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A Southside View of Brooklyn

About This Item

  • Title: A Southside View of Brooklyn
  • Date: 13 October 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.01128
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 13 October 1858: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Kaylen Michaelis Samantha Gilmore Brandi Faulkner Stefan Schöberlein Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "A Southside View of Brooklyn." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 17 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.01128.xml (TEI)
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A SOUTHSIDE VIEW OF BROOKLYN.

It is well, once in a while, to see ourselves as others see us. Some of the Southern Democratic papers are denouncing Baltimore, the last stronghold of the once puissant American party, as a hot-bed of vice and wickedness, with the hope of showing that the administration of Mayor Swann1 has been inefficient. The Baltimore Clipper sets up in defence, that however wicked the American-governed city of Baltimore may be, it isit it​ not so bad as the Republican city of Boston, or the Democratic city of Brooklyn. It cites statistics of the number of arrests in these cities in proof that—

Baltimore is the most free from crime of any of the cities named, and Boston and Brooklyn, where the ratio of arrests are proportionately greates, must necessarily be the worst. All the information that had been obtained upon this subject by careful statisticians shows unmistakeably that in these two cities the ratio of crime is great in proportion to the population than in any of the large cities on our seaboard. It is an indisputable fact that the amount of crime and lawlessness in cities is exxactly proportionate to the number of foreigners and paupers and grog shops, and the most reliable statistics show that there are in Boston more foreigners, more paupers and more grog shops in proportion to the population than in any other of the five cities which have been mentioned. In this respect Brooklyn is next to Boston.

These remarks somewhat astonish us. We have been used to hear Brooklyn called the City of Churches and its population a most moral and virtuous people; we frequently volunteer advice to our sister city across the river, and set ourselves up as a standard for their imitation. And even the New York papers, when they seek to improve the morals of that city, point to Brooklyn as a model. But this uncourteous Baltimorean places us not only below his city, but beneath New York itself, in the scale of morals and reputation!

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