ion free to engage in such other pursuits as
are best carried on in large cities.

The disclosures of the last census prove the truth of this statement.
At the first census in 1790 the population resident in cities was 3.3
per cent. of the total population. This percentage slowly gained at
each successive census, until in 1840 it had reached 8.5 per cent. In
fifty years it had thus gained a little over five per cent. But in
1850 it rose to 12.5 per cent.; in 1860 it was 16.1 per cent.; in 1870
it was 20.9 per cent., having in this one decade gained as much as in
the first fifty years of our political existence. In 1880 the
population resident in cities was 22.5 per cent. of the whole
population.

With this rapid growth of urban population, have grown the
contemporaneous complaints of corrupt administration and bad municipal
government. The outcry may be said to be universal, for it comes from
both sides of the Atlantic; and the complaints appear to be in direct
proportion to the size of cities. It is obvious, therefore, that the
knowledge of the art of local government has not kept pace with the
growth of population. I am here by your favor to speak for the city of
New York, and I should be the last person to throw any discredit on
its fair fame; but I think I only give voice to the general feeling,
when I say that the citizens of New York are satisfied neither with
the structure of its government, nor with its actual administration,
even when it is in the hands of intelligent and honest officials.
Dissatisfied as we are, no man has been able to devise a system which
commends itself to the general approval, and it may be asserted that
the remedy is not to be found in devices for any special machinery of
government. Experiments without number have been tried, and
suggestions in infinite variety have been offered, but to-day no man
can say that we have approached any nearer to the idea of good
government, which is demanded by the intelligence and the wants of the
community.

If, therefore, New York has not yet learned to govern itself, how can
it be expected to be better governed by adding half a million to its
population, and a great territory to its area, unless it be with the
idea that a "little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." Is Brooklyn that
leaven? If not, and if possibly "the salt has lost its savor,
wherewith shall it be salted?" Brooklyn is now struggling with this
problem, it remains to be seen with what s