The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1881-06-03
The Tremendous Vision of c. b. Rouss

In the dreamland of delirium, the wild
| flight Of fancy, in the agony OF malaria,
lingering near the great gates between
time and eternity, this writer stood on
Broadway in 1881. The children of this
generation had been swept away by un-
sparing time Where once stood the Me-
tropoltan there now lowered colossal
glass and steel concern twenty-one stories
high, with five underground The pro
prictors paid n hundred thousand rent,
had two hundred and eighty departments
and two thousand men. Their sales ran
to one hundredImillions, and their terms
cash before delivery. King Credit had
long slept in oblivion. Aerial naviga-
ton had nearly starved the iron horse,
and electricity was the motor of heaven
and earth. -Four intense dazzling suns il
Illuminated the city as if it were midday.
a factory in 35Sth street away beyond
the Spuytcn Duvil l53 feet high, cover
ed six acres, n grain elevator at Hell
Gate 800, and the observatory at Rock
away, upon the lsaack's estate, all solid
steel, stood up 1,2OO feet, or nearly
quarter of n mile
The old five and six stories of iron and
brown stone had been swept from the
track of relentless and resistless science.
Manners and language and people had
changed, and everything was grand, mass
i've and stupendous. Wall street had
long ago gone to Union Square, and the
new City Hall, costing twenty-five mill
ions. occupied the entire square, its flag
hoating thousand feet above in the
blue azure of Heaven.
The SIN was now septuple, issued
four times day with million circula,
ton.
Far Rockaway was the eastern limits of
the city, Mount Vernon the northern,
Patterson the western, and the popula-
ton sixteen millions. a pneumatic car
whirled to these points every three min
/ utes, transit time scventyiive seconds.
Briefly the proprietor spoke of the
coming age of the the twenty-iirst cen
tury, when thepyramids of grandeur and
lofty magnificeuce would disappear be
fore the paragons of perfection in the
gigantic future. Vast and sweeping
changes had altered the face of the
world. A one cent stamp carried let
ter to the ends of the earth; cable mes
sage around the world one penny
word. Spain had followed Italy in the
abolition of monarchy in 1901. Eng
land and Russia were the last on the
continent to give way to the demands of
the age of progress. The American
language was the universal and only
one. From New York to London and
Paris the daily mail outstripped the
storm. Time ffty-two hours. eSan Fran
cisco had five millions, and Chicago had
reached nearly two, but was going back
ward; powerful rivals in the Northwest
had crippled and outranked her. Ma
tional disputes were settled by the
Worlds Congress, and not an armed
soldier stood upon the face of the earth
nor all armed vessel hoated the sea.
There was not bond of the United
States in existence, and there was a
| thousand million in its treasures. The
United States, intending Canada, Mexi-
co and South America, numbered seven
hundred millions, and was called Ameri-
ca. Navies, armies, debts, credits, gas
and steam had gone by forever and be-
longad to ancient history, and the Indian
and Mormon, the Ethiop and the Chi
nee, and the Teuton and the Irish, all
condensed into the Mscegen, ran the
Republican ticket and the native born
the Democratic American.