The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1859-03-30
the OLD WORLD AND THE NEW-THE PRO
GRESS or SIXTY YEARS.
prom the phiAaclphla Inquirer. March Of

49,
The mnrvels and changes that have occurred during
the last sixty years, especially in all civilized nations.
whether in invention, science, manufactures, or human
wealth, industry, comfort, and luxury, have at least
equalled, nay, even surpassed, the progress of many pre-
ceding centuries. Our attention has been invited 10 the
subject OF modern improvements, and a retrospective
comparison with our social condition at the present day
by u very able and analytical article in q recent number
OF the London AsUs Of hs World, handed 10 us by an In,
teiligent friend, who has himself seen and marked all the
mutations referred 10, and many Others that are not
therein mentioned, The article ia question Is entitled
''Ihe Manhood OF England, = end, as will be seen below,
the writer dwels chiefly ON the magical influences of
progress in the Old County" Bot here we beg TO oh.
serve that in the United States the effects, tangible,
practical, visible, and increasing, are even greater In
our republican, nearly all things, except distant colo
nization. With us, instead of colonies, we eface the
boundary lines of c~onterminous countries by treaty, and
absorb the new regions into the federal family, thereby
consolidating, whenever We extend, our national domain
and power.
Thus at the period of the revolution our population did
not exceed 3 200, 900, and now il is nearly 80, 000, 600
In this important particular, at least, we have exoelled
by rapidity of increase all nations, whether ancient or
modern. At the revolution we found only thirteen States;
but now we have thirty-thrce States and seven Terrific.
res. Did mankind ever before witness such magical en-
largement as thisY Our commerce in 1871 was valued at
$50, 900, 600 imports and Sl9, 900, 900 exports. Last
year 1889 it amounted to the enormous sum of $751;
6lS, $50 in imports, and 1924 GA, 42l in exports, specie
included9 1t will also Interest our readers to know that
our exports of cotton aione-a product entirely new since
the evolution-reach last year the unprecedented value
of Sl3l 1886, 56l, and of tobacco, SIT, OO9, 1877. But we
have more to say presently on this subject, and perhaps
the matter OF national progress will be better understood
by our readers after q perusal of the article already refer
red to in the News of the World. The writer thus dis
courseth
"Eyen those who have not yet seen their grand climac-
teric, have passed through an era totally unequallcd by
the sum of events in many previous centuries. The man
OF sixty-what a retrospect! To think that our men and
women, when they were boys and girls, saw the dynas-
ties of a thousand years knocked over like ninepins, the
greatest monarchs in Europe made shorter by the head,
or fugitives AN adventurer of Yesterday making himself
the great Emperor of the world that the power loom
and the spinning jenny were not yet that the servant
with ''laborsoine petition wrung the slow leave of flint
and steel to strike a light in a Undertook to kindle the
morning lire that the dim streets g%limmcred in the
doubtful darkness visible of train-oil lamps that the
theatres were illuminated with wax candles that tie
lancet was never out of the surgeons hand, and calomel
and starvation We're the physicians specifics. It then
took six months to 60 to India, six weeks to America,
sixty hours to Edinburgh, at the swiftest. There was no
steamboat on the sea, no engine in the factory, no stock
ing-loom, no lnce-weaving, no stereotype or steam press,
no railways, no ~telegraphs, no cheap books, no penny
postage. There was no Melbourne, or Sydney, or AIDE.
laide, or Auckland, Hobart Town, or Cape Town. Upper
Canada was the place of the bison and red men there
was scarcely a white man in the Western States, and not
four millions Of Americans anywhere. Now 1t takes
away ones breath merely to think of what we have come
to. The discovery of America the confscation of the
Church lands, and the reformation-the mariners com
pass, the art of printing, the Baconian philosophy, the
revelations of Newton-all these were vast theoretical con.
quests of the human mind mere seeds, however, for slow
future termination, painful CESSATION, and elaborate de-
yelopment.
s'Butiour modern acouisitions-those which the last half
century has revealed-were all of immediate practical
use, reduced to instant requisition. The lucfer match,
the spinning jenny, the power-loom, the stcam-engine,
the steamboat, the telegraph, and railway train. the by
dranlic ram, steam hammer, the law of storms, the
science and Instruments of navigation that have given
even to the old means of the mariner treble the efficiency
by raising the speed of sailing ships to that extent the
daguerreetype, Sic sterescope, and we know not how
many other of the triumphs of this nineteenth century
have all become instantly available, on the widest scale,
in the most practical shape, and up to the very highest
point OF efficiency and usefulness at once. You can go
to India in a month, America in q week, Edinburgh In
eleven hours get a welbound new Bible for IoJ. CON
verse with people two thousand miles OF in a minute, get
lace at a penny a yard, and a handsome gown for 5s.
You can Kill with a rifle at half q mile, and with ord
nance at four ; take your likeness by the sun in one sec
ond sail against wind and tide, and make the midnight
city like mid day by means Of air through pipes. Nay,
we import as much gold from our own colonies to this
one country in a single year, as was received by all Eu-
rope in the preceding quarter of a century our imports
and exports have doubled within ten years, and in place
OF q system OF restriction, preferential duties, protection
and monopoly, we lind we are great gamers by opening
our doors wide to the commerce of the world, and totally
disregarding all claims to reciprocity.
1T is at this point of view that we gaze With wonder
and exultation at the prospects of this country, and the
fortunes OF our rising generation. No such day ever
dawned upon the way of life of any other people on the
face of the earth. 1t seems as if mankind were only
yet at the threshold of the world. We seem as if till
now we knew nothing OF the globe, of the available
treasures OF this earth Of ours. Our commerce doubling
in ten years. Twenty millions of gold flowing in upon
us annually. The speed of conveyance and communi-
cation practically diminishing the cost one half. and in
creasing the profit of trade two-fold, The monopolies
of the East India Company, of guilds, Of colonies, of
ship owners, of farmers, entirely abrogated and trade as
free as the winds Canada alone would have been a mag.
niticent possession for us but to that succeeded Soutl,
Aftica-the West India islaGds-New South Wales. with
Its recently developed sources-thereafte the provinces
of Australia, followed by the various districts of New
Zealand-any one Of these would have made the fortune
of any other State-was rich enough and large enough
to have employed the activity of all the adventurous
spirits of the mother country.
''The discovery of America but opened a region to us
OF unproductive savages of the compass gave us but
the means of safer navigation, but not it's benefits, its
products, and resources Of the printing press afforded
us the mechanism of acquiring and diffusing knowledge,
but not the spirit of inquiry, not the knowledge itself.
The reformation achieved the right of free Thought, but
the thing itself came long after. But now Why all
these priceless gifts are in the high career of endless ap-
plicatlon, of full fruition. 1t is now that they pass from
speculation, theory, abstract science, into the state of
concrete practice, and boundless utilization. We look
around East, West, North, and South-it il England
everywhere. France has no colonies-no second empire.
Algeria is but a syphon. a sand-bed that absorbs, but
yields nothing. Germany, Prussia, Italy, Portugal send
e%inigrants to our possessions, but have none Of their own.
Spain is in rapid course of losing, not acquiring. Russia
alone advances silently, but effectually, and the United
States are Anglo-Saxon. But, after all, 1t is England
that ''inherits the earth.' India, with its 200, 600. 900.
China, with its 4l0, 900, 000-two-thiris of the whole
human race-are only now, for the first time. really
opened TO our enterprise and commerce. They are not
the haJdtqts of savages-idIe, lazy, ignorant, unproductiye.
monumental. Their natives have attained tha b;oho,t