as the goods that enter her precincts by all the ways we have rehearsed.
She draws them up Broadway in twenty thousand horse-vehicles per day, on
an average, and from that magnificent avenue, crowded for nearly five
miles with elegant commercial structures, over two hundred miles more of
paved street, in all directions. She lights them at night with eight
hundred miles of gas-pipe; she washes them and slakes their thirst from
two hundred and ninety-one miles of Croton main; she has constructed for
their drainage one hundred and seventy-six miles of sewer. She
victimizes them with nearly two thousand licensed hackmen; she licenses
twenty-two hundred car- and omnibus-drivers to carry them over
twenty-nine different stage-routes and ten horse-railroads, in six
hundred and seventy-one omnibuses and nearly as many cars, connecting
intimately with every part of the city, and averaging ten up-and-down
trips per day. She connects them with the adjoining cities of the
main-land and with Staten and Long Island by twenty ferries, running, on
the average, one boat each way every ten minutes during the twenty-four
hours. She offers for her guests' luxurious accommodation at least a
score of hotels, where good living is made as much the subject of high
art as in the Hotel du Louvre, besides minor houses of rest and
entertainment, to the number of more than five thousand. She attends to
their religion in about four hundred places of public worship. She
gives them breathing-room in a dozen civic parks, the largest of which
both Nature and Art destine to be the noblest popular pleasure-ground of
the civilized world, as it is the amplest of all save the Bois de
Boulogne. Central Park covers an area of 843 acres, and, though only in
the fifth year of its existence, already contains twelve miles of
beautifully planned and scientifically constructed carriage-road, seven
miles of similar bridle-path, four sub-ways for the passage of
trade-vehicles across the Park, with an aggregate length of two miles,
and twenty-one miles of walk. As an item of city property, Central Park
is at present valued at six million dollars; but this, of course, is
quite a nominal and unstable valuation. The worth of the Park to New
York property in general is altogether beyond calculation.
New York feeds her people with about two million slaughter-animals per
annum. How these are classified, and what periodical changes their
supply undergoes, may be conveniently seen by the following tabular view
of the New York butchers' receiving-yards during the twelve months of
the year 1863. I am indebted for it to the experience and courtesy of
Mr. Solon Robinson, agricultural editor of the "New York Tribune."
_Receipts of Butchers' Animals in New York during 1863._
+-------+---------+---------+---------+---------+----------+
|Month. | Beeves. | Cows. | Calves. | Sheep. | Swine. |
|-------+---------+---------+---------+---------+----------+
|Jan. | 16,349 | 393 | 1,318 | 25,352 | 138,413 |
|Feb. | 19,930 | 474 | 1,207 | 24,877 | 98,099 |
|March | 22,187 | 843 | 2,594 | 29,645 | 79,320 |
|April | 18,921 | 636 | 3,182 | 18,311 | 56,516 |
|May | 16,739 | 440 | 3,510 | 20,338 | 39,305 |
|June | 23,785 | 718 | 5,516 | 44,808 | 56,612 |
|July | 20,224 | 396 | 2,993 | 41,614 | 40,716 |
|August | 20,347 | 496 | 3,040 | 49,900 | 36,725 |
|Sept. | 30,847 | 524 | 3,654 | 79,078 | 68,646 |
|Oct. | 24,397 | 475 | 3,283 | 64,144 | 112,265 |
|Nov. | 23,991 | 557 | 3,378 | 61,082 | 183,359 |
|Dec. | 26,374 | 518 | 2,034 | 60,167 | 191,641 |
|-------+---------+---------+---------+---------+----------+
|Total | | | | | |
|of each| 264,091 | 6,470 | 35,709 | 519,316 |1,101,617 |
|kind, | | | | | |
|-------+---------+---------+---------+---------+----------+
| |
|Total of all kinds, 1,927,203. |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
Of the total number of beeves which came into the New York market in
1863, those whose origin could be ascertained were furnished from their
several States in the following proportions:--
Illinois contributed 118,692
New York " 28,985
Ohio " 19,369
Indiana " 14,232
Michigan " 9,074
Kentucky " 6,782
Averaging the weight of the cattle which came to New York market in 1863
at the moderate estimate of 700 lbs., the metropolitan supply of beef
for that year amounted to 189,392,700 lbs. This, at the average price of
nine and a quarter cents per pound, was worth $17,518,825.
Proportionably with these estimates, the average weekly expenditure by
butchers at the New York yards during the year 1863 was $328,865.
It is an astonishing, but indubitable fact, that, while the population
of New York has increased sixty-six per cent during the last decade, the
consumption of _beef_ has in the same time increased sixty-five per
cent. This increment might be ascribed to the great advance of late
years in the price of pork,--that traditional main stay of the poor
man's housekeeping,--were it not that the importation of swine has
increased almost as surprisingly. We are therefore obliged to
acknowledge that during a period when the chief growth of our population
was due to emigration from the lowest ranks of foreign nationalities,
during three years of a devastating war, and inclusive of the great
financial crisis of 1857, the increase in consumption of the most costly
and healthful article of animal food lacked but one per cent of the
increase of the population. These statistics bear eloquent witness to
the rapid diffusion of luxury among the New York people.
From the table of classification by States we may draw another
interesting inference. It will be seen that by far the largest
proportion of the bullocks came into the New York market from the most
remote of the Western States contributing. In other words, New York City
has so perfected her connection with all the sources of supply, that
distance has become an unimportant element in her calculations of
expense; and she can make all the best grazing land of the country
tributary to her market, without regard to the question whether it be
one or twelve hundred miles off.
The foregoing butchers' estimates are as exact as our present means of
information can make them. Large numbers of uncounted sheep are consumed
within the city limits, and the unreported calves are many more than
come to light in statistics. Besides these main staples of the market
which have been mentioned, there is consumed in New York an incalculable
quantity of game and poultry, preserved meats and fish, cheese, butter,
and eggs.
Mr. James Boughton, clerk of the New York Produce Exchange, has been
good enough to furnish me with a tabular statement of the city's
receipts of produce for the year ending April 30, 1864. Such portions of
it as may show the amount of staples, exclusive of fresh meat, required
for the regular supply of the New York market, are presented in the
opposite column.
A less important, but still very interesting, class of products entered
New York during the same period, in the following amounts:--
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| COTTON. | SEED. | ASHES. | WHISKEY. | OIL CAKE. |
|-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------|
| _Bales._ | _Bush._ | _Pkgs._ | _Bbls._ | _Sacks._ |
| 18,193 | 7,343 | 1,401 | 21,838 | 2,329 |
| 16,299 | 3,196 | 1,657 | 26,925 | 14,040 |
| 13,080 | 901 | 1,175 | 19,627 | 20,120 |
| 11,043 | 892 | 1,551 | 18,083 | 19,583 |
| 12,874 | 2,082 | 884 | 15,781 | 4,810 |
| 19,332 | 1,189 | 790 | 17,656 | 17,500 |
| 26,902 | 2,318 | 1,280 | 20,098 | 10,441 |
| 24,870 | 8,193 | 1,393 | 39,594 | 4,973 |
| 22,010 | 8,441 | 1,163 | 32,346 | 2,676 |
| 28,242 | 24,216 | 1,498 | 34,475 | 2,115 |
| 39,302 | 31,765 | 1,457 | 35,575 | 2,963 |
| 33,538 | 5,686 | 1,044 | 22,873 | 4,536 |
|-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------|
| 265,685 | 96,222 | 15,293 | 304,871 | 106,356 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
New York, during the same period, exported,--
Of Flour 2,571,744 bbls.
" Wheat 15,842,836 bushels.
" Corn 5,576,836 "
" Cured Beef 113,061 pkgs.
" " Pork 189,757 bbls.
" Cotton 27,561 bales.
Deducting from the total supply of each of these six staples such
amounts as were exported during the year, we
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| MONTH. | FLOUR. | CORN | CORN | WHEAT. | CORN. |
| | | MEAL. | MEAL. | | |
|------------------+-----------+---------+---------+------------+------------|
| | _Bbls._ | _Bbls._ | _Bags._ | _Bush._ | _Bush._ |
| 1863.--May | 454,363 | 10,331 | 18,614 | 1,789,952 | 1,914,490 |
| June | 636,501 | 19,283 | 7,989 | 2,853,755 | 2,262,825 |
| July | 451,004 | 9,995 | 10,480 | 2,409,184 | 3,049,126 |
| August | 298,097 | 9,875 | 9,226 | 1,989,839 | 2,343,899 |
| September | 319,923 | 10,481 | 4,715 | 1,132,588 | 2,196,157 |
| October | 451,762 | 8,673 | 13,020 | 3,052,968 | 1,265,793 |
| November | 530,096 | 8,883 | 22,835 | 3,164,750 | 295,398 |
| December | 429,641 | 16,301 | 45,627 | 1,396,608 | 135,907 |
| 1864.--January | 266,240 | 7,987 | 43,990 | 10,244 | 145,557 |
| February | 233,822 | 12,489 | 47,137 | 45,283 | 108,751 |
| March | 190,785 | 14,135 | 40,510 | 108,407 | 259,547 |
| April | 218,181 | 10,889 | 27,097 | 166,506 | 120,272 |
|------------------+-----------+---------+---------+------------+------------+
| Total | 4,480,415 | 145,272 | 291,190 | 18,119,993 | 14,098,262 |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| MONTHS. | OATS. | RYE. | MALT. | BARLEY. | BEEF. |
|------------------+------------+---------+---------+-----------+---------|
| | _Bush._ | _Bush._ | _Bush._ | _Bush._ | _Bbls._ |
| 1863.--May | 808,233 | 28,034 | 24,034 | 4,672 | 9,428 |
| June | 1,442,979 | 23,038 | 22,508 | 1,643 | 2,386 |
| July | 849,831 | 52,759 | 16,710 | none. | 1,285 |
| August | 1,097,223 | 68,035 | 55,453 | .... | 892 |
| September | 307,025 | 9,721 | 47,048 | 7,941 | 718 |
| October | 1,319,985 | 41,912 | 13,461 | 753,893 | 7,420 |
| November | 2,189,719 | 36,731 | 44,322 | 441,479 | 68,391 |
| December | 1,882,344 | 45,727 | 59,494 | 275,568 | 74,031 |
| 1864.--January | 305,690 | 6,532 | 42,608 | 6,972 | 22,988 |
| February | 209,080 | 3,554 | 63,064 | 5,105 | 6,358 |
| March | 258,685 | 5,308 | 69,578 | 18,386 | 4,319 |
| April | 238,344 | 6,373 | 44,383 | 41,914 | 4,654 |
|------------------+------------+---------+---------+-----------+---------+
| Total | 10,909,238 | 328,619 | 502,693 | 1,557,573 | 203,270 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| MONTHS. | PORK. | CUT | LARD. | DRESSED |
| | | MEATS. | | HOGS. |
|------------------+---------+---------+----------+---------|
| | _Bbls._ | _Pkgs._ |100 _lbs._| _No._
| 1863.--May | 119,302 | 38,587 | 149,966 | .... |
| June | 112,343 | 21,401 | 75,966 | .... |
| July | 10,155 | 6,633 | 15,396 | .... |
| August | 6,879 | 2,870 | 3,784 | .... |
| September | 7,115 | 3,967 | 5,233 | .... |
| October | 6,921 | 4,501 | 35,128 | 881 |
| November | 6,916 | 11,066 | 35,997 | 755 |
| December | 21,864 | 18,843 | 31,775 | 21,208 |
| 1864.--January | 39,364 | 34,469 | 25,145 | 48,276 |
| February | 32,144 | 42,593 | 43,245 | 59,894 |
| March | 33,687 | 92,710 | 83,122 | 4,600 |
| April | 12,346 | 49,399 | 90,496 | 67 |
|------------------+---------+---------+----------+---------|
| Total | 409,036 | 327,129 | 594,853 | 135,481 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
find a remainder, for annual metropolitan consumption, amounting, in the
case of
Flour to 1,908,671 bbls.
Wheat " 2,276,257 bushels.
Corn " 8,540,490 "
Cured Beef " 89,209 pkgs.
" Pork " 209,279 bbls.
Cotton " 238,124 bales.
We have no room for the details--which would embarrass us, if we should
attempt a statement--of the cost of clothing the New York people. We
will merely remark, in passing, that one of the largest retail stores in
the New York dry-goods trade sells at its counters ten million dollars'
worth of fabrics per annum, and that another concern in the wholesale
branch of the same trade does a yearly business of between thirty and
forty millions. As for tailors' shops, New York is their
fairy-land,--many eminent examples among them resembling, in cost, size,
and elegance, rather a European palace than a republican place of
traffic.
The most comprehensive generalization by which we may hope to arrive at
an idea of the business of New York is that which includes in tabular
form the statistics of the chief institutions which employ and insure
property.
On the 24th of September, 1864, sixty-three banks made a quarterly
statement of their condition, under the general banking law of the
State. These banks are at present the only ones in New York whose
condition can be definitely ascertained, and their reported capital
amounts to $69,219,763. The national banks will go far toward increasing
the total metropolitan banking capital to one hundred millions. The
largest of the State banks doing business in the city is the Bank of
Commerce, (about being reorganized on the national plan,) with a capital
of ten millions; and the smallest possess capital to the amount of two
hundred thousand dollars.
Mr. Camp, now at the head of the New York Clearing-House, has been kind
enough to furnish the following interesting statistics in regard to the
total amount of business transactions managed by the New York banks in
connection with the Clearing-House during the two years ending on the
30th of last September. Figures can scarcely be made more eloquent by
illustration than they are of themselves, I therefore leave them without
other comment than the remark that the weekly exchanges at the
Clearing-House during the past year have repeatedly amounted to more
than the entire expenses of the United States Government for the same
period.
_Clearing-House Transactions._
+-----------------------------------------------------++
| 1862. | EXCHANGES. | BALANCES. ||
|----------+----------------------+-------------------||
|October | $ 1,081,243,214.07 | $ 54,632,410.57 ||
|November | 874,966,873.15 | 47,047,576.93 ||
|December | 908,135,090.29 | 44,630,405.43 ||
| | | ||
| 1863. | | ||
|January | 1,251,408,362.76 | 58,792,544.70 ||
|February | 1,199,249,050.07 | 51,583,913.88 ||
|March | 1,313,908,804.14 | 60,456,505.45 ||
|April | 1,138,218,267.90 | 53,539,812.46 ||
|May | 1,535,484,281.78 | 70,328,306.25 ||
|June | 1,252,116,400.20 | 59,803,975.44 ||
|July | 1,261,668,342.87 | 62,387,857.44 ||
|August | 1,466,803,012.90 | 53,120,821.99 ||
|September | 1,584,396,148.47 | 61,302,352.35 ||
|----------+----------------------+-------------------||
| | $14,867,597,848.60 | $677,626,482.61 ||
|----------+----------------------+-------------------||
| ||
| 306 Business days. ||
| ||
| _Average for day_, 1862-3. ||
| ||
| Exchanges $48,586,921.07 ||
| Balances 2,214,415.63 ||
+-----------------------------------------------------++
+-----------------------------------------------------++
| 1863. | EXCHANGES. | BALANCES. ||
|----------+----------------------+-------------------||
|October | $ 1,900,210,522.77 | $ 74,088,419.08 ||
|November | 1,778,800,987.95 | 66,895,452.49 ||
|December | 1,745,436,325.73 | 60,577,884.19 ||
| | | ||
| 1864. | | ||
|January | 1,770,312,694.43 | 63,689,950.88 ||
|February | 2,088,170,989.48 | 65,744,935.13 ||
|March | 2,753,323,948.53 | 84,938,940.37 ||
|April | 2,644,732,826.34 | 93,363,526.16 ||
|May | 1,877,653,131.37 | 76,328,462.88 ||
|June | 1,902,029,181.42 | 88,187,658.93 ||
|July | 1,777,753,537.53 | 73,343,903.49 ||
|August | 1,776,018,141.53 | 69,071,237.16 ||
|September | 2,082,754,368.84 | 69,288,834.17 ||
|----------+----------------------+-------------------||
| | $24,097,196,655.92 | $885,719,204.93 ||
|----------+----------------------+-------------------||
| ||
| 306 Business days. ||
| ||
| _Average for day_, 1863-4. ||
| ||
| Exchanges $77,984,455.20 ||
| Balances 2,866,405.19 ||
+-----------------------------------------------------++
+------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
|Aggregate Exchanges for Eleven Years $95,540,602,384.53 |
| " Balances " " " 4,678,311,016.79 |
| ------------------- |
| Total Transactions $101,218,913,401.32 |
| |
+------------------------------------------------------------+
On the 31st day of December, 1863, there were 101 joint-stock companies
for the underwriting of fire-risks, with an aggregate capital of
$23,632,860; net assets to the amount of $29,269,423; net cash receipts
from premiums amounting to $10,181,031; and an average percentage of
assets to risks in force equalling 2.995. Besides these 101 joint-stock
concerns, there existed at the same date twenty-one mutual
fire-insurance companies, with an aggregate balance in their favor of
$674,042. The rapidity with which mutual companies have yielded to the
compacter and more efficient form of the joint-stock concern will be
comprehended when it is known that just twice the number now in being
have gone out of existence during the last decade. There are twelve
marine insurance companies in the metropolis, with assets amounting to
$24,947,559. The life-insurance companies number thirteen, with an
aggregate capital of $1,885,000. We may safely set down the property
invested in New York insurance companies of all sorts at $51,139,461.
Add this sum to the aggregate banking capital above stated, and we have
a total of $120,359,224. This vast sum merely represents New York's
interest in the management of other people's money. The bank is employed
as an engine for operating debt and credit. Its capital is the necessary
fuel for running the machine; and that fuel ought certainly not to cost
more than a fair interest on the products of the engine. The insurance
companies guard the business-man's fortune from surprise, as the banks
relieve him from drudgery; they put property and livelihood beyond the
reach of accident: in other words, they manage the estates of the
community so as to secure them from deterioration, and charge a
commission for their stewardship.
It is a legitimate assumption in this part of the country that the money
employed in managing property bears to the property itself an average
proportion of about seven per cent. Hence it follows that the
above-stated aggregate banking and insurance capital of $120,359,224
must represent and be backed by values to more than fourteen times that
amount. In other words, and in round numbers, we may assert that the
bank and insurance interests of New York are in relations of commerce
and control with at least $1,685,029,136. This measure of metropolitan
influence, it must be remembered, is based on the statistics attainable
mainly outside of cash sales, and through only two of the metropolitan
agencies of commerce.
I do not know how much I may assist any reader's further comprehension
of the energies of the metropolis by stating that it issues fifteen
daily newspapers, one hundred and thirty-three weekly or semi-weekly
journals, and seventy-four monthly, semi-monthly, or weekly
magazines,--that it has ten good and three admirable public
libraries,--a dozen large hospitals, exclusive of the military,--thirty
benevolent societies, (and we are in that respect far behind London,
where every man below an attorney belongs to some "union" or other, that
he may have his neighbors' guaranty against the ever-impending British
poor-house,)--twenty-one savings-banks,--one theatre where French is
spoken, a German theatre, an Italian opera-house, and eleven theatres
where they speak English. In a general magazine-article, it is
impossible to review the hundreds of studios where our own Art is
painting itself into the century with a vigor which has no rival abroad.
We can treat neither the aesthetic nor the social life of New York with as
delicate a pencil as we would. Our paper has had to deal with broad
facts; and upon these we are willing to rest the cause of New York in
any contest for metropolitan honors. We believe that New York is
destined to be the permanent emporium not only of this country, but of
the entire world,--and likewise the political capital of the nation. Had
the White House (or, pray Heaven! some comelier structure) stood on
Washington Heights, and the Capitol been erected at Fanwood, there would
never have been a Proslavery Rebellion. This is a subject which
business-men are coming to ponder pretty seriously.
After all, New York's essential charm to a New-Yorker cannot express
itself in figures, nor, indeed, in any adequate manner. It is the city
of his soul. He loves it with a passionate dignity which will not let
him swagger like the Cockney or twitter like the Parisian. His love for
New York goes frequently unacknowledged even to himself, until a
necessary absence of unusual length teaches him how hard it would be to
lose the city of his affections forever.
It is a bath of other souls. It will not let a man harden in his own
epidermis. He must affect and be affected by multitudinous varieties of
temperament, race, character. He avoids grooves, because New York will
not tolerate grooviness. He knows that he must be able, on demand, to
bowl anywhere over the field of human tastes and sympathies.
Professionally he may be a specialist, but in New York his specialty
must be only the axis around which are grouped encyclopaedic learning,
faultless skill, and catholic intuitions. Nobody will waste a Saturday
afternoon riding on his hobby-horse. He must be a broad-natured person,
or he will be a mere imperceptible line on the general background of
obscure citizens. He feels that he is surrounded by people who will help
him do his best, yes, who will make him do it, or drive him out to
install such as will. If he think of a good thing to do, he knows that
the market for all good things is close around him. Whatever surplus of
himself he has for communication, that he knows to be absolutely sure of
a recipient before the day is done. New York, like Goethe's Olympus,
says to every man with capacity and self-faith,--
"Here is all fulness, ye brave, to reward you:
Work, and despair not!"
Moreover, the moral air of New York City is in certain respects the
purest air a man can breathe. This may seem a paradox. New York City is
not often quoted as an example of purity. To the philosopher her
atmosphere is cleaner than that of a country village. As the air of a
contracted space may grow poisonous by respiration, while pure air rests
over the entire surface of the earth in virtue of being the final
solvent to all terrestrial decompositions, so it is possible that a few
good, but narrow people may get alone together in the country, and hatch
a social organism far more morbid than the metropolitan. In the latter
instance, aberrations counterbalance each other, and the body politic,
cursed though it be with bad officials, has more vitality in it than
could be excited by any conclave of excellent men with one idea,
meeting, however, solemnly, to feed it with legislative pap.
While no man can ride into metropolitan success on a hobby-horse,
popular dissent will still take no stronger form than a quiet withdrawal
and the permission to rock by himself. No amount of eccentricity
surprises a New-Yorker, or makes him uncourteous. It is difficult to
attract even a crowd of boys on Broadway by an odd figure, face, manner,
or costume. This has the result of making New York an asylum for all who
love their neighbor as themselves, but would a little rather not have
him looking through the key-hole. In New York I share no dreadful
secrets with the man next door. I am not in his power any more than if I
lived in Philadelphia,--nor so much, for he might get somebody to spy me
there. There is no other place but New York where my next-door neighbor
never feels the slightest hesitation about cutting me dead, because he
knows that on such conditions rests that broad individual liberty which
is the glory of the citizen.
In fine, if we seek the capital of well-paid labor,--the capital of
broad congenialities and infinite resources,--the capital of most widely
diffused comfort, luxury, and taste,--the capital which to the eye of
the plain businessman deserves to be the nation's senate-seat,--the
capital which, as the man of forecast sees, must eventually be the
world's Bourse and market-place,--in any case we turn and find our quest
in the city of New York.