The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1881-07-06
proud Of than most Of us who stand in
the long shadows of farewell"
IN THE DREANLAxD OF DELIRIUM,

the long shadows OF farewell"
IN THE DREANLASD OF DELIKIUM,
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 chill
dren of this generation had been swept
away by unsparing time. Where once
stood the Metropolitan there now tow
cred colossal glass and steel concern
twenty'one stories high, with five under
ground. The proprietora, Winchester
u Duane, paid u hundred thousand
gent, had two hundred and eighty de-
partments and two thousand men.
Their sales ran to one hundred million,
and their terms cash before delivery.
King Credit had long slept in oblivion.
Erial navigation had nearly starved
the iron horse, and electricity was the
motor of heaven and earth. Four in
tense dazzling suns Illuminated the city
as if it were midday. A factory in
35Sth street, away beyond the Spuyten
Duyvil, 4j2 feet high, covered six
acres, grain elevator at Hell Gate
800, and the Observatory at Rockaway,
upon the Isaack's estate, all solid steel
stood up 1920 feet, or nearly a quarter
Of mile.
The old five and six stories Of iron
and brown stone had been swept from
the track Of relentless and resstless
science. Manners, and language, and
people had changed, and everything
was grand, massive and stupendous.
Wall street had long ago gone to Union
Square, and the new City Hall, costing
twenty-five millions, occupied the entire
square, its flag floating a thousand feet
above in the blue azure of Heaven
The old New York Sun was now sep
> tuple, issued four times day with 4
million circulation. Far Rockaway was
the eastern limits Of the city, Mount
Vernon the northern, Paterson tn,
western, and the population sixteeI
millions. a pneumatic car whirled tc
these points every three minutes, tran
sit time twenty-five seconds. Briefly t.
the citizens Of 1881 Supposed to have
long ago gone to rest beneath the shadow
Of the old Cowpens Morgan monument
T in Nirginia) the proprietor spoke Of the
coming aye Of the twenty-first century
when these pyramids Of grandeur aac
lofty magniticence would disappear be
fore the paragons of perfection in tn,
gigantic future. Vast and sweeping
changes had altered the face of tn,
world. a one cent stamp carried {
letter to the ends Of the earth Il cable
message around the world one penny d
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
time, 81 hours. San Francisc,
had five millions, and Chicago had
reached nearly two, but was going
backward, powerful rivals in the north
west had crippled and outranked her,
National disputes were settled by the
Worlds Congress, and not an armed
soldier stood upon the earth nor an
armed vessel foatcd the sea. There was
not Il. bond Of the United States in ex.
istcncc and there was thousand mil.
lion in its treasures. The United
States, including Canada, Mexico and
South America, numbered seven hun
drcd millions, and was called America.
NaviGs, armies, debts, credits, gas and
steam had gone by forever and belonged
! to ancient history, and the Indian and
Mormon, Ethiop, and the Chinee, and
the Tcutoh, and the irish, all condensed
into the Miscern, ran the Republican
ticket, and the native born the Demo-
cratic American 4 * x
The celebrated l}ellen whispered in the
year of his patient that the crisis had
passed, and in n moment | was again
back in the standardization Of the
nineteenth century"