3-075-064 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Bringing in the New Year in New York, 1890. 'Our Special Artist, Mr. H. Seppings Wright, who has crossed the Atlantic to make sketches of social life in the United States of America, witnessed the obstreperous celebration of the advent of the New Year, 1890, in the streets of the city of New York. Americans rejoice in a "boom" on every notable occasion; and the majority prefer getting into a crowd, and making a noise, to awaiting in silent meditation the midnight stroke of the clock that signifies an important division of the time allotted to mortal life. The Old Year is dismissed with tumultuous popular exultation, hustled or kicked out of town by crowds of pushing, screaming, go-ahead free citizens, who throng the middle roadway and the sidewalks, with drum and fife bands playing lively or sentimental airs, and with a fierce blowing of "fish-horns," from half past eleven to twelve o'clock...At midnight, by common consent, the street noises were hushed; the pandemonium was over; and the chimes were heard up town rendering successively the music of several familiar old tunes, from "Yankee Doodle" to "Home, Sweet Home," which brought in, we hope, a Happy New Year for all good people in New York'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.