The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1881-06-29
A Tremendous Vision.

In the dreamland of dellr1um, 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
fas~ft this generaticn~h had been swept
ava, y unsparins time. Where once
stood the Metropolitan there now
lowered o colossal glass and steel con-
Germ t%wenty-one stories high, with five
underground. The proprietors paid a
hundred thousand rent, had two hui
dred and eighty departments, and two
thousand men. Their sales ran to one
hundred millions, and their terms cash
before delivery. King Credit had long
slept in oblivion. Aerial navigation
had nearly starved the iron horse, and
electricity was the motor Of heaven and
earth. Four intense dazzling suns I'LL
minated the city as if it were midday.
A factory in 35Sth street, away beyond
the Spuyten Duyvil, 452 feet high,
covered six acres, q grain elevator Mt
He'll Gate 500, and the observatory at
Rockawav, upon the Isaack's estate, all
solid steel, stood up 1.2OO feet, or near
~ a quarter of a mile.
The old five and si% 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
wa grand, massive, and %stupendous.
Wall street had long ago gone to Union
Square, ard the new City Hall, costing
twenty-five millions, occupied the entire
square, it's flag foatinga thousand feet
above in the blue azure OF heaven.
The San wa now a septuple, issued
tour times a day, with q million circnla-
ion.
Far Rockaway was tn eastern limits
of the city, Mount Vernonthe northern,
Paterson the western, and the popula-
ton sixteen millions. A pneumatic car
whirled to these points every three
minutes, transit time seventy-fve
seconds.
Briefly the proprietor spoke of the
coming age of the twenty-6rst century,
when these pyramids of grandeur and
lofty magnlticence 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 a Let.
ter to the ends of the earth q cable
message around the world n penny II
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, tifty.two hours. San Francisco
had five millions, and Chicago Lad
reached nearly two, but wa 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 earth nor M
armed vessel floated the sea. There
was not a bond of the United States in
existence, and there was o thousand
million in its treasures. The United
States, including Canada, Mexico and
South America, numbered w hun
dred millions, and was called America.
Navies, armies, debts, credits, gas and
steam had gone by forever and belong
ed to ancient history, and the Indian
and Mormon, the Ethiop and the Chinee
and the Teuton and the Irish, all con-
denscd into the Miscegen, a the Re
publican ticker and the native born the
Democratic american .---HouSe AMI Home.