Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-03-14
NEW YORK INDUSTRIES
Mean Much More to the Metropolis
Than the Stock Exchange.
WALL STREET is A BIG FACTOR,
But Not Bit More So Than Labor and the
Cost of Living
MATHEW NARSHALL'S TOPICAL TALK
SPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE DISPATCH,


After the tempestuous activity of the pre-
vious fortnight comparative calm ha
reigned in Wall street the past week. A lit
tie ripple of excitement was created by the
announcements that the Standard Oil
Trustees would submit to the decision
against them in the Ohio Supreme Court ant
dissolve the trust. One of large proportion:
occurred in the coal stocks, upon ths
passage by the New Jersey Lcgisla
ture of an act legalizing the re
cent combination of coal companies
The passage of the st. Paul dividend made
some talk, and just at the last . rumor, still
Unverified, that the Sugar Ref1ners' Com
pany had captured another dangerous com
petitor by absorbing the Harrison Refinery
in Philadelphia gave to the company shares
q considerable advance in price. On the
whole the market has been quiet and the
purchasers at the recent high figures OF
stocks like New York and New England,
Reading, Lackawanna, Lake Shore and Erie
have had abundant leisure to ruminate upon
the value OF their bargains.
People who keep their eyes fixed exclu-
sively upon the Stock Exchange. and meas
ure by its ups and downs the prosperity of
the country. NAV be inclined to deplore this
slackened activity in its business. But Wall
street is not the world-it is not even the
whole of the city of New York, and while
the volume of its transactions is an index of
among a very useful class of citizens. it
shrinks and swells without reference to the
steady onward progress of daily industry.
The Industries Business Factors.
The building and running OF railroads, the
mining of coal, the manufacture of pig iron
and steel rails, the refining of sugar and of
petroleum, and the spinning and weaving of
cotton are undeniably important factors in
the increase of the country's wealth, and
ploved is ascertained by Stock Exchange
prices, but the aggregate result of the thou
sand little unnoticed forms of human labor
which surround us are much more important.
The State census, inst taken. indicates that
the combined population of New York and
Brooklyn is not far from 2,s0O,000 To these
may properly be added the residents of Jer-
sey City, Staten Island, and of the belt of ad-
joining suburbs closely connected with New
York, since they are, for business purposes,
ali New Workers. Taking these in carries
the total population of this metropolitan
center considerably above 100000. That is
to say. more people are living within an
hours journey of our City Hall than were to
be found in the whole l3 North American
colonies when they rebelled against British
rule and formed themselves into the present
Independent United States of America.
Even so late as 1850 the entire State of New
York had but 3. 100000 Inhabitants. and to-
dsy the territory of once populous Greece
ntains but 100000
Figures Too Big For Comprehension.
These figures, 1 am aware, convey no very
definite idea to the mind, any more than say
ing that the distance from the earth to the
sun is IS 000 900 miles conveys an idea of the
vast space that separates us from that lum-
mary. The moon looks quite as far off as
the sun, although it is really only the four
hundredth part as distant.
The time when one gets the most vivid i'm
preston of the immense mass of humanity
which lives and tolls beneath the roof of this
province covered by houses'-as New York
IS entitled TO be called, as well as London-ls
when some considerable quantity of it is
collected together by fire, procession, or
even SO trifiing a thing as the hoisting OF an
iron safe into an upper story window. When
the Harlem Railroad stables on Thirty
second street were burned a few years ago,
remember distinctly the crowd that
gathered upon Murray Hill to witness
ing people, clerks, and shop girls
were going home by the way of the Thirty
fourth street ferry, and they naturally
stopped to see the sight. The aSsemblage
blackened the whole hill, like swarm Of
ants, and defied enumeration. The Centen-
nisl celebration of 1889 brought many greater
looked down upon from above, formed per-
feet pavement of heads. Every night and
morning, too, the North and East river ferry
boats, the Brooklyn bridge cars the elevated
railway trains, and the surface cars present
TO view great clusters of humanity, and L
never see them, nor the streams on the side
walks of our thoroughfares, without SEN
sation of apprehension, as if Of some mon
s5rous weight.
Great Consumers and Producers.
These millions of human beings. these
thousands of tons of living flesh and blood,
are both consumers and producers. They
consume what is produced by others and
produce what others consume and this
mutual exchange of services constitutes a
trade OF far greater importance, as 1 have
said. than the transactions of Wall street.
Three million mouths to feed, 5000 600 bodies
TO cloth, 1900, 600 men, women and children
to be housed, warmed, employed and the re-
salts of labor and the food they eat, the
clothes they wear, the fuel they burn and
the commodities they require for the salts
faction OF their natural and artificial wants |
form mass of wealth of enormous value.
am sorry that l have not been able to |
census of 1890, and have been thus restricted |
to those of the census gathered ten years |
previous, but these will serve pretty nearly |
as well to show the magnitude of this citys |
local industries. According to the census of |
$780, New York is the larrest manufacturing |
city in the United Stat, its production ex- |
ceeding that of Phila Celphia nearly one
half The gross value OF the goods manu- |
featured here and In Brooklyn, and Jersey |
City was S7l0 423 4s4, and in the net value |
after deductfng that of materials employed |
were employed at a cost OF wages Of |
Sl3s, l40, l3S.
New York's Chief Industries.
The leading industry in this city was the |
making of clothing, and 1t Is SO still, pre-. /
sumo, because garments of all kinds are !
made here in immense quantities, not only |
for local consumption, but for shipment to /
come next, then books, newspapers and |
periodicals, and then tobacco in various |
forms, all OF which articles, like clothing, |
are partly tor our town consumption.
tn lnOh hfr7rr n i+s
furniture, marble works, iron work. tinware /
and blacksmiShs' and carpenters work, the |
last two being undoubtedly almost all for |
local customers, ST. ce a great deal beside is
done In Connecticut and New JERSEY for city |
customers, because OF the greater cost of /
doing 1t here. Exactly how much of the |
other products l have mentioned is con-
sUmed here ana how much is sent away, no
information can be obtained, and it is not
essential to my purpose. All the goods are
sold here, and if to the 5000 900 resident GUS
remaining 81, ,000, 900 inhabitants of the United
States, beside those OF Canada, Mexico and
South America, it does not impair the value
Of the local trade of the metropolis.
OF the amount of food and fuel consumed
In New York and its environs there is no Of |
G cial report. Our cities do not, like Paris, |
eatable and d1fnkable pay duty |
suppose that the quantity OF milk, fresh
vegetables and butchers meat daily
brought into New York and the adjacent
Slblts Uc bsCcEtdiuco W any WHO |
would take the trouble to set watch upon |
he ferry boats and railroad trains, but
even this would fail to show the consump- |
Jon.
Much Money Needed for Living.
An;inspection of many of our streets not
exclusively devoted to residences reveals an
number of BAKERS butchers and
narketmen, all of whom make their living
" feeding, for remuneration, their fellow
,'tizens. Then, there are the coal and wood