OF JVEW  YORK CITY.                      81
 

CHAPTER VIII.

There will be more knowledge conveyed in these
chapters of the antecedents of prominent merchants of
New York, than in any other manner yet attemptea.
How many will be informed for the first time that fa¬
miliar names in the haunts of commerce, and merchants
in this generation, have been familiar names among the
same class for three or four generations back, and the
fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers and double
great grandfathers, of men now known on " change,"
have been known in their day respectively.

The London Times recently alluded to the fact, that
there was no aristocracy in this country except that of
wealth. There never was a greater mistake. There
is as distinct an aristocracy here as in any land upon
earth. Since the power of entailing has been cut off,
there is no way of keeping property in the eldest son
from generation to generation, and consequently an aris¬
tocracy of wealth would have a brief existence.
Wealth has power, and can make itself exclusive. But
it has no affiliation with the family aristocracy, or of
old descent, or of hereditary mercantile enterprise. Old
Henry Astor, the butcher, and John Jacob, the cake
peddler, who became a sagacious and far-seeing mer¬
chant, possessed great wealth ; but there were and are
i*