Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 19.djvu/565

 GERMANY IN NEW YORK. A MONG the features that impart a character so cosmopolitan to New York, a very prominent one is the large German element pervading that city and its suburbs and neigh- boring towns. "Which is the German quarter of New York?" I have heard strangers ask, as they noticed the de- cidedly Teutonic aspect of many pass- ers to and fro in the crowded thor- oughfares. It would not be easy to say. Taking the suburbs first, it will be found that much of Brooklyn proper, more of Williamsburg, no in- considerable portion of Jersey City, and about two thirds of Hoboken, are occupied either by naturalized citizens of German birth, or by native-born Americans of immediate German de- scent. In the city, there is not a business street in which the infusion of Germany is not manifested by the names upon the sign-boards and door- posts. Whether you dwell to the east- ward of Broadway or to the westward, it is much the same thing, — in six cases out of ten the nearest tobac- conist, as well as the nearest tailor, is sure to be a German. Should you happen to inquire of a New-Yorker where such or such an article is to be procured, he will tell you, as likely as not, "O, anywhere, almost, — the Dutchman at the next corner grocery will be sure to have it." Don't call the grocer a "Dutchman" to his face, though, supposing you should en- ter his comprehensive mart to make your purchase. Few things excite a German's ire more than to call him a Dutchman. Pacific in his disposition as the Teuton usually is, I have wit- nessed more than one ugly row in the public places he frequents, because some person has applied this expres- sion to him, either unguardedly or with wilful intent to exasperate. The objection is to be attributed, I fancy, rather to the fact that the term is frequently used in this country in a disparaging sense, than to any aversion really entertained by the German mind to the industrious native of the land where dikes are as much a necessity as Dutch herrings. Perhaps, if the preference is to be given to any principal street of New York as channelling the German quar- ter, the Bowery may be so set down. That very heterogeneous and perplex- ing jumble of things foreign and do- mestic may be likened to an immense chain of German sausages, interlinked here and there with material properly American. All along the Bowery, the principal German theatres and lager- bier "gardens" are interspersed at short intervals, and it is in this quar- ter chiefly that the aspirant for legisla- tive honors or for city office lays his traps to catch the wary German vote. In sketching German life in New York, it would be outside the question to refer to that comparatively small class of Germans who, from wealth and family connections, hold a high posi- tion in society. The representative German is usually a manufacturer of some kind, greater or smaller, or a mechanic, — very commonly a grocer, or a brewer of lager-bier. Sometimes he is a lithographer, a layer-out of maps, or an artist in one branch or another. Finishing photographs in oil or in water-colors is an occupation very common among New York Germans. Legions of them are dispersed as wait- ers through the hotels and restaurants of the city. A great many — and these chiefly of the Hebrew persuasion — find occupation as dealers in cloth- ing, jewelry, and miscellaneous articles, while others drive a lucrative business as pawnbrokers or "mock - auction- eers." New York is indebted for its vegetable markets to the Germans, who were the first to educate the suburban soil for the growth of kitchen stuff, and who have still almost a monopoly of the market-garden business in the neigh-