these lines, and it is reported that at the close of the year 1889, or earlier, there will be twenty-five miles of elevated railroad in operation in the city.

These features of the city's condition call attention to the fact that we have reached a period of development, at which it is our duty to provide clearly and understandingly for the needs of a far greater population than that now included within our limits.

In earlier days Americans did much empty boasting and made many glorious predictions. At the same time, so far as material preparations are concerned, they could do little for those coming after them. The art of living had not then been studied as it since has been. Sanitary science can hardly be said to have been in its infancy, for in this country it seemed to have no existence whatever. In the establishing of enduring and fundamental principles of government, and in the field of law much was done for us and for our posterity by the men of previous generations, but it was necessary that there should be a gradual education of the business sense of the country before men could appreciate the nature and import of the problems now presented in the growth of cities. It was necessary that a more leisurely aspect should come over life; that comfort and health should be more highly prized. The more purely intellectual side of our ancestors' work was well done; but the needs of the by no means distant future, the inheritances which our successors should receive from us, are of a different description. Pavements, sewers, sufficient water supply, parks, schools, public buildings, an enlarged application of the results attained in sanitary science, and the solid work of masonry are the inheritances we should transmit, rather than far reaching adjudications, such as that of the Dartmouth College case, or comprehensive enactments, such as the ordinance establishing the Northwest Territory. Naturally, the greatest and most pressing need will arise here at the centre of the greatest population. How great that need may be, or how great a population may congregate within our area or upon the borders of the bay of New York, we cannot indeed actually estimate, but to some extent we can forecast it. Such forecasts are not useless. In his message of December, 1861, President Lincoln said: "There are already among us those who, if the Union be preserved, will live to see it contain two hundred and fifty millions." Such a vision of the future, at a time of extreme trial, seemed to him neither vain nor fanciful. Its utterance was evidence that he possessed the sort of political imagination which a statesman should possess if he is to discern the drift of public thought, or to picture the future material condition of his country. When compared with other estimates, his outlook was not extravagant, though it may not be realized. Its concern for us is direct and unavoidable. For the course of history, in our own land and abroad, makes it clear that the population about the port of New York is to hold a place of high importance in the nation, both numerical and otherwise.

The State of New York passed to the first place in population in the nation in 1820. Since that day the population of the Union, of the State of New York, and the combined population of the cities of New York and Brooklyn, at each decade from 1820 to 1880, and the percentage of increase in each decade, have been as follows:

Thus the combined population of New York and Brooklyn has at all times since 1830 grown at a rate much more rapid than that of the growth of the State of New York; the rate of growth of the two cities has at all times exceeded the rate of growth of the population of the whole Union, although the rate of growth of the population of the State of New York has not kept pace with that of the population of the United States since 1830. But for the growth of the two cities, the State would, before this time, have ceased to hold the first place. The degree to which the population of the two cities has gained upon that of the State in the whole period, is quite notable. Their proportion of the population of the State in 1820 was less than one-tenth; while in 1880 more than one-third of the population of the State lived in Brooklyn and New York. On the other hand, in 1820, the State of New York included more than one-eighth of the population of the whole Union; while in 1880 it embraced a little less than one-tenth of that population. At present, adopting the estimates already given, based upon the Presidential vote for this year, New York and Brooklyn include nearly, if not quite, two-fifths of the population of the whole State.

Without adopting Lincoln's prediction, we need only look forward to a time when the country may contain one hundred and fifty million people. Even then, the density of its population will be much less than that of older countries or of some States of the Union. If the population of the State of New York failed to hold its present relation, and fell off until it numbered but eight per cent. or about one-twelfth of the population of the Union, it would still contain more than twelve millions of people, of which a population surpassing one-half might be found in or near these two cities. As the two cities grow, apparently an increasing proportion of that growth must come to Brooklyn. The mere question of area goes far to determine such a result. Each mile of departure from the New York City Hall emphasizes the inequality in the quantity of residence area lying respectively upon Manhattan Island and within our limits. It is four miles from the New York City Hall to Sixtieth street; and the capacity of the area below that street for purposes of residence may be said to be well nigh exhausted. The encroachments of business below that division line seem likely to diminish its capacity to furnish homes nearly as rapidly as improvements in building methods may augment such capacity. Of the twenty-four Assembly Districts in the City of New York, nineteen—to wit, one to eighteen inclusive, and the twentieth—lie wholly below Fifty-ninth street. In these nineteen districts the increase of registration in 1888 over that of 1884 is 13,641. The remaining five districts lie almost wholly above