In the early part of the present century New York was, to use the language of Washington Irving, "a little city where everybody knew everybody," but within the lifetime of a man it has attained such metropolitan proportions that the most famous men of the city,s tate, and nation may walk the length of Broadway without being recognized by one out of a thousand of its throng of citizens. At that time everything above Canal street was considered "out in the country," and the whole of Manhattan Island beyond, was occupied by farms, in most cases owned by men to whom they had descended from their Dutch ancestry. Inter