figure represents the average cost of dwellings of this class, it would appear that the actual cost of the greater number of these dwellings was considerably less than the average. Otherwise the average would not have been drawn to a point so far below the maximum cost of $10,000. These 1,168 families may be safely assumed to stand upon lots worth one-third of their cost. Thus, these 1,168 dwellings are to dwell in homes representing an average investment of $5,333. Upon the basis of computation before employed the income of these families should average not far from $2,000 per year. In fact, for reasons just suggested, these incomes range from a minimum of $1,000 or less to a maximum rarely exceeding $5,000 or $6,000. And a greater number of these incomes undoubtedly falls below the average point of $2,000. Perhaps the greater number would be found to be not far from $1,500.

There remain 87 families, for whom 87 private dwellings, each costing $10,000 or more, as estimated, were to be constructed. The aggregate value of these dwellings is $1,135,500. The average value is $13,000. Since the average rises so slightly above the minimum, it is clear that but few dwellings costing much more than $10,000 were to be constructed. The detailed report of the Commissioner mentions but three residences of high cost to be built respectively for $35,000, $40,000 and $50,000. These 87 families represent an average investment for both the land and the house of $17,333. An attempt to average the income of this class would be attended with less success than in any of the prior instances. The minimum cost of living for a family dwelling in one of these residences would not be far from $6,000. Doubtless but a few of them spend as small a sum as this in a year.

The surmise that in some of its features building has been overdone is apparently verified by a study of the remaining permits. The 63 factories costing $579,580, and the 158 shops costing $121,445 call for so small a part of such a population as would be contained in the flats and tenements to be constructed, that we must believe that some of these latter will not be occupied at once. This conclusion accords with observation. At the same time the general magnitude of this sort of construction indicates the operation of those causes already spoken of which embarrass the growth of New York and promote the growth of Brooklyn. Manifestly the tenants of these numerous flats and the 1,168 families who are to dwell in the more modest residences belonging in part at least to the class which will not live in lower New York and which cannot endure the journey to the region above One Hundred and Tenth street.

For the twelve months ending November 30th, 1887, permits were issued for 4,246 buildings, to cost $19,983,414. Among these are found dwellings for 9,585 families. Of these families, 2,856 are to dwell in 922 flats costing $3,978,592, the average investment for each family being $1,390 as against $1,338 in 1888. Two thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight families are to dwell in buildings described as stores and flats, numbering 714, and costing $4,838,938, the average investment for each family being $1,691 as against $1,752 in 1888. Two thousand three hundred and ninety-one families are to dwell in 377 tenements costing $1,879,001, the average investment for a family being $785 as against $806 in 1884. There remain 1,372 families who are to dwell in the same number of dwellings, each costing less than $10,000, and the aggregate cost being $5,320,607, the average cost per family being $3,877, as against $4,000 in 1888. Finally, there are 97 families provided for by the same number of residences, each costing over $10,000, and costing in the aggregate $1,197,400, or on the average $12,344 as against $13,000 in 1888.

It will be noted that a general survey of these twelve months is decidedly like that for the twelve months ending upon November 30th, 1888.

Since December 1, 1886, therefore, permits have been issued for the accommodation of 20,042 families The conclusion hinted at early in this message that present rate of growth of this city is in excess of 25,000 per year is more than supported by these figures.

The conclusions thus arrived at as to the present and future of Brooklyn are reinforced by observation of the life of the people as it ebbs and flows about us. Closer union with New York has—to put it paradoxically—removed us further from New York. The increased population, whose growth is undoubtedly stimulated by improved transit, consumes such a volume of home supplies that our local business has vastly augmented and varied. The tendency to visit New York for every sort of purpose declines. Closer alliance with New York means a more discriminating alliance and less general indiscriminate dependence on that city. This must ever be the rule of growth in great communities. It is the rule of national growth. Of the products of the West some must be shipped in undiminished bulk, but even these are so handled that a small room in New York suffices to accommodate enough buyers and sellers to dispose in one day of a year's crop. Other forms of product reach the East for consumption or export in a concentrated form. By the natural law of growth the process of concentration is constantly moving Westward in its place of performance to intercept the raw material at a point as near as possible to that of its production. Similar laws apply to New York and Brooklyn with unusual intensity. Obviously New York must be the clearing house and the site of the finer and more costly grades of industry. That it cannot be the abode of large industrial activity demanding bulk or space is not less clear. Manufacturers who are to occupy much of the earth's surface, or whose products are bulky, must establish themselves elsewhere. Some of them must and will come to Brooklyn, and the population growing up about them will hereafter depend less and less upon New York for any except the finer bonds of relation which unify the diverse purposes and interests clustering around our majestic bay.

It has seemed best to dwell upon this topic of the City's present magnitude and general condition. Such a study of the people can hardly fail to enlighten those who conduct their affairs, or to arouse and stimulate a collective and aggressive public spirit, and a sentiment of just local pride, such as become a great community. Few revelations of the future are as clear as that the commanding, if not the overwhelming problems of politics, are to spring hereafter from such communities. The necessities of compact and highly-organized bodies of people; the vast private enterprises, as well as public works, which must minister to their daily wants; the stress of industrial competition among them; the pressure of class upon class; the jarring of interest upon interest; the demand for comprehensive, honest and far-sighted administration of their public affairs; the absolute need to maintain order upon its established foundations; the fierce contentions and uneasy vitality which accompany hasty or irregular municipal growth; these and other features of city life, suggests much food for thought for the present and approaching generation of Americans. Since cities are to be so great a factor as well as so great a product in our material expansion, it follows that the government of cities is the one quarter of the political field in which American institutions must not fail; for if popular self-government fails there it fails at the heart, at the centre and source of vital and nervous power. In cities, therefore, are to be met those trials whose issue will determine in what characters the later pages of American history are to be inscribed. To designate great cities as an evil, or as a peril, is to note but half their significance. If men, when massed together, are accessible to evil suggestions they are likewise accessible to that which is good. At all events, the problem is not obscure or hard to find. One might go farther and say that in the question of the future of our cities is involved more