Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1879-01-17

life, activity, and enterprise you propose
to have regular correspondent. Well!
If you will let me, mean to depart occa-
sionally from the beaten track of city gos-
sip, and tell your readers, now and then,
about some Of the many really great and
deservedly famous features and men of
New York; in fact, treat them as though
they were visiting me in my uptown French
fiat, and wanted to see what was worth
seeing in Gotham.
RAPID TRANSIT.
If the year 1928 deserves to he memOra-
bic as that which witnessed the opening of
the Erie Canal, the year 1878 promises to
be far more memorable in the annals of
Gotham by virtue of rapid transit. Al
ready the Third Avenue road is open to
Harlem, and you can climb thirty feet into
the air at the Battery and be whirled along
on a level with the second story windows
eight and half miles to Harlem, all for
five cents-provided you go between five
and seven in the morning, or the same
hours in the evening. At other hours You
pay ten cents-and get your moneys worth
even then. Shades of Jimmy Watt! That
all this should have come from your idle
watching of a friszy Pot-lid while you
toasted your shins before the fire! Blessed
be the yOungster that kept you out of doors
playing till your teeth chartered and your
nose grew blue! He never dreamed how
great service he was doing for humanity,
nor how the real estate owners at the upper
end of the Island would rise up and call
you both blessed. While Rapid Transit is
a great boon to the clerk and salesman
who can't pay the big rents down town, it
is a sweeter blessing to the weary holder of
uptown lots covered knee-deep with mort
cages, ridden by hideous Nightmares and
pursued by the avenging spirits of savage
mortgages and bloodless tax-gatherers, that
freeze his veins as the witches .in their
''cutty sarks" frozs those of poor Tam
O'Shanter. Jimmy Watt saves lot owners
when all the horses in New York were
leaving them to their fate.
MAKING THE CANALS FREE.
A strong movement is to be made this
Winter in favor of making the Erie and
other New York State Canals absolutely
free waterways. This, if accomplished,
will be good news to the grain producers of
the Great West, and will bring them into
closer and more profitable connection with
New York City and transatlantic consum-
ers. The scheme for canal freight rail-
road will also be pushed during the session
of the Legislature, and there is talk Of a
huge basin for canal boats on the North
River side of the city to relieve the East
River wharves and slips between Centies
Slip and South Ferry from the pressure of
canal boats; locality that is greatly need
ed by West India and other shipping.
vANDERBILT's GREAT GRAIN LINE.
Even more important. if possible, is the
new project of Vanderbilt for cheapening
terminal facilities here for handling grain.
He has built monster grain elevator at
Sixty-fifth street, alongside of which he
proposes to run his trains laden with grain
which will then be discharged direct into
holds of a line of swift sailing iron steam
ships bound for various European ports.
He has just bought fourteen of these ships
and will run them regularly from Sixty
fifth street. They are not expected to car
ry passengers, but toibe devoted exclusively
to grain and merchandise. The first ship
sails next week and others will follow rap
idly. This makes a sure thing of low
freights from the West, whether by rail or
canal.
BRIGHTER OUTLOOK.
Times are better. There is no mistake
about it. Every department of trade feels
it more or less. In my next will tell you
how two items of farm produce are loom
ing up till it takes no prophet to predict a
vast profitable industry in each; and they
are but two in hundred. Why, look at
one single branch of manufacturing-the
sewing machine trade. One would sup
pose the world was supplied with sewing
machines, but the Singer Manufacturing
Company report a sale Of some 10000 ma
chimes IN the year Just closed in excess of
the number sold in 1877. The total sales
of Singer machines for the year are some
$50, 900; in making and selling which no
less than $1,000 persons and 5000 horses
are employed. Think of the men digging
the ore, telling and dressing the timber,
building the wagons, and cars and ships
that carry Singer machines to the people,
and adding them to the forty thousand,
we see how nightly such an enterprise af-
fects the whole community for good. Mr..
Edward Clark, the old business partner of
the original Singer, is president Of the
company. A good story comes from Chi
cago about the Singer" After the great
fire the Relief Committee undertook to
furnish sewing machines to needy women,
permitting each applicant to take her
choice from among six Of the most popu-
lar kinds. There were 2, 944 machines thus
supplied; 2, 427 Of the girls selected "SIng-
err. machines, and the remaining 5l7 di-
vided their choice between the Ave other
kinds. The Singer has taken the first prize
over al competitors more than 200 times.
"Att is long," but newspaper correspond
- O0Qkf. pdnerS ana what TEetFnL WnS IN
u,,4 Stss a lat If trnuhla.se