e-fold that of any
city in the United States, and twenty-fold that of Chicago. Now
New York contains 2,000,000 inhabitants, and Chicago, according to
recent reports, about 1,700,000. Many cities now exist containing
over 100,000 inhabitants, the sites of which, in that year, were
within the limits of Indian reservations.

From New York I returned to Washington. Many incidents recur to
me but they were of persons now dead and gone, the memory of whom
will not be recalled by the present generation. Mr. Polk was then
President. He was a plain man, of ordinary ability and more
distinguished for the great events that happened during his presidency
than for anything he did himself. I attended one of his receptions.
His wife appeared to better advantage than he. I then saw Mr.
Douglas for the first time. I think he was still a Member of the
House of Representatives, but had attained a prominent position
and was regarded as a rising man. I wished very much to see Henry
Clay, the great favorite of the Whigs of that day, but he was not
then in public life.

There was nothing in Washington at that time to excite interest,
except the men and women in public or social life. The city itself
had no attractions except the broad Potomac River and the rim of
hills that surrounded the city. It then contained about 30,000
inhabitants. Pennsylvania avenue was a broad, badly paved,
unattractive street, while all the other streets were unpaved and
unimproved. All that part of the city lying north of K street and
west of Fourteenth street, now the most fashionable part of the
city, was then a dreary waste open, like all the rest of the city,
as free pasturage for cows, pigs, and goats. It was a city in
name, but a village in fact. The contrast between Washington then
and now may be referred to hereafter.

Upon my return from the east in February, 1847, I actively resumed
the practice of the law. I was engaged in several important trials,
but notably one at Mount Vernon, Ohio, where the contesting parties
were brothers, the matter in dispute a valuable farm, and the chief
witness in the case the mother of both the plaintiff and defendant.
It was, as such trials are apt to be, vigorously contested with
great bitterness between the parties. Columbus Delano was the
chief counsel for the plaintiff, and I was his assistant. I remember
the case more especially because during its progress I was attacked
by typhoid fever. I retu