Chapter II: The Ice in Its Glory (4)

Turning to the second great power of the Old World, we may assert that there is not a harbor on the entire French coast of capacity or convenience proportionate to the demands of a national emporium. Though the site of Paris was chosen by a nation in no sense commercial, and the constitutional prejudices of the people are of that semi-barbarous kind which affect at the same time pleasure and a contempt of the enterprises which pay for it, there has been a decided anxiety among the foremost Frenchmen since the time of Colbert to see France occupying an influential position among the national fortune-hunters of the world. Napoleon III. shares this solicitude to an extent which his uncle's hatred of England would never permit him to confess, though he felt it deeply. The millions which the present Emperor has spent on Cherbourg afford a mere titillation to his ambitious spirit. Their result is a handsome parade-place,--a pretty stone toy,--an unpickable lock to an inclosure nobody wants to enter,--a navy-yard for the creation of an armament which has no commerce to protect. No wonder that the discontented despot seeks to eke out the quality of his ports by their plenteous quantity,--seizing Algiers,--looking wistfully at the Red Sea,--overjoyed at any bargain which would get him Nice,--striking madly out for empire in Cochin China, Siam, and the Pacific islands,--playing Shylock to Mexico on Jecker's forged bond, that his own inconvenient vessels might have an American port to trim their yards in. Meanwhile, to forget the utter unfitness of Paris for the capital of any imaginary Commercial France, he plays ship with Eugenie on the gentle Seine, or amuses himself with the marine romance of the Parisian civic escutcheon.

No one will think for an instant of comparing Paris with New York in respect to natural advantages. The capitals of the other Continental nations are still less susceptible of being brought into the competition. The vast cities of China are possible only in the lowest condition of individual liberty,--class servitude, sumptuary and travel restrictions, together with all the other complicated enginery of an artificial barbarism, being the only substitute for natural cohesion in a community whose immense mass can procure nothing but the rudest necessaries of life from the area within which it is confined.

_A priori_, therefore, we might expect that the metropolis of America would arise on New York Island, and in process of time become one of the greatest capitals of the world.

The natural advantages which allured New York's first population have been steadily developed and reinforced by artificial ones. For the ships of the world she has built about her water-front more than three hundred piers and bulkheads. Allowing berth-room for four ships in each bulkhead, and for one at the end of each pier, (decidedly an under-estimate, considering the extent of some of these structures,)--the island water-front already offers accommodation for the simultaneous landing of eight hundred first-class foreign cargoes. The docks of Brooklyn, Jersey City, and Hoboken may accommodate at least as many more. Something like a quarter of all New York imports go in the first instance to the bonded warehouse; and this part, not being wanted for immediate consumption within the metropolis proper, quite as conveniently occupies the Long Island or Jersey warehouses as those on the New York shore. The warehouses properly belonging to New York commerce--containing her property and living on her business--received during 1861 imports to the value of $41,811,664; during 1862, $46,939,451; and during 1863, $61,350,432. During the year 1861, the total imports of New York amounted to $161,684,499,--paying an aggregate of duties of $21,714,981. During the year 1862, the imports amounted to $172,486,453, and the duties to $52,254,318. During 1863, the imports reached a value of $184,016,350, the duties on which amounted to $58,885,853. For the same years the exports amounted respectively to $142,903,689, $216,416,070, and $219,256,203,--the rapid increase between 1861 and 1862 being no doubt partly stimulated by the disappearance of specie from circulation under the pressure of our unparalleled war-expenses, and the consequent necessity of substituting in foreign markets our home products for the ordinary basis of exchange. In 1861, 965 vessels entered New York from foreign ports, and 966 cleared for foreign ports. In 1862, the former class numbered 5,406, and the latter 5,014. In 1863, they were respectively 4,983 and 4,466. These statistics, from which the immense wharfage and warehouse accommodation of New York may be inferred, are exhibited to better advantage in the following tabular statement, kindly furnished by Mr. Ogden, First Auditor of the New York Custom-House.

_Statistics of the Port of New York._

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | 1861. | 1862. | 1863. | |--+-----------------------+--------------+--------------+--------------| | | | $ | $ | $ | |1 |Total value of Exports |142,903,689 |216,416,070 |219,256,203 | |2 |Total value of Imports |161,684,499 |172,486,453 |184,016,350 | |3 |Value of Goods | | | | | | warehoused during | | | | | | the entire year | 41,811,664 | 46,939,451 | 61,350,432 | |4 |Amount of Drawback | | | | | | allowed during the | | | | | | entire year | 57,326.55| 275,953.92| 414,041.44| |5 |Total amount of Duties | | | | | | paid during year | 21,714,981.10| 52,254,317.92| 58,885,853.42| |6 |No. of Vessels entered | | | | | | from Foreign Ports | | | | | | during year | 965 | 5,406 | 4,983 | |7 |No. of Vessels cleared | | | | | | to foreign Ports | | | | | | during year | 966 | 5,014 | 4,666 | |--+-----------------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+

Besides the various berths or anchorages and the warehouses of New York, commerce is still further waited on in our metropolis by one of the most perfect systems of pilot-boat, steam-tug, and lighter service which have ever been devised for a harbor. No vessel can bring so poor a foreign cargo to New York as not to justify the expense of a pilot to keep its insurance valid, a tug to carry it to its moorings, and a lighter to discharge it, if the harbor be crowded or time press. Indeed, the first two items are matters of course; and not one of them costs enough to be called a luxury.

The American river-steamboat--the palatial American _steamboat_, as distinguished from the dingy, clumsy English _steamer_--is another of the means by which Art has supplemented New York's gifts of Nature. This magnificent triumph of sculpturesque beauty, wedded to the highest grade of mechanical skill, must be from two hundred and fifty to four hundred feet long,--must accommodate from five hundred to two thousand passengers,--must run its mile in three minutes,--must be as _rococo_ in its upholsterings as a bedchamber of Versailles,--must gratify every sense, consult every taste, and meet every convenience. Such a boat as this runs daily to every principal city on the Sound or the Hudson, to Albany, to Boston, to Philadelphia. A more venturous class of coasting steamers in peaceful times are constantly leaving for Baltimore, Wilmington, Charleston, Savannah, Key West, Mobile, New Orleans, and Galveston. The immense commerce of the Erie Canal, with all its sources and tributaries, is practically transacted by New York City. Nearly everything intended for export, plus New York's purchases for her own consumption, is forwarded from the Erie Canal terminus in a series of _tows_, each of these being a rope-bound fleet, averaging perhaps fifty canal-boats and barges, propelled by a powerful steamer intercalated near the centre. The traveller new to Hudson River scenery will be startled, any summer day on which he may choose to take a steamboat trip to Albany, by the apparition, at distances varying from one to three miles all the way, of floating islands, settled by a large commercial population, who like their dinner off the top of a hogshead, and follow the laundry business to such an extent that they quite effloresce with wet shirts, and are seen through a lattice of clothes-lines. Let him know that these floating islands are but little drops of vital blood from the great heart of the West, coming down the nation's main artery to nurse some small tissue of the metropolis; that these are "Hudson River tows"; and that, novel as that phenomenon may appear to him, every other fresh traveller has been equally startled by it since March, and will be startled by it till December. Another ministry to New York is performed by the _night-tows_, consisting of a few cattle, produce, and passenger barges attached to a steamer, made up semi-weekly or tri-weekly at every town of any importance on the Hudson and the Sound. We will not include the large fleet of Sound and River sloops, brigs, and schooners in the list of New York's artificial advantages.

Turning to New York's land communication with the interior, we find the following railroads radiating from the metropolitan centre.

1. A Railroad to Philadelphia. 2. A Railroad to the Pennsylvania Coal Region. 3. A Railroad to Piermont on the Hudson. 4. A Railroad to Bloomfield in New Jersey. 5. A Railroad to Morristown in New Jersey. 6. A Railroad to Hackensack in New Jersey. 7. A Railroad to Buffalo. 8. A Railroad to Albany, running along the Hudson. 9. Another Railroad to Albany, by an interior route. 10. A Railroad to New Haven. 11. A Railroad to the chief eastern port of Long Island. 12. The Delaware and Raritan Road to Philadelphia, connecting with New York by daily transports from pier. 13. The Camden and Amboy Railroad, connecting similarly. 14. The Railroad to Elizabeth, New Jersey.

The chief eastern radius throws out ramifications to the principal cities of New England, thus affording liberal choice of routes to Boston, New Bedford, Providence, and Portland, as well as an entrance to New Hampshire and Vermont. To all of these towns, except the more southerly, the Hudson River Road leads as well, connecting besides with railroads in every direction to the northern and western parts of the State, and with the Far West by a number of routes. The main avenue to the Far West is, however, the Atlantic and Great Western Road, with its twelve hundred miles of uniform broad-gauge. Along this line the whole riches of the interior may reasonably be expected to flow eastward as in a trough; for its position is axial, and its connection perfect. All the chief New Jersey railroads open avenues to the richest mineral region of the Atlantic States,--to the Far South and the Far West of the country. Two or three may be styled commuters' roads, running chiefly for the accommodation of city business-men with suburban residences. The Long Island Road is a road without important branches; but the majority of all the roads subsidiary to New York are avenues to some broad and typical tract of the interior.

Let us turn to consider how New York has provided for the people as well as the goods that enter her precincts by all the ways we have rehearsed. She draws them up Broadway in twenty thousand horse-vehicles per day, on an average, and from that magnificent avenue, crowded for nearly five miles with elegant commercial structures, over two hundred miles more of paved street, in all directions. She lights them at night with eight hundred miles of gas-pipe; she washes them and slakes their thirst from two hundred and ninety-one miles of Croton main; she has constructed for their drainage one hundred and seventy-six miles of sewer. She victimizes them with nearly two thousand licensed hackmen; she licenses twenty-two hundred car- and omnibus-drivers to carry them over twenty-nine different stage-routes and ten horse-railroads, in six hundred and seventy-one omnibuses and nearly as many cars, connecting intimately with every part of the city, and averaging ten up-and-down trips per day. She connects them with the adjoining cities of the main-land and with Staten and Long Island by twenty ferries, running, on the average, one boat each way every ten minutes during the twenty-four hours. She offers for her guests' luxurious accommodation at least a score of hotels, where good living is made as much the subject of high art as in the Hotel du Louvre, besides minor houses of rest and entertainment, to the number of more than five thousand. She attends to their religion in about four hundred places of public worship. She gives them breathing-room in a dozen civic parks, the largest of which both Nature and Art destine to be the noblest popular pleasure-ground of the civilized world, as it is the amplest of all save the Bois de Boulogne. Central Park covers an area of 843 acres, and, though only in the fifth year of its existence, already contains twelve miles of beautifully planned and scientifically constructed carriage-road, seven miles of similar bridle-path, four sub-ways for the passage of trade-vehicles across the Park, with an aggregate length of two miles, and twenty-one miles of walk. As an item of city property, Central Park is at present valued at six million dollars; but this, of course, is quite a nominal and unstable valuation. The worth of the Park to New York property in general is altogether beyond calculation.

New York feeds her people with about two million slaughter-animals per annum. How these are classified, and what periodical changes their supply undergoes, may be conveniently seen by the following tabular view of the New York butchers' receiving-yards during the twelve months of the year 1863. I am indebted for it to the experience and courtesy of Mr. Solon Robinson, agricultural editor of the "New York Tribune."

_Receipts of Butchers' Animals in New York during 1863._

+-------+---------+---------+---------+---------+----------+ |Month. | Beeves. | Cows. | Calves. | Sheep. | Swine. | |-------+---------+---------+---------+---------+----------+ |Jan. | 16,349 | 393 | 1,318 | 25,352 | 138,413 | |Feb. | 19,930 | 474 | 1,207 | 24,877 | 98,099 | |March | 22,187 | 843 | 2,594 | 29,645 | 79,320 | |April | 18,921 | 636 | 3,182 | 18,311 | 56,516 | |May | 16,739 | 440 | 3,510 | 20,338 | 39,305 | |June | 23,785 | 718 | 5,516 | 44,808 | 56,612 | |July | 20,224 | 396 | 2,993 | 41,614 | 40,716 | |August | 20,347 | 496 | 3,040 | 49,900 | 36,725 | |Sept. | 30,847 | 524 | 3,654 | 79,078 | 68,646 | |Oct. | 24,397 | 475 | 3,283 | 64,144 | 112,265 | |Nov. | 23,991 | 557 | 3,378 | 61,082 | 183,359 | |Dec. | 26,374 | 518 | 2,034 | 60,167 | 191,641 | |-------+---------+---------+---------+---------+----------+ |Total | | | | | | |of each| 264,091 | 6,470 | 35,709 | 519,316 |1,101,617 | |kind, | | | | | | |-------+---------+---------+---------+---------+----------+ | | |Total of all kinds, 1,927,203. | +----------------------------------------------------------+

Of the total number of beeves which came into the New York market in 1863, those whose origin could be ascertained were furnished from their several States in the following proportions:--

Illinois contributed 118,692
New York " 28,985
Ohio " 19,369
Indiana " 14,232
Michigan " 9,074
Kentucky " 6,782

Averaging the weight of the cattle which came to New York market in 1863 at the moderate estimate of 700 lbs., the metropolitan supply of beef for that year amounted to 189,392,700 lbs. This, at the average price of nine and a quarter cents per pound, was worth $17,518,825. Proportionably with these estimates, the average weekly expenditure by butchers at the New York yards during the year 1863 was $328,865.

It is an astonishing, but indubitable fact, that, while the population of New York has increased sixty-six per cent during the last decade, the consumption of _beef_ has in the same time increased sixty-five per cent. This increment might be ascribed to the great advance of late years in the price of pork,--that traditional main stay of the poor man's housekeeping,--were it not that the importation of swine has increased almost as surprisingly. We are therefore obliged to acknowledge that during a period when the chief growth of our population was due to emigration from the lowest ranks of foreign nationalities, during three years of a devastating war, and inclusive of the great financial crisis of 1857, the increase in consumption of the most costly and healthful article of animal food lacked but one per cent of the increase of the population. These statistics bear eloquent witness to the rapid diffusion of luxury among the New York people.

From the table of classification by States we may draw another interesting inference. It will be seen that by far the largest proportion of the bullocks came into the New York market from the most remote of the Western States contributing. In other words, New York City has so perfected her connection with all the sources of supply, that distance has become an unimportant element in her calculations of expense; and she can make all the best grazing land of the country tributary to her market, without regard to the question whether it be one or twelve hundred miles off.

The foregoing butchers' estimates are as exact as our present means of information can make them. Large numbers of uncounted sheep are consumed within the city limits, and the unreported calves are many more than come to light in statistics. Besides these main staples of the market which have been mentioned, there is consumed in New York an incalculable quantity of game and poultry, preserved meats and fish, cheese, butter, and eggs.

Mr. James Boughton, clerk of the New York Produce Exchange, has been good enough to furnish me with a tabular statement of the city's receipts of produce for the year ending April 30, 1864. Such portions of it as may show the amount of staples, exclusive of fresh meat, required for the regular supply of the New York market, are presented in the opposite column.

A less important, but still very interesting, class of products entered New York during the same period, in the following amounts:--

+-----------------------------------------------------------+ | COTTON. | SEED. | ASHES. | WHISKEY. | OIL CAKE. | |-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------| | _Bales._ | _Bush._ | _Pkgs._ | _Bbls._ | _Sacks._ | | 18,193 | 7,343 | 1,401 | 21,838 | 2,329 | | 16,299 | 3,196 | 1,657 | 26,925 | 14,040 | | 13,080 | 901 | 1,175 | 19,627 | 20,120 | | 11,043 | 892 | 1,551 | 18,083 | 19,583 | | 12,874 | 2,082 | 884 | 15,781 | 4,810 | | 19,332 | 1,189 | 790 | 17,656 | 17,500 | | 26,902 | 2,318 | 1,280 | 20,098 | 10,441 | | 24,870 | 8,193 | 1,393 | 39,594 | 4,973 | | 22,010 | 8,441 | 1,163 | 32,346 | 2,676 | | 28,242 | 24,216 | 1,498 | 34,475 | 2,115 | | 39,302 | 31,765 | 1,457 | 35,575 | 2,963 | | 33,538 | 5,686 | 1,044 | 22,873 | 4,536 | |-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------| | 265,685 | 96,222 | 15,293 | 304,871 | 106,356 | +-----------------------------------------------------------+

New York, during the same period, exported,--

Of Flour 2,571,744 bbls.
" Wheat 15,842,836 bushels.
" Corn 5,576,836 "
" Cured Beef 113,061 pkgs.
" " Pork 189,757 bbls.
" Cotton 27,561 bales.

Deducting from the total supply of each of these six staples such amounts as were exported during the year, we

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | MONTH. | FLOUR. | CORN | CORN | WHEAT. | CORN. | | | | MEAL. | MEAL. | | | |------------------+-----------+---------+---------+------------+------------| | | _Bbls._ | _Bbls._ | _Bags._ | _Bush._ | _Bush._ | | 1863.--May | 454,363 | 10,331 | 18,614 | 1,789,952 | 1,914,490 | | June | 636,501 | 19,283 | 7,989 | 2,853,755 | 2,262,825 | | July | 451,004 | 9,995 | 10,480 | 2,409,184 | 3,049,126 | | August | 298,097 | 9,875 | 9,226 | 1,989,839 | 2,343,899 | | September | 319,923 | 10,481 | 4,715 | 1,132,588 | 2,196,157 | | October | 451,762 | 8,673 | 13,020 | 3,052,968 | 1,265,793 | | November | 530,096 | 8,883 | 22,835 | 3,164,750 | 295,398 | | December | 429,641 | 16,301 | 45,627 | 1,396,608 | 135,907 | | 1864.--January | 266,240 | 7,987 | 43,990 | 10,244 | 145,557 | | February | 233,822 | 12,489 | 47,137 | 45,283 | 108,751 | | March | 190,785 | 14,135 | 40,510 | 108,407 | 259,547 | | April | 218,181 | 10,889 | 27,097 | 166,506 | 120,272 | |------------------+-----------+---------+---------+------------+------------+ | Total | 4,480,415 | 145,272 | 291,190 | 18,119,993 | 14,098,262 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | MONTHS. | OATS. | RYE. | MALT. | BARLEY. | BEEF. | |------------------+------------+---------+---------+-----------+---------| | | _Bush._ | _Bush._ | _Bush._ | _Bush._ | _Bbls._ | | 1863.--May | 808,233 | 28,034 | 24,034 | 4,672 | 9,428 | | June | 1,442,979 | 23,038 | 22,508 | 1,643 | 2,386 | | July | 849,831 | 52,759 | 16,710 | none. | 1,285 | | August | 1,097,223 | 68,035 | 55,453 | .... | 892 | | September | 307,025 | 9,721 | 47,048 | 7,941 | 718 | | October | 1,319,985 | 41,912 | 13,461 | 753,893 | 7,420 | | November | 2,189,719 | 36,731 | 44,322 | 441,479 | 68,391 | | December | 1,882,344 | 45,727 | 59,494 | 275,568 | 74,031 | | 1864.--January | 305,690 | 6,532 | 42,608 | 6,972 | 22,988 | | February | 209,080 | 3,554 | 63,064 | 5,105 | 6,358 | | March | 258,685 | 5,308 | 69,578 | 18,386 | 4,319 | | April | 238,344 | 6,373 | 44,383 | 41,914 | 4,654 | |------------------+------------+---------+---------+-----------+---------+ | Total | 10,909,238 | 328,619 | 502,693 | 1,557,573 | 203,270 | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------+ | MONTHS. | PORK. | CUT | LARD. | DRESSED | | | | MEATS. | | HOGS. | |------------------+---------+---------+----------+---------| | | _Bbls._ | _Pkgs._ |100 _lbs._| _No._ | 1863.--May | 119,302 | 38,587 | 149,966 | .... | | June | 112,343 | 21,401 | 75,966 | .... | | July | 10,155 | 6,633 | 15,396 | .... | | August | 6,879 | 2,870 | 3,784 | .... | | September | 7,115 | 3,967 | 5,233 | .... | | October | 6,921 | 4,501 | 35,128 | 881 | | November | 6,916 | 11,066 | 35,997 | 755 | | December | 21,864 | 18,843 | 31,775 | 21,208 | | 1864.--January | 39,364 | 34,469 | 25,145 | 48,276 | | February | 32,144 | 42,593 | 43,245 | 59,894 | | March | 33,687 | 92,710 | 83,122 | 4,600 | | April | 12,346 | 49,399 | 90,496 | 67 | |------------------+---------+---------+----------+---------| | Total | 409,036 | 327,129 | 594,853 | 135,481 | +-----------------------------------------------------------+

find a remainder, for annual metropolitan consumption, amounting, in the case of

Flour to 1,908,671 bbls.
Wheat " 2,276,257 bushels.
Corn " 8,540,490 "
Cured Beef " 89,209 pkgs.
" Pork " 209,279 bbls.
Cotton " 238,124 bales.

We have no room for the details--which would embarrass us, if we should attempt a statement--of the cost of clothing the New York people. We will merely remark, in passing, that one of the largest retail stores in the New York dry-goods trade sells at its counters ten million dollars' worth of fabrics per annum, and that another concern in the wholesale branch of the same trade does a yearly business of between thirty and forty millions. As for tailors' shops, New York is their fairy-land,--many eminent examples among them resembling, in cost, size, and elegance, rather a European palace than a republican place of traffic.

The most comprehensive generalization by which we may hope to arrive at an idea of the business of New York is that which includes in tabular form the statistics of the chief institutions which employ and insure property.

On the 24th of September, 1864, sixty-three banks made a quarterly statement of their condition, under the general banking law of the State. These banks are at present the only ones in New York whose condition can be definitely ascertained, and their reported capital amounts to $69,219,763. The national banks will go far toward increasing the total metropolitan banking capital to one hundred millions. The largest of the State banks doing business in the city is the Bank of Commerce, (about being reorganized on the national plan,) with a capital of ten millions; and the smallest possess capital to the amount of two hundred thousand dollars.

Mr. Camp, now at the head of the New York Clearing-House, has been kind enough to furnish the following interesting statistics in regard to the total amount of business transactions managed by the New York banks in connection with the Clearing-House during the two years ending on the 30th of last September. Figures can scarcely be made more eloquent by illustration than they are of themselves, I therefore leave them without other comment than the remark that the weekly exchanges at the Clearing-House during the past year have repeatedly amounted to more than the entire expenses of the United States Government for the same period.

_Clearing-House Transactions._

+-----------------------------------------------------++ | 1862. | EXCHANGES. | BALANCES. || |----------+----------------------+-------------------|| |October | $ 1,081,243,214.07 | $ 54,632,410.57 || |November | 874,966,873.15 | 47,047,576.93 || |December | 908,135,090.29 | 44,630,405.43 || | | | || | 1863. | | || |January | 1,251,408,362.76 | 58,792,544.70 || |February | 1,199,249,050.07 | 51,583,913.88 || |March | 1,313,908,804.14 | 60,456,505.45 || |April | 1,138,218,267.90 | 53,539,812.46 || |May | 1,535,484,281.78 | 70,328,306.25 || |June | 1,252,116,400.20 | 59,803,975.44 || |July | 1,261,668,342.87 | 62,387,857.44 || |August | 1,466,803,012.90 | 53,120,821.99 || |September | 1,584,396,148.47 | 61,302,352.35 || |----------+----------------------+-------------------|| | | $14,867,597,848.60 | $677,626,482.61 || |----------+----------------------+-------------------|| | || | 306 Business days. || | || | _Average for day_, 1862-3. || | || | Exchanges $48,586,921.07 || | Balances 2,214,415.63 || +-----------------------------------------------------++

+-----------------------------------------------------++ | 1863. | EXCHANGES. | BALANCES. || |----------+----------------------+-------------------|| |October | $ 1,900,210,522.77 | $ 74,088,419.08 || |November | 1,778,800,987.95 | 66,895,452.49 || |December | 1,745,436,325.73 | 60,577,884.19 || | | | || | 1864. | | || |January | 1,770,312,694.43 | 63,689,950.88 || |February | 2,088,170,989.48 | 65,744,935.13 || |March | 2,753,323,948.53 | 84,938,940.37 || |April | 2,644,732,826.34 | 93,363,526.16 || |May | 1,877,653,131.37 | 76,328,462.88 || |June | 1,902,029,181.42 | 88,187,658.93 || |July | 1,777,753,537.53 | 73,343,903.49 || |August | 1,776,018,141.53 | 69,071,237.16 || |September | 2,082,754,368.84 | 69,288,834.17 || |----------+----------------------+-------------------|| | | $24,097,196,655.92 | $885,719,204.93 || |----------+----------------------+-------------------|| | || | 306 Business days. || | || | _Average for day_, 1863-4. || | || | Exchanges $77,984,455.20 || | Balances 2,866,405.19 || +-----------------------------------------------------++

+------------------------------------------------------------+ | | |Aggregate Exchanges for Eleven Years $95,540,602,384.53 | | " Balances " " " 4,678,311,016.79 | | ------------------- | | Total Transactions $101,218,913,401.32 | | | +------------------------------------------------------------+

On the 31st day of December, 1863, there were 101 joint-stock companies for the underwriting of fire-risks, with an aggregate capital of $23,632,860; net assets to the amount of $29,269,423; net cash receipts from premiums amounting to $10,181,031; and an average percentage of assets to risks in force equalling 2.995. Besides these 101 joint-stock concerns, there existed at the same date twenty-one mutual fire-insurance companies, with an aggregate balance in their favor of $674,042. The rapidity with which mutual companies have yielded to the compacter and more efficient form of the joint-stock concern will be comprehended when it is known that just twice the number now in being have gone out of existence during the last decade. There are twelve marine insurance companies in the metropolis, with assets amounting to $24,947,559. The life-insurance companies number thirteen, with an aggregate capital of $1,885,000. We may safely set down the property invested in New York insurance companies of all sorts at $51,139,461. Add this sum to the aggregate banking capital above stated, and we have a total of $120,359,224. This vast sum merely represents New York's interest in the management of other people's money. The bank is employed as an engine for operating debt and credit. Its capital is the necessary fuel for running the machine; and that fuel ought certainly not to cost more than a fair interest on the products of the engine. The insurance companies guard the business-man's fortune from surprise, as the banks relieve him from drudgery; they put property and livelihood beyond the reach of accident: in other words, they manage the estates of the community so as to secure them from deterioration, and charge a commission for their stewardship.

It is a legitimate assumption in this part of the country that the money employed in managing property bears to the property itself an average proportion of about seven per cent. Hence it follows that the above-stated aggregate banking and insurance capital of $120,359,224 must represent and be backed by values to more than fourteen times that amount. In other words, and in round numbers, we may assert that the bank and insurance interests of New York are in relations of commerce and control with at least $1,685,029,136. This measure of metropolitan influence, it must be remembered, is based on the statistics attainable mainly outside of cash sales, and through only two of the metropolitan agencies of commerce.

I do not know how much I may assist any reader's further comprehension of the energies of the metropolis by stating that it issues fifteen daily newspapers, one hundred and thirty-three weekly or semi-weekly journals, and seventy-four monthly, semi-monthly, or weekly magazines,--that it has ten good and three admirable public libraries,--a dozen large hospitals, exclusive of the military,--thirty benevolent societies, (and we are in that respect far behind London, where every man below an attorney belongs to some "union" or other, that he may have his neighbors' guaranty against the ever-impending British poor-house,)--twenty-one savings-banks,--one theatre where French is spoken, a German theatre, an Italian opera-house, and eleven theatres where they speak English. In a general magazine-article, it is impossible to review the hundreds of studios where our own Art is painting itself into the century with a vigor which has no rival abroad. We can treat neither the aesthetic nor the social life of New York with as delicate a pencil as we would. Our paper has had to deal with broad facts; and upon these we are willing to rest the cause of New York in any contest for metropolitan honors. We believe that New York is destined to be the permanent emporium not only of this country, but of the entire world,--and likewise the political capital of the nation. Had the White House (or, pray Heaven! some comelier structure) stood on Washington Heights, and the Capitol been erected at Fanwood, there would never have been a Proslavery Rebellion. This is a subject which business-men are coming to ponder pretty seriously.

After all, New York's essential charm to a New-Yorker cannot express itself in figures, nor, indeed, in any adequate manner. It is the city of his soul. He loves it with a passionate dignity which will not let him swagger like the Cockney or twitter like the Parisian. His love for New York goes frequently unacknowledged even to himself, until a necessary absence of unusual length teaches him how hard it would be to lose the city of his affections forever.

It is a bath of other souls. It will not let a man harden in his own epidermis. He must affect and be affected by multitudinous varieties of temperament, race, character. He avoids grooves, because New York will not tolerate grooviness. He knows that he must be able, on demand, to bowl anywhere over the field of human tastes and sympathies. Professionally he may be a specialist, but in New York his specialty must be only the axis around which are grouped encyclopaedic learning, faultless skill, and catholic intuitions. Nobody will waste a Saturday afternoon riding on his hobby-horse. He must be a broad-natured person, or he will be a mere imperceptible line on the general background of obscure citizens. He feels that he is surrounded by people who will help him do his best, yes, who will make him do it, or drive him out to install such as will. If he think of a good thing to do, he knows that the market for all good things is close around him. Whatever surplus of himself he has for communication, that he knows to be absolutely sure of a recipient before the day is done. New York, like Goethe's Olympus, says to every man with capacity and self-faith,--

"Here is all fulness, ye brave, to reward you:
Work, and despair not!"

Moreover, the moral air of New York City is in certain respects the purest air a man can breathe. This may seem a paradox. New York City is not often quoted as an example of purity. To the philosopher her atmosphere is cleaner than that of a country village. As the air of a contracted space may grow poisonous by respiration, while pure air rests over the entire surface of the earth in virtue of being the final solvent to all terrestrial decompositions, so it is possible that a few good, but narrow people may get alone together in the country, and hatch a social organism far more morbid than the metropolitan. In the latter instance, aberrations counterbalance each other, and the body politic, cursed though it be with bad officials, has more vitality in it than could be excited by any conclave of excellent men with one idea, meeting, however, solemnly, to feed it with legislative pap.

While no man can ride into metropolitan success on a hobby-horse, popular dissent will still take no stronger form than a quiet withdrawal and the permission to rock by himself. No amount of eccentricity surprises a New-Yorker, or makes him uncourteous. It is difficult to attract even a crowd of boys on Broadway by an odd figure, face, manner, or costume. This has the result of making New York an asylum for all who love their neighbor as themselves, but would a little rather not have him looking through the key-hole. In New York I share no dreadful secrets with the man next door. I am not in his power any more than if I lived in Philadelphia,--nor so much, for he might get somebody to spy me there. There is no other place but New York where my next-door neighbor never feels the slightest hesitation about cutting me dead, because he knows that on such conditions rests that broad individual liberty which is the glory of the citizen.

In fine, if we seek the capital of well-paid labor,--the capital of broad congenialities and infinite resources,--the capital of most widely diffused comfort, luxury, and taste,--the capital which to the eye of the plain businessman deserves to be the nation's senate-seat,--the capital which, as the man of forecast sees, must eventually be the world's Bourse and market-place,--in any case we turn and find our quest in the city of New York.

To-day, she might claim Jersey City, Hoboken, Brooklyn, and all the settled districts facing the island shore, with as good a grace as London includes her multitudinous districts on both sides of the Thames. Were all the population who live by her, and legitimately belong to her, now united with her, as some day they must be by absorption, New York would now contain more than 1,300,000 people. For this union New York need make no effort. The higher organization always controls and incorporates the lower.

The release of New York commerce from the last shackles of the Southern "long-paper" system, combined with the progressive restoration of its moral freedom from the dungeon of Southern political despotism, has left, for the first time since she was born, our metropolitan giantess unhampered. Let us throw away the poor results of our last decade! New York thought she was growing then; but the future has a stature for her which shall lift her up where she can see and summon all the nations.[E]

FOOTNOTES:

[E] In addition to the obligations elsewhere recognised, an acknowledgment is due to the well-known archaeologist and statistician of New York,--Mr. Valentine,--who furnished for the purpose of this article the latest edition of his Manual, in advance of its general publication, and to the great convenience of the writer.

NEEDLE AND GARDEN.

THE STORY OF A SEAMSTRESS WHO LAID DOWN HER NEEDLE AND BECAME A STRAWBERRY-GIRL.

WRITTEN BY HERSELF.