Sunday Excursionists
image 1
image 2
image 3
image 4
cropped image 1
SUNDAY EXCURSIONISTS.
We find the papers of the rural districts immediately adjoining New York and Brooklyn complaining loudly of the annoyance to which they are subjected by the incursions of Sunday travellers in search of recreation. On the Jersey side those complaints are developing themselves into an opposition to the running of public vehicles on Sundays—led, we are surprised to see, by the Jersey Telegraph. But this step if carried out will react in, the opposite direction; for those who by means of the vehicles now transport themselves beyond the limits of Jersey City, will on the stoppage of the stages be induced to go no further than the city itself.
From Staten Island still louder complaints are heard. The current number of the Stapleton Chronicle states that the nuisance has become so intolerable, that "some of our most respectable and wealthy citizens express the fear that they shall be compelled to leave their residences and abandon the Island. The rowdies in question do not confine themselves to our streets; they even trespass at pleasure on the beautiful grounds of our residents, and when there, they take such liberties as may best suit their fancy; and besides, they not infrequently bring females with them, who are evidently no strangers to their acts of wickedness."
The number of New Yorkers and Brooklynites who resort to the suburbs on Sundays is great and increasing; and no doubt, while the majority seek merely physical recreation, and a change of scene, and behave with decency, there are yet many who drink too much, and become riotous and disorderly. The worst characters, however, the Dead Rabbits and others of that ilk, are not fond of Sunday excursions.1 They find the trouble of washing their faces and changing their apparel, and the sacrifice involved in getting away from their favorite porter house or grocery in their beloved Five Points, too great to be endured, even for a day.2 If they could be got now and then into the green fields, it would tend to their improvement. Even a Dead Rabbit would be vivified, and emit a less objectionable effluvium, if subjected once in a while to the beautiful influences of the country breeze.
While the inhabitants of the cities have a right to spend the Sunday in a trip to the green shades of some rural retreat, the country people are no less entitled to demand that they shall comply while there, with the inoffensive and quiet habits and manners of the locality into which they have chosen to come. Here, then, is one great argument for the consolidation of the police of the two cities and their suburbs under one authority, for it will enable the Commissioners to do what no former authority has attempted—the protect the people living along the shores of Long Island, Staten Island, and other localities of Sunday resort, against the excesses and misbehavior of some of those by whom they are visited. To the places on the Jersey shore, this argument of course is not intended to apply, but we have full confidence that our friend of the Telegraph, and his gallant corps, the "Jersey Blues," will preserve the peace at all times in the distant realm of which they are the custodians.
Notes:
1. The Dead Rabbits were an Irish-American gang that operated in New York's Five Points neighborhood from the 1830s to 1850s. They were known for their clashes against rival nativist gangs, such as the Bowery B'hoys. [back]
2. The Five Points was an area of Lower Manhattan that was home to many Irish immigrants, and was known throughout the nineteenth century for its association with poverty and crime. [back]