highway between New York and Brooklyn. The Bridge was commenced, but the Ring was driven into exile by the force of public indignation, before the rapid transit scheme, since executed on a different route by private capital, was undertaken. The collapse of the Ring brought the work on the Bridge to a stand-still.

It was a timely event. The patriotic New Yorker might well have exclaimed, just before this great deliverance, in the words of the Consul of ancient Rome, in Macaulay's stirring poem,

Meanwhile, the elder Roebling had died, leaving behind him his estimates and the general plans of the structure, to cost, independent of land damages and interest, about $7,000,000. This great work which, if not "conceived in sin," was "brought forth in iniquity," thus became the object of great suspicion, and of a prejudice which has not been removed to this day. I know that to many I make a startling announcement, when I state the incontrovertible fact, that no money was ever stolen by the Ring from the funds of the Bridge; that the whole money raised has been honestly expended; that the estimates for construction have not been materially exceeded; and that the excess of cost over the estimates is due to purchases of land which were never included in the estimates; to interest paid on the city subscriptions; to the cost of additional height and breadth of the Bridge; and the increase in strength rendered necessary by a better comprehension of the volume of traffic between the two cities. The items covered by the original estimate of $7,000,000 have thus been raised to $9,000,000, so that $2,000,000 represents the addition to the original estimates.

For this excess, amounting to less than thirty per cent., there is actual value in the Bridge in dimension and strength, whereby its working capacity has been greatly increased. The carriage-ways, as originally designed, would have permitted only a single line of vehicles in each direction. The speed of the entire procession, more than a mile long, would, therefore, have been limited by the rate of the slowest; and every accident causing stoppage to a single cart would have stopped everything behind it for an indefinite period. It is not too much to say that the removal of this objection, by widening the carriage-ways, has multiplied manifold the practical usefulness of the Bridge.

The statement I have made is due to the memory not only of John A. Roebling, but also of Henry C. Murphy, that great man who devoted his last years to this enterprise; and who, having, like Moses, led the people through the toilsome way, was permitted only to look, but not to enter upon the promised land.

This testimony is due also to the living trustees and to the engineers who have controlled and directed this large expenditure in the public service, the latter, in the conscientious discharge of professional duty; and the former, with no other object than the welfare of the public, and without any other possible reward than the good opinion of their fellow-citizens.

I do not make this statement without a full sense of the responsibility which it involves, and I realize that its accuracy will shortly be tested by the report of experts who are now examining the accounts. But it will be found that I have spoken the words of truth and soberness. When the Ring absconded I was asked by William C. Havemeyer, then the Mayor of New York, to become a trustee, in order to investigate the expenditures, and to report as to the propriety of going on with the work. This duty was performed without fear or favor. The methods by which the Ring proposed to benefit themselves were clear enough, but its members fled before they succeeded in reimbursing themselves for the preliminary expenses which they had defrayed. With their flight a new era commenced, and during the three years when I acted as a trustee, I am sure that no fraud was committed, and that none was possible. Since that time the Board has been controlled by trustees, some of whom are thorough experts in bridge building, and the others men of such high character that the suggestion of malpractice is improbable to absurdity.

The Bridge has not only been honestly built, but it may be safely asserted that it could not now be duplicated at the same cost. Much money might, however, have been saved if the work had not been delayed through want of means, and unnecessary obstacles interposed by mistaken public officials. Moreover, measured by its capacity, and the limitations imposed on its construction by its relation to the interests of traffic and navigation, it is the cheapest structure ever erected by the genius of man. This will be made evident by a single comparison with the Britannia Tubular Bridge erected by Stephenson over the Menai Straits. He adopted the tubular principle, because he believed that the suspension principle could not be made practical for railway traffic, although he had to deal with spans not greater than 470 feet. He built a structure that contained 10,540 tons of iron, and cost 601,000 pounds sterling, or about $3,000,000. Fortunately he has left a calculation on record as to the possible extension of the tubular girder, showing that it would reach the limits in which it could bear only its own weight (62,000 tons), at 1,570 feet. Now, for a span of 1,595½ feet, the Brooklyn Bridge contains but 6,740 tons of material, and will sustain seven times its own weight. Its cost is $9,000,000, whereas a tubular bridge for the same span would contain ten times the weight of metal, and though costing twice as much money, would be without the ability to do any useful work.

Roebling, therefore, solved the problem which had defied Stephenson; and upon his design has been built a successful structure, at half the cost of a tubular bridge that would have fallen when loaded in actual use. It is impossible to furnish any more striking proof of the genius which originated, and of the economy which constructed this triumph of American engineering.

We have thus a monument to the public spirit of the two cities, created by an expenditure as honest and as economical as the management which gave us the Erie Canal, the Croton Aqueduct, and the Central Park. Otherwise, it would have been a monument to the eternal infamy of the trustees and of the engineers under whose supervision it has been erected, and this brings me to the final consideration which I feel constrained to offer on this point.

During all these years of trial, and false report, a great soul lay in the shadow of death, praying only to stay long enough for the completion of the work to which he had devoted his life. I say a great soul, for in the spring-time of youth, with friends and fortune at his command, he gave himself to his country, and for her sake braved death on many a well-fought battle-field. When restored to civil life, his health was sacrificed to the duties which had devolved upon him, as the inheritor of his father's fame, and the executor of his father's plans. Living only for honor, and freed from the temptations of narrow means, how is it conceivable that such a man—whose approval was necessary to every expenditure—should, by conniving with jobbers, throw away more than the life which was dear to him, that he might fulfill his destiny, and leave to his children the heritage of a good name and the glory of a grand achievement? Well may this suffering hero quote the words of Hyperion: "Oh, I have looked with wonder upon those, who, in sorrow and privation, and