New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1856-10-07

at the bOundless treasures Of this commonwealth,
lowered by the generous Autho- Of All with the
bases Of wealth, coal and iron, iron which is
the meter ofcivilzation and the motor Of industry
the onward leaps Of Philadelphia seem consistent
and natural
Caesar found Rome Of wood, and left il Of stOi.e.
Peter the Great found st. Petersburg collection
Of greasy buts, and left il palatial metropolis.
Napoleon l., in the breathing spaces Of battles,
projected the chief outdoor splendors and cOnve-
niences Of Paris, even the sidewalks Then Solo
mon and Semiramis. and all that oriental set, built
cities; hut the people-they do nothing. Who is II
that builds our cities What impersonated pro-
ector and executor with us can enter into history
after the old pattern Not one. The cities are
built by the citizens. The historian cannot rhetOri-
cize what such architectural heroes do. Self
executed, distributed over hundreds Of thousands
of sbOuders-the aggregate product Of dashlDg
demOcracy--Our cities are wading through all pro-
vincal difficulties to the supremest grandeur.
When reflect on their home resOurces on the e1-
haustess magnifcence of free soil worked by free
men, and Oyerarching the breadth Of the broadcast
Of continents, il seems - me that all the greatest
cities Of history will be dwarfed in comparison
with those which are now being evolved this side
Of the Atlantic. The means, too, Of supplying
cities with food from indefinitely great distances,
alone promises to elevate them here to an
unequaled supremacy. NewYOrk City is destined
soon, historically speaking to have population of
FIVE millions, and Philadelphia hardly less. Soon
for what is a century in the life of an empire? And
yet am now in company with an old gentleman
who remembers distinctly the procession in this
city Oh the adoption Of the Federal Constitution.
So the history Of our country, as united nation, Is
not yet the length Of one mans life The few short
years that the Psalmst sets down for human heart
beats are not vet completed, and this Unite States
takes the lead 10 the wealth of nations Europe has
greater capitals and greater polticlans-the people
being muter than ours; but the great ledger OF this
nation will show the heaviest oOtlngs-up at the end
Of the year. Our products are greater, our census
gories brighter. The gross annual gains Of France
are about 81, 800 900 900: those of England about
50 200 COO 600 or 50, 400, 900, 000-these being lib
eral allowances, as Judge; but the United States
can show some three thousand millions or upward,
though Mr.. Banks, in his ExchaDge-steps speech,
puts it considerably more, and where, in my opn-
ion, he errs Festind iente-hasten slowly. We
have not, think, gained to the vast annual product
he sets down-morket prices being the standard.
Three Thousand Millions What a sum How
OutswelDg 1.-the wealth of Ormus or of Ind, or
all the garnershps of the older nations who knew
not labor-sayng machinery, and their wealth-fash-
ings, but depended upon slave-sweat for monu-
mental exatations equally with earth-wOrkngs
But vast as are our increment and our product,
how much greater would they have been had the
laborer been considered worthy of his hire through
the larger portion of our country, and honor aud
toll cenched hands W. II. F.