The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-03-25
STRAY TOPICS
 FROM NEW YORK

New York, March 24-(Special.)- According to the estimate of the health department, the present population of New York is 4.422.65s. The authorities are quite sure about the eight in the place of the units if anybody should be inclined to doubt the correctness of the figures. he is at liberty to convince himself by counting the population himself. Seriously speaking. 1t would be absurd to claim anything like cor rectness for the last three. four or even five figures of the sum. Even assum- | ing that the exact number actually represented the number of inhabitants at a certain moment. a single birth or death would have made 1t incorrect the next moment.
 But. even as 1t is neglecting the last I five figures. the city now contains half a million more people than were in the United States when the Constitution was adopted. Its population Is greater than that of Ohio. or of the four New England States. Massachusetts. Con- necticut. Rhode Island and Vermont. It has a larger population than England under Elizabeth: six times the popula tion of Paris-under the Grand Mon argue. four times the population of London when George III. was King. and more than four tines greater than Rome's population under Augustus. There are senatorial districts in Man hattan more densely populated than was Athens in the age of Pericles. | New York has become a civic com monwealth greater in numbers. in wealth. In social artistic and all but legislative influence and in a few other things which are best omitted from the list. than any of the States of the Un- ion, It added to its population last
 year city the size of Denver. If this | increase should continue at the present
 rate. 1t would soon become necessary | to resort to extreme measures to pro-
 vide room for the population. Some i faint-hearted persons are even now
 shudderinE at the thought that before
 long 1t may become necessary to an nex Hoboken and Philadelphia.
 Violators of the speed laws are pro- verbally resourceful in finding ex- cuses for their offences. but all the ex- cuses offered heretofore in cases of | speed law violations pale into common place nothingness In comparison with the defense offered in a case of that kind in the Harlem Police Court the other day. To strengthen his conten. ton that his physical condition barred him from speeding in an automobile, R wealthy silk merchant. whose chauf- feur had been arrested for exceeding the speed limit, placed before Magis
 
 vermiform appendix.
 Five weeks ago. he told the court T was operated on for appendicitis and was told that 1t would be a miracle if pulled through. I have been exceed ingly weak ever since. and 1t would be fatal for me to ride fast in an automo bile"
 The magistrate was duly impressed with the sweight of the evidence for the defense. but the defendant him. self spoiled everything by admitting that at the time of hisarrest the speed ometer showed a speed of fifteen miles an hour. As that speed Is considerably beyond the rate permitted by the law. the chauffeur, notwithstanding the un- usual defense offered by his employer. was held for trial in $500 bail.
 Teh theatres have come in for some pretty hard raps recently. Ministers, l unordained reformers of both sexes. and even the more or less callous dramatic critics have taken cracks at some of the shows of particularly lurid hue. The pastor of the Third Re formed Presbyterian Church preached T sermon on the Theatre" the other day, in which he made the assertion that at no time in a hundred years were so many members of the church found Tn the theatres as now. and at no time was the theatre so morally debased ano the churches so empty as now. Instead of the church purifying the theatre" he said, "the theatre has corrupted the church until even min isters have become apologists for the stage Theatrical bill l1-boards whlch faunt their nude pictures In the high places of the city show what the thea tre is and what tile people go there to see, = ." In the course of his ser mon. he also expressed regret that "the Churc hof God. and some minister's of Jesus Christ are so spiritually be | logged that they do not know whether or not to testify against this institu | ton" That latter remark was a slap at certain ministers who recently de- tended the staga against the charge oI gross immortality
 In view of the complaint of many