Public are four theatres in the city, the Park theatre, the American theatre, the Chatham theatre, and the Richmond Hill thea tre. The two former large and magnificent build ings. At an early period, theatricals seem to have met with great encouragement in New York, but the reader is referred to the History of the American Stage, by William Dunlap, Esq. for minute details. There are two museums; the American Museum, founded by the late John Scudder, in 1809, and Peale's Museum, of a recent establishment. Several public gardens are places of great resort during the heats of summer. The introduction of the Italian opera in the city in 1825-6, under the direction of the Garcia troupe, constitutes one important era in the public re creations of New York; since which period a cor rect taste for music has rapidly spread.
Periodical following detail ex hibits a laudable zeal in this species of literature. There are thirteen daily newspapers; ten semi weekly; and twenty-four weekly papers. Of these one is in the French language, two in the Spanish, and one is in the Spanish, French, and Italian. It is estimated that ten millions of sheets are annually issued by the news presses.
Many periodical journals of a monthly character, devoted either to literature or science, or theology, have at different periods been published in New York. The following list embraces the more con spicuous of them. The New York Magazine. The New York Medical Repository. The United States Magazine and Review. The New York Medical and Physical Journal. The American Review; the American Medical and Philosophical Register. The Literary and Scientific Repository. The Churchman's Magazine. The New York Medical Journal. The New York Record, kc.
city of New York may be classed among the most healthy of its size in the world. As no register of births, however, is preserved, one important item is wanting in estimating its compa rative salubrity. Its apparent average mortality, greater than that of some of its sister cities, is to be referred to the number of emigrants who resort to this great emporium. The characteristic fea ture of a large proportion of the most prevalent disorders is inflammatory; hence, the immense out let of human life by pulmonary consumption: and the number of still born cases is supposed to have much increased of late years by the injudicious use of the secale cornutum, or ergot. The deaths from the drinking of cold water in some summers of great solar heat, serves to enlarge the bills of mor tality. This was particularly the case in the ardent season of 1825. The yellow fever has been less frequent in its recurrence than formerly. This by some is attributed to the improved state of our domestic policy, and by others to a more judicious system of quarantine regulations. The visitations of this disease have been, since 1795, in the years 1797, 1798, 1801, 1803, 1805, 1819 and 1822.
The average temperature of New York through out the year is stated at 55° of Fahrenheit. In winter the thermometer is rarely lower than 15° or 20° below the freezing point; sometimes the mer cury falls to zero, and it has been observed at two, three, four or six degrees below it. Most unques tionably the nearness of the Atlantic and the gulf stream, conduce to abate the severity of the winter.
Snow is not of frequent occurrence, and rarely con tinues on the ground more than ten or twelve days at a time. The winter closes about the loth or 15th of March. The temperature of the summer is rarely higher than 80° or 84°; there are a few days in which the thermometer ranges between 90° and 96°, but this heat is of short continuance, as the evening sea breezes cause a great abatement of it at night. There are not a few sudden changes in temperature, both in summer and in winter. The greatest change yet noticed in New York took place in August 1809, when by the sudden coming on of a northwest storm of rain, the thermometer evinced a difference of forty degrees within the course of fifty-six minutes. But this is no fair sam ple of the general character of the sudden vicissi tudes of the weather. The prevailing winds in summer are from the south and south-west, in win ter from the north, north-east and north-west.
The annual average of deaths is stated, by Vil lerme at Paris, as 1 to 32 In London it has been put down as t to 38 or 40. In Glasgow as 1 to 44. The annual mortality at Naples is reported as to 284. In the whole United States it has been pub lished as 1 to 40. In the healthiest districts of the U. S. as 1 to 56, and in the most unhealthy as I to 35. In New York it may be set clown as 1 to 381. Notwithstanding the speculations of many inge nious writers, as Williamson, Volney, Niest, Scc. there is not much reason to suppose that our sea sons have become much milder, or are in any par ticular manner ameliorated.
This assertion seems corroborated by the various accounts that have been published of the weather during the winter of 1831-2, in various parts of the United States. According to some, this winter has been colder than ever before within the memory of man. In Georgia and Tennessee the mercury was at zero: in Washington 5 or 6° below: and in Augusta, Maine, 26° below zero. The city of New York also furnished repeated examples of severe cold during the same season.
The number of deaths in New York as reported by the city inspector was as follows: multitudinous population of this city presents an endless variety in manners and character. A liberality of feeling and unaffected hospitality have been the result. Active industry and enterprize (often bordering on rashness) are the prevailing characteristics of all classes. Amidst a strong devotion to wealth, it is gratifying to per ceive that an attention to higher objects has not been overlooked. Her public school system, her Lancasterian, Sunday, and infant schools, her tem perance societies, her innumerable charities, all promise a nett reward to their benevolent founders. The respective liberal professions may boast many members of the highest attainments, who tend to diffuse through the various classes of society a proper respect for literature, science and the ele gant arts. This commercial emporium is not unworthy the name by which she is recognized, and may, above all, claim that whether the avenues to her trade have been closed by legislative restrictions, or during the uprofitable contest of arms, her fidelity to the union has never for a moment been questioned.