The Instruction In These Schools Is Given
Principally By Ladies Of High Station And Education.
It is a noble feature
in New York "high life," and in process of time may diminish the gulf
which is widening between the different classes, and may lessen the
hideous contrasts which are presented between princely fortunes on the one
hand, and vicious poverty on the other.
Taking the various schools throughout the Union, it is estimated that
between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000 individuals are at this time receiving
education.
To turn from the social to the material features of the United States:
their system of internal communication deserves a brief notice, for by it
their resources have been developed to a prodigious extent. The system of
railways, telegraphs, and canal and river navigation presents an
indication of the wealth and advancement of the United States, as
wonderful as any other feature of her progress. She contains more miles of
railway than all the rest of the world put together.
In a comparatively new country like America many of the items of expense
which attend the construction of railways in England are avoided; the
initiatory expenses are very small. In most of the States, all that is
necessary is, for the company to prove that it is provided with means to
carry out its scheme, when it obtains a charter from the Legislature at a
very small cost. In several States, including the populous ones of New
York and Ohio, no special charter is required, as a general railway law
prescribes the rules to be observed by joint-stock companies. Materials,
iron alone excepted, are cheap, and the right of way is usually freely
granted. In the older States land would not cost more than 20l. an acre.
Wood frequently costs nothing more than the labour of cutting it, and the
very level surface of the country renders tunnels, cuttings, and
embankments generally unnecessary. The average cost per mile is about
38,000 dollars, or 7600l.
In States where land has become exceedingly valuable, land damages form a
heavy item in the construction of new lines, but in the South and West the
case is reversed, and the proprietors are willing to give as much land as
may be required, in return for having the resources of their localities
opened up by railway communication. It is estimated that the cost of
railways in the new States will not exceed 4000l. per mile. The termini
are plain, and have been erected at a very small expense, and many of the
wayside stations are only wooden sheds. Few of the lines have a double
line of rails, and the bridges or viaducts are composed of logs of wood,
with little ironwork and less paint, except in a few instances. Except
where the lines intersect cultivated districts, fences are seldom seen,
and the paucity of porters and other officials materially reduces the
working expenses. The common rate of speed is from 22 to 30 miles an hour,
but there are express trains which are warranted to perform 60 in a like
period. The fuel is very cheap, being billets of wood. The passenger and
goods traffic on nearly all the lines is enormous, and it is stated that
most of them pay a dividend of from 8 to 15 per cent.
The primary design has been to connect the sea-coast with all parts of the
interior, the ulterior is to unite the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. At the
present time there are about 25,000 miles of railway in operation and
course of construction, and the average rate of fare is seldom more than
1d. per mile. Already the chief cities of the Atlantic have been
connected with the vast valley of the Mississippi, and before long the
regions bordering on Lake Huron and Lake Superior will be united with
Mobile and New Orleans. In addition to this enormous system of railway
communication, the canal and river navigation extends over 10,000 miles,
and rather more than 3000 steamboats float on American waters alone.
The facilities for telegraphic communication in the States are a further
evidence of the enterprise of this remarkable people. They have now 22,000
miles of telegraph in operation, and the cost of transmitting messages is
less than a halfpenny a word for any distance under 200 miles. The cost of
construction, including every outlay, is about 30l. per mile. The wires
are carried along the rail ways, through forests, and across cities,
rivers, and prairies. Messages passing from one very distant point to
another have usually to be re-written at an intermediate station; though
by an improved plan they have been transmitted direct from New York to
Mobile, a distance of 1800 miles. By the Cincinnati telegraphic route to
New Orleans, a distance from New York of 2000 miles, the news brought by
the British steamer to Sandy Hook at 8 in the morning has been telegraphed
to New Orleans, and before 11 o'clock the effects produced by it upon
speculations there have been returned to New York - the message
accomplishing a distance of 4000 miles in three hours. The receipts are
enormous, for, in consequence of the very small sum charged for
transmitting messages, as many as 600 are occasionally sent along the
principal lines in one day. The seven principal morning papers in New York
paid in one year 50,000 dollars for despatches, and 14,000 for special
messages. Messages connected with markets, public news, the weather, and
the rise and fall of stocks, are incessantly passing between the great
cities. Any change in the weather likely to affect the cotton-crop is
known immediately in the northern cities. While in the Exchange at Boston,
I witnessed the receipt of a telegraphic despatch announcing that a heavy
shower was falling at New Orleans!
It must not be supposed that there is no poverty in the New World. During
one year 134,972 paupers were in the receipt of relief, of whom 59,000
were in the State of New York; but to show the evil influence of the
foreign, more especially the Irish, element in America, it is stated that
75 per cent.
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