Chapter II
Before the Revolution

WHEN William Bradford came
to New York, in 1693, the
town had grown so large that it must
needs have a night-watch — four men
who each carried a lantern, and who,
strolling through the quiet streets,
proclaimed at the start of each hour
that the weather was fair, or that the
weather was foul, and told beside that
all was as well as it should be in those
nightly hours. More than this, the
town went a step farther towards the
making of a metropolis, and lit
the streets by night (whether for the
benefit of the night-watch or for some
other the records say not), by placing
on a pole projecting from each seventh
house a lantern with a candle in it.
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