Its Glory Is Departing:

The mercer's showy counter and shelves are gradually replaced by vegetable and fruit stores.

Stately shops on Desfosses, Crown and Craig streets are rapidly diverting the Pactolus of the city custom northwards. In the dark ages of the Ancient Capital, when this lengthy, narrow lane was studded with one-story wooden or stone tenements, Old Sol occasionally loved to look down and gladden with his rays its miry footpaths. To our worthy grandfathers 'twas a favorite rendezvous - the via sacra - the Regent street - the Boulevard des Italiens - where the beau monde congregated at 4 P.M., sharp; where the merry jingle of the tandem grelots invaded the frosty air in January; where the freshest toilettes, the daintiest bonnets - those "ducks of bonnets" invented fifty years ago by Mrs. T - d - ensnared admirers; where marten or "silver fox" muffs of portentous size - all the rage then - kept warm and coursing the stream of life in tiny, taper hands, cold, alas! now in Death's pitiless grasp; where the old millionaire, George Pozer, chinked his English guineas or piled up in his desk his army bills. Alas! Jean Bourdon, the pioneer of our land surveyors, you, who, more than two centuries ago, left your name to this vaunted locality - your street as well as your name are getting to be things of the past! Shall we bid adieu to this oft travelled over thoroughfare without deigning a parting glance, as we saunter on, at that low old-fashioned house, No.

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