Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/189

176 commerce! Norfolk is a hundred miles nearer Chicago than New York is, but she has no intercourse with Chicago. It is three hundred miles nearer the mouth of the Ohio; but if a Norfolk man wants to go to St. Louis, I believe his quickest way lies through New York. It is not a day's sail farther from Liverpool; it is nearer to the Mediterranean and South American points. But what is Norfolk, with her 23,000 tons of shipping and her 14,000 population? What is Richmond, with her 27,000 men—10,000 of them slaves P Nay, what is Virginia itself, the very oldest State? Let me cipher out some numerical details.

In 1790 she had 748,000 inhabitants; now she has 1,421,000. She has not doubled in sixty years. In 1790 New York had 340,000; now she has 3,048,000. She has multiplied her population almost ten times. In Virginia, in 1850, there were only 452,000 more freemen than sixty years before; in New York,, there were 2,724,000 more freemen than there were in 1790. There are only 165,000 dwellings in Virginia; 463,000 in New York. Then the Virginia farms were worth $216,000,000, yours $554,000,000; Virginia is wholly agricultural, while you are also manufacturing and commercial. Her farm tools were worth $7,000,000; yours $22,000,000. Her cattle $33,000,000; yours $73,000,000. The orchard products of Virginia were worth $177,000; of New York $1,762,000. Virginia had 478 miles of railroad; you had 1,826 miles. She had 74,000 tons of shipping; you had 942,000. The value of her cotton factories was not two millions; the value of yours was four and a quarter millions. She produced $841,000 worth of woollen goods; you produced $7,030,000. Her furnaces produced two millions and a half; yours produced eight millions. Her tanneries $894,000; your $9,804,000. All of her manufactures together were not worth $9,000,000; those of the city of New York alone have an annual value of $105,000,000. Her attendance at school was 109,000; yours 693,000.

But there is one thing in which Virginia is far in advance of you. Of native Virginians, over twenty years old, who could not read the name of "Christ" nor the word "God"—free white people who cannot spell democrat—there were 87,383. That is, out of every five hundred