Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1910-01-20

spend more than 5000, 100000 a year, nearly one-third as
much as the United States government. Of this amaz-
Ing sum $156,545,14S is raised by direct taxation. The
rest piles up in bonded debt.
The municipal officials and employees alone number
more than 10000 persons, drawing something like $780,
000,0 900 a year in salaries.
How the American heart beats high at the sight of
the greater city which only 10 years ago was divided
into a hundred cities, towns and villages!
Its buildings rise like cliffs, steep towering above
steep; immensities of stone, brick and steel-red, yellow,
gray, brown, with the sunlight reflected in hundreds of
thousands of windows, and steam and smoke drifting
across the dizzy tumult of roofs. AS the evening comes
on and the lights are lit, New York sparkles and flashes
in her lofty masses, all the brutalities Of modern ma
sonry fade and a shining fairy city set on a great noun
tain seems to rear itself between the two rivers.
With what wonder, hope and fear one looks upon
such a city! Yet who understands it?
1t Is possible to 20 40 miles in a straight line without
leaving the city, The streets Of New York placed end
to end would reach to San Francisco and several hun.
bred miles out into the Pacific ocean.
More than 126,000 persons are born in New York in
a year, as many as the inhabitants of Columbus, the
capital city of Ohio. More than $4,000 New Workers die
in a year, enough to make three cities as large as Ma
con, Georgia.
Not even Babylon, that persisted ere Christ was born,
was SO wonderful-Babylon, with its hanging gardens
resting on arches rs feet high, and with its Sc miles of
city walls reaching $40 feet into the air, set with $50
fair towers and pierced through a hundred gates of
brass!
In those nrecipices of brick and stone, supported by
miles Of steel, New York has built many cities on top
of each other and the hill of the Caesars in Rome seems
a small affair compared to the majestic bulk Of the bust
ness palaces that rear themselves against the sky, with
vast populations living so high above the streets that no
sound of the roaring city reaches them.
Two hundred and eighty-three years ago the whole
Of Manhattan island was bought by Peter Minuet, the
New York governor Of the West India Company, for a
few trinkets valued at $24.
Several years ago ground at the corner of Broadway
and Wall street sold at $24 for six square inches. when a
lot measuring 30 by 80 feet brought 100000.
In a sense the tall sides that lift themselves out OF
the busiest part Of New York are without loveliness
save when the changing light turns them into many
colored cliffs. II is the sense of an immense life con.
veyed by the multitude of windows that invests the
monstrous piles with a thrilling interest; the density OF
humanity, the costliness Of its ways and the mightiness
Of the surrounding community.
There rises the reddish tower of the Singer building
642 feet high. The tower alone cose $4,000, 900 to build
Below 1t spreads the white mass of the City Invest
ment building, which cost $10,000,000 and whose 20 ele
vators can carry 10000 persons an hour. That one struc
ture houses the population of a small city.
ii Close by are the twin Trinity buildings, valued al
100000 and opposite to them stands the Equitable
Life Insurance building, a property representing $4,000,
600
Even the ground of the small Trinity graveyard, sci
at the head Of Wall street, is worth $25,000,000.
Away In the distance the white marble tower Of the
Metropolitan Life Insurance building lifts Its noble mass
700 feet above Madison square. That vast edifce rep