Page:Charters of the Weehawken ferry company.djvu/17

Rh needed to keep pace with an expanding population. Inter-communications with the environs must improve and be constant. The growth of the whole country being promoted by the network of rail-ways and canals spread over it, is evidence that a similar principle applies to the city and its suburbs. Easy and speedy ingress and egress are especially important. Means for these purposes must be multiplied without stint in the ratio of an increasing population. The practical results of the elementary principle, "time is money," must be continually borne in mind; and our inhabitants must have the opportunity to reach every direction with speed and facility.

"New York is the London of the western world, where all great operations of exchange concentrate, receiving constant tribute from the industry of the world. Here the cotton, the flour, the rice, the corn, the tobacco, the manufactures, and the gold of the whole country meet the products of all other lands and climes, and here the multifarious transfers are made. Here is concentrated the capital that puts in motion the power of steam and the strength of muscle in the remotest districts—that stretches the iron track and impels the rapid engine to the extreme verge of civilization. When we compare the present expansive power and wealth of the Union, and the extent of commercial connections of this emporium with the picture they present to the memory of many now living, it seems perfect soberness to anticipate that within the periods of lives now in being, the centre of power will have been assumed by our government, and commercial supremacy universally conceded to New York."

The rapid growth of the City of New York would seem, at this time, especially to demand a locality such as Weehawken, where the population can find places for both cheap and elegant residences accessible, surrounded by a pure and healthy atmosphere, and panoramic views of the city and surrounding country of almost unequalled beauty; and which, while possessing all these advantages, is likely to increase rapidly in value from the transportation of passengers and freight upon the road and ferry, and the growth consequent thereupon.

The prospects of New York are cheering and encouraging. The boldest flights of imagination, fifty years ago, could scarcely have pictured the realities of the present hour. "People still live," says a late paper, "who can recollect the Empire City when it was a mere cluster of houses around Nassau and Pearl streets. Many a man, yet in the full vigor of life, has shot snipe in the marsh through which Canal street runs. Old ladies tell of the splendid balls which used to be given in their youth when John street and William street were the centres of fashion. But a few months ago, Union Square was the extreme limit of