New York, New York, 1888 - Sparking in Tompkins Square, a place which Cupid has made his favorite stomping ground, and where the stern paterfamilias is wont to appear. 

Cupid has had great sport in Tompkins Park, this city, on pleasant evenings of a Sunday for some time past. Recently the interesting spectacle of forty couples breathing tales of love was witnessed at this charming rendezvous for "spooney" young men and women. Near the circular structure in the center of the park sat a maiden of sixteen or thereabouts, clad in a maroon dress, which just reached to the tops of her buttoned boots, a lavender jacket, and a jaunty hat matching her dress, with a raven's wing in the band.

Close beside her sat a youth of equal age, who was gazing into her eye. He held her hand in his, and in an undertone told her many pretty secrets.

Changing her hand to his other one, his arm gently stole round her waist. She seemed unconscious of it. He whispered something and she shyly looked at him, presumably the better to understand his whisper. He inclined his face to hers and "just one" he pleaded-and hastily took one, two, three. He paused a few seconds in admiration of her and then resumed talking, and she talked, too, in a bashful way.

But presently a very substantial vision intruded itself upon their happiness-a tall, ponderous Dutchman in trousers of ample volume, a jean jumper and a velveteen cap similar to those worn by the drivers of brewery wagons.

"You vas here, eh?" he queried of the girl. "You vas coom home."

She coomed.

Another young couple plumped down. The Fellow manifested his affection by pulling his sweetheart's hair and pinching her ears. She tee-hee-hee'd, slapped him playfully, and twittered, "Now, Jamesie, you stop." But just the same she didn't seem pleased when Jamesie did stop. She slapped him some more; whereat Jumesie pushed hack her head and gave her a loud kiss.

With all the couples the time was fraught with happiness and sweetness and most of them didn't leave the park until the broad-faced clock in the steeple of St. Bridget's Church nearby tolled the hour of ten.

The National Police Gazette, November 3, 1888

The Bravery of charming Miss Jaffray, the daughter of a New York millionaire, saves many lives at Irvington, N. Y. 

The people of Irvington, N. Y., had tier New Year celebration disturbed by a skating accident which resulted in the death of two boys, both sons of well-known residents often neighborhood. Hamilton’s pond, a sheet of water eight or ten acres in size and dangerously deep, was thought to have a sufficient thickness of ice to be bearing, and consequently a holiday crowd trooped to it. Skating was going on merrily about noon, when some rash youths ventured on an unsafe part of the ice. Their foolhardiness had the usual result. The ice broke, and they as well as others less deserving of a cold bath were plunged into the water.

If it had not been for the forethought of Howard S. Jaffray, the well-known yachtsmen and man of business and the presence of mind of his daughter, a serious accident, involving a large loss of life, could not well have been avoided. Miss Jaffray rushed for a life line, which her father had provided for emergencies of this kind, and her rare presence of mind was the means of saving all of those immersed, excepting two boys. Paul Cannon and Joseph Gibbons.

Reprinted from National Police Gazette, January 19, 1889.