The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-09-06
800 MILES OF SMITHS.
Eight Miles of Them Live in the
City of New York.
From the Nav ~ journal.

From the New York Journal.
Three hundred miles OF Smiths The fig
ure is appalling, but it is no exaggeration.
There is not a Smith growing on every
tree In New York. but if there were it IS
even chances that there would be a good
number of Smiths left over.
Nobody who has not made a study in
some measure of the Smith subject has
any idea of the numeral strenglf of this
esumaDle and prolific family. There are
more than two Smiths to every saloon in
the CITY, and that is saying much. There
are smiths enough TO fill much more than
a dozen whole regiments
Ihere are Smiths enough-man woman
ana chlld-to populate a gOOd-sized king
dom, and If they Should decide to do it
they would, If past record is any criterion.
multiply at such an astounding rate as
would enable them to supply from their
surplus, within very few years. all de-
ncieneies in the population of other coun-
trles- The gaps in the nations of the
world which fire and blood and war and
pestilence might have made could very
easily and satisfactorily. be patched out
with smiths. Here are some startling fig
ures: fa -
The New York city directory for 1896
contains 40l, 500 names. OF these 1854. or
one IN every 1884,. is a Smith The Smiths
take up nearly 12l2 pages of three col
umns each. According toetfle last census
there are about five times as many peo-
pie In New York city as there are names
In the directory. 1T follows, then. that
mere u e are in this city betweehs 1900 and
II drawn up, in single file at the usual
distance between the people so paraded
the line would extend from the Battery to
One Hundred and Twenty- first street IA
distance of eight miles If5the same ratio
holds good throughout the United States.
tne Smiths in this country number 525. 600
and would form Rsline 300 miles Tong. They
would reach to Albany and back
IL mas been a popular belief always that
the Smiths Browns. Joneses and Robin
sons led the world in the matter of fire.
quency, but these latter days have chang
ed all that. The Smiths are still foremost:
the sturdy and multiplicative Browns are
not far behind. There are 2,SS0 Browns in
the New York directory, about one Brown
to every 1S5. who aGe not Browns. This
would give $4,000 Browns in the United
States
But there the old quartet of names Is
broken. The Joneses and Robinsons are
decadent so far as numbers goHThe Mil
lers nave stepped into the honorable third
place once held by the race of Joneses.
But the Millers are only half as many as
the Smiths and Browns. The directory has
only seventeen columns of them, with 1867
names.
Then come the Meyerses with /, G64 names
Murphys, 1,0i9; Cohens, 9S1; Kellys, Levys
and Johnsons With 96S, 1863 and gS2 respec-
lively, while Williams andsClatk have only
S45 and S02
The Smiths are perennial, ever plenty
and never can be moribund When the
skeletons of nations shall stand around
the lonely last man he will look out with a
clear eye over the ruins of empires watch
fearlessly the rising tide which is to en-
gulf the world. and on the last rock which
raises its grizzled, time-wearied head
above that second universal inundation
write in bold characters his name, and the
entry will read: "John Smith"