Quote of the Day (Washington Irving, on How New York’s First Legislators Made Law)

“The journal of each meeting consists but of two lines, stating in dutch, that, ‘the council sat this day, and smoked twelve pipes, on the affairs of the colony.’ -- By which it appears that the first settlers did not regulate their time by hours, but pipes, in the same manner as they measure distances in Holland at this very time; an admirably exact measurement, as a pipe in the mouth of a genuine dutchman is never liable to those accidents and irregularities, that are continually putting our clocks out of order.

“In this manner did the profound council of New Amsterdam smoke, and doze, and ponder, from week to week, month to month, and year to year, in what manner they should construct their infant settlement -- mean while, the own took care of itself, and like a sturdy brat which is suffered to run about wild, unshackled by clouts and bandages, and other abominations by which your notable nurses and sage old women cripple and disfigure the children of men, encreased so rapidly in strength and magnitude, that before the honest burgomasters had determined upon a plan, it was too late to put it in execution -- whereupon they wisely abandoned the subject altogether.”—Washington Irving, A History of New York From the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty (1809)