The Sunday morning news. [volume] (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1886-1891, 1891-11-15

OF Jersey lily , iuOSO uoCAuA -
able citizens was the latest victim. While
driving to n fire the chief of the fire de-
partmeut was run over and crushed to
death. Then there was a brief cry of in
~diguation. A pronunciamento was issued
by the Mayor threatening the railroad
company that il all proper aud requisite
precautions were not taken at once to
prevent the recurrence of similar TRACE
dies drastic would be taken.
II was. however, q meaningless aud
empty threat. But luckily, the elevated
road was approaching completion
that tardy act rendered such catastro-
phies impossible in the future.
Z This was such an act of municipal folly
as to mount almost to treason to the
State. 1t is an incubus around the neck
of the city; a weight that has borne 1T
down: it is like the clutch OF a garotter;
it strangles while It hokes what
would he said of Mr.. Vanderbilt if he let
the yestibule of his Fifth avenue mansion
to a peanut vender and paid toll himself
for the privilege of entering or leaving
his own house? His exit and his entrance
would be attended with very unpleasant
sensations; his friends would cut him
dead.v and the peanut vender would find
himself a bigger man than the milliop-
aire Vanderbilt. But what can be said of
Jersey eity's octopus. whose tentacles bar
the water front, and whose beak-like
head sucks the very life blood OF the city?
1t is another case OF Prometheus bound
10 a rock and the ravens pecking at his
vltals. Today, in an hour, Jersey city, at
the behest of its masters, could be left
without means of transit to the New
York shore. The immense traffic of two,
nav half a dozen. cities might be cut of
from it and remonstrance would be in
vain. Nc ships line its docks; no com
merce crowds its shores; no great public
or private enterprise marks its history.
The city. like Coleridge's Ancient Mari
per, reposes TRANQUILITY as "a painted ship
upon a painted ocean" The west shore
of the Iordly Hudson is stricken with
paralysis. The city generally seems to
SILVER beneath the folds of wet blanket.
It is only a dumping ground for the
freight and passenger patronage Oh q
bloated corporation.
A CORPORATION RIDDEN CITY.
1t must be borne in mine that Jersey
City has taken time to attain its growth.
1t is one of the most ancient cities OF the
Republic. It's 10000 inhabitants have
not come to 1t in a generation. like most
far Western cities. To me the Thought
has often reverted that Jersey City, like
a City of the Plain, has had some serious
sin aid at it's doors and has been, in sack
cloth and ashes, suffering the penalty
thereof. Wave after wave of humanity
has swept over and landed its rich
cargo at the doors of the more favored
city across the way. ae
1t is not as If the Destroying Angel had
brooded over the city, but as il a NUM-
eipal miasma had withered ana rusted
the edge of progressand enterprise. There
are no spacious and imposing hotels, no
grand ana massive public buildings, no
architectural triumpns of any kind.
Nothing natures; everything is below
the dead level of mediocrity. Private
dwellings,, as a rule, are neither palatial
nor gorge ,us. No public spirited citizen OF
.r~,i,h, hos opAnma1 cOl1p0Qa nr fnunde0
libraries. There are no museums. no
picture galleries, no academy of fine arts.
Here we miss
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples.
Evidences of refinement, cultivation
and local pride are missing. 1t is a city
with a upas tree before every mans
door. The weeping willow (metaphori-
cally) f1ourishes in every mans back
yard. Its hotels look about the safne
now as they did half a century ago. The
city has multiplied its houses without
improving them architecturally. Sim
ilarly, tine growth of the city has ex-
banded, but there is no corresponding
Improvement in the methods of living.
Its inhabitants are as primitive in many
respects as were eirforefathers. How
can so many people be content with such
dilapidated surroundings is a question.
l have often asked iaiyself. Surely, it Is
not poverty anu ID CtullOb NC lSlOlanCC.s
The people are refined, well dressed and
sel~f-respecting. They labor and they
spin, and they are model citizens in every
respect; but there seems to be 10 local
patriotism at all. A ~Jerseyman, we all
know, possesses some characteristics
peculiar to the phlegmatic tempera-
inent of his early ancestors, the
Dutch. But this would not account
for the lack of enterprise and public
spirit manifested by the pres
ent degenerate generation. We
look for that in another direction.
A man accustomed to the energy u
friction constantly displayed in New
YORK city must look upon the state of So
ciety west of the Hudson with feelings of
pity and Amusement. This aqueous liga-
ture, connecting the great metropolis
with the belated city of the ruetul u
tenance, brings no healing balm on its
bosom TO brighten and restore this cor
poration ridden municipality.
PURCHASE OF PAULUS HOOK.
Where, then, are we to look for a solu-
ton of the decadence we have noted?
Who can trace the cause to the effect?
Assuredly there is something rotten i'll
Denmark. The writer sought the views
of some enlightened citizens on this sub
ject. The first seen was Chief Benjamin
Murphy. While knowing the city like q
book, and making some sage reflections,
to my mind he hardly struck the keynote
of the situation. He attributed Jersey
Ciry's stagnation to various causes but
these causes exist in any other city, If not
in the extreme, at least in a degree.
He named corporations, politics, lack
of rapid transit, the proximity of New
York city, besides other reasons, all of
which, doubtless, have had something to
do with the case; but the diagnosis hard
ly explained the symptoms. Then | saw
Prosecutor Winfield. Truly, l said, PHI
strike something solid, if not spectacular,
here. The Prosecutor, as every one
knows, is the best informed nan in all
Jersey on local history. AS a historian
and a man of thorough attachments l ap-
pealed to him. Who will believe it, the
learned Prosecutor fought shy of the
question:-''To what do you attribute
Jersey City's backward condition ia con
trast with the prosperity and commercial
Importance of sister ~citiesY"
The man who has only studied the
Prosecutors physiognomy while profess
sionally illumined can nave out a super
fetal knowledge OF the ~profounder work
lngs of his inner consciousness when he
has set his face against the Vaccinations
of the newspaper interviewer. The Pros
ecutor cannot be called a sphinx-silence
is not his forte. But his loquacity is as
impepetrable and often as battling as an
other mans taciturnity. He talked elo-
Quently, to be sure; he said a lot of thugs
about the loss the city sustained, first.
in the deprivation of its water front; and,
second, in the short-sighted policy of
the City Fathers in not opening
up certain waterways that lay at the
bacA door of the city. These waterways.