late into the next day I would see to it when I handed him back his money on his leaving, that his bill to the tavern was paid out first. Also, if there was any dispute over the size of his bill, I was in position to carry my point. But we didn't have very many disputes of that sort. Drovers are a rough-and-ready, good-natured lot. Whenever they would make a trip to the city they would usually rake in a big walletful of profits, and so were not close in counting the pennies, when it came to settling their score at my tavern.

On such holidays as "Evacuation Day," when the people celebrated the evacuation of the city by the British troops in the War of the Revolution, my house would be filled with young drovers and farm hands from the country, come in to see the sights. Sometimes I would have to put three in a bed, and

also stow away some of them in the barn to sleep on the hay-mow. These celebrations were something worth seeing. There would be a parade in the morning by mounted and foot soldiers, artillery, the fire companies, the Tammany Society, target companies, and such like. At these times City Hall Park, which had a great iron fence around it, would be surrounded by booths where they sold roast pig, cider, egg-nog, and spruce beer. The day would close with a display of fireworks. At other times the young farm hands, "with money to burn and boots to collop," as we say, could have good times at the Vauxhall Gardens, which were on the Bowery Road, just below Peter Cooper's grocery store. These gardens stretched clean over to what is now Broadway, on the site where Astor built his public library. They had a high wooden fence all around with a row of trees just inside. When you got in the gate was on the Bowery you found a beautiful garden with gravelled walks winding in and out between the flower beds. Around the sides, between the trees, were little booths for two or three people, with a table where ginger pop, cakes, baked pears swimming in molasses, and such-like delicacies were sold. In the centre of all was a pavilion for music and perfor

mances.

I didn't encourage my guests to go to such places, but to stay up at the "Bull's Head" and

They could find enough
For my tavern was one

spend their money there. excitement at my place. of the road-houses for the stage which went between Park Row, New York, and Harlem Village every day. The stage would reach us a little before nine in the morning, having left Harlem at seven o'clock. Arriving at Park Row at ten, it would start back in the afternoon at three, get to the "Bull's Head" about four and arrive in Harlem at supper-time. Also, there would be everlasting dickerings in horseflesh to furnish excitement and keep the blood stirring. For the "Bull's Head" was becoming the horse-exchange as well as the cattle exchange for New York City. Those two lines of trade go together, anyhow. Farmers would bring in their horses from the country to my tavern, and the city people would come there to look them over. In this way, from being a master hand in judging cattle, I pretty soon came to have great skill in horse-flesh also. It stood me in hand to be up in it. Sound animals find quick buyers. Skill in horse-flesh shows itself in selling an unsound animal. After a time I got so that I could turn a good penny in a horse deal. It is a curious thing how a brokendown plug can be doctored up and made into a fairly good-looking beast, for purposes of a trade or sale. If he's got holes back of his eyes through age, by working carefully you can prick a hole through and blow under the skin, and so puff the

up,

hollow smooth as the forehead of a two-yearold. Another good dodge to make an old horse look young, is to take a file and bishop his teeth; for a buyer is sure to look in the mouth the first thing. Or you can sometimes burn into a horse's teeth the marks which go with coltishness. With thickwinded animals a good dose of tar poured down the throat will often stop broken wind long enough to get the animal sold. Roarers are harder to fix. They give you away 'most every time. But even with this kind of beast there is a way, if you are on to it. Well-greased shot poured down the roarer's throat will ease off the roarings and make him — for an hour or two- quite a sound-winded animal. Besides all these, a favourite device, when a young ninny would come along that didn't know a horsecolt from a mare, was to offer him the animal for sale with the harness on. In such cases he usually thinks he is getting a bargain, because the harness seems thrown in. Whereas the truth is, you have tucked that on to the price, and meanwhile the harness is covering up some galled spots on the animal that otherwise would stand out like a sore thumb. In nine cases out of ten the young booby jumps at the bargain, like a hen at a gooseberry.

For amusement at night there was no end of things going on. Of a summer's evening there were quoits, wrestling matches, and boxing bouts, out