The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-04-25

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thousand.
or negroes there were not much more
than two millions, or less than a quarter
Of the number hcrc now; but the agita-
ton for the abolition OF slavery had al
ready begun TO he intense within the
comparatively small limits 10 which II
was confined. Here in New York an
abolitionist was looked on very much
as an anarchist is now and in 1888 and
often thereafter abolition meetings were
broken up by riotous mobs. sympathy
with the movement was hardly COM
patble with the current standards Of
responsibility. New Yorks commerce
was largely due 20 cotton. The volume
of It's trade, however, was trifing az COM
pared with that OF to-day.
1t was not until 1885 that the construo-
ton Of the Croton aqueduct was decided
upon, at about which time the proud
boast Of the town was that the aggregate
capital OF its banks had increased to
toward twenty million dollars. The
fashionable district Of the town extended
from the Battery TO Chambers street, the
extreme limit.
New York was very provincial town
in those days, yet its population was
less orderly than II is now. The municipal
government vas inefficient II was q
time Of riots, and reformers Of to-day
would have been Mortified by the i'm
moral exhibitions then tolerantly re-
garded.
In ls4s, when Mr.. JOSEPH JEFFERSON
first acted in NewYork after his boyhood,
a great change had come over the town.
The population in ten years had increased
from about three hundred thousand to
more than half a million, owing chiefly
to the great Irish immigration, and build
ing was going on rapidly. The news
papers boasted that for the first time as
many as eight theaters were open at the
same time; yet life was simple even at
that period. LYDIA MARIA CHILD, writ
ing in 1914, described the celebration OF
st. Valentines Day as one Of the shoWiest
and most imposing Of the year. In 1912
a supremely fashionable ball in honor OF
CHARLES DICKENS had taken place at the
Park Theater on that day. The guests
numbered twenty-five hundred and In
cluded all the representatives OF the
greatest wealth and fashion Of the town;
yet Mrs. CHILD wrote Of the rapid APP
Proclamation to the European style OF
living; the number Of servants in
livery visibly increases every season :;
furniture for a single room is often
ordered at a cost Of $40, 900. Such evil
dences Of social display, however, were
relatively very few. Even ten years
afterward the number of considerable
private equipages was so small that it
could be easily counted up, and they gave
peculiar distinction TO the families using
them. Household service was small,
men servants were rare, advertisements
of buffers and Wallets seeking situations
did not appear in the newspapers. New
York still exemplifed the simple life, as
compared with the present.
When Mr.. JEFFERSON acted in New
York in lS49 the telegraph had only re-
Gently come into use. Only about seven
thousand miles Of railway we're in opera
ton in the whole Union. II was not till
two years later that the completion Of
the first trunk line TO enter the city, the
Erie, was celebrated with imposing cere-
monies. In 1915 President POLK, in his
annual message to Congress, had an
nounced the discovery Of gold in Cali
fornia. The provinciality Of the COM
munity Of New York was indicated by
the Aston place not in is4s, provoked by
national prejudices aroused by COMPETE
ton between FORREST, the American
actor, and MAcBEADY, an Englishman.
We shall not undertake TO 60 through
the career Of Mr.. JEFFERSON or TO give
any further comparison 70 show the
great growth Of this country during the
period. During his active professional
life the United States passed through a
complete revolution, political, social and
artistic. Its foreign born population is
now about as great as the whole popu-
lation in the year Of his birth, and since
1929 the additions 10 it directly by immi-
grafton have been more than twenty
millions. The whole character NJ the
American has changed. He has become
a composite Of many races. Only at the
South does the original American remain,
and there, too, like transformation
will proceed from this time forth, New
York, more particularly, has become
a community in which other blood than
the original American now preponderates
vastly. OF Jews alone there are now
as many as the population Of native
parentage, a majority of which is made
up Of descendants in the third generation
Of immigrants Of the time when Know
Nothingism began to be rampant; and
the whole number Of the foreign born
and their native children il four times as
great as this.
The Lamp stu Burns In NewfOund-