358 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



on an average five hours. Long ago the Western Union Tele- 

 graph Company connected its Madison Square branch with its 

 headquarters on Dey Street : written messages are transmitted 

 through its cylinders, two and a half inches in diameter, at the 

 rate of a mile a minute. The tube in its course connects with 

 three branch offices in Broadway a hint for the pneumatic con- 

 nection of branch post-offices with the general Post-Office, which, 

 extended to the principal railway stations and ferry-houses in the 

 metropolitan district, would give the postal service a new effi- 

 ciency. More important than this pneumatic tubing is the ques- 

 tion of rapid passenger transit, the inadequacy of existing methods 

 being peculiarly impressive as the great exhibition of 1892 is dis- 

 cussed. Whether by tunnel or viaduct, it seems imperative that 

 New York, at an early day, shall provide itself with transit facili- 

 ties such as those of the German capital, where trains stopping at 

 all stations, and trains running at high speed stopping only at 

 the principal stations, run on separate sets of tracks. 



This continent is, after all, only a larger kind of island, and in- 

 crease of transatlantic travel has been needed to remove some of 

 its insular complacencies, especially that with which it has hith- 

 erto regarded the condition of its streets. 



In common with New York, every city and large town in 

 America requires what may be called integration a thoroughly 

 comprehensive and intelligently planned outlay of capital for 

 every means of welding it into a unit commodious, wholesome, 

 and pleasant to live in ; easy and cheap to get about in. There is 

 an art of city design as well as house design : modern house plan- 

 ning not only bestows new comforts and refinements, it makes 

 them all part and parcel of a whole. When cities and towns are 

 treated structurally exactly as a good architect treats the edifice 

 an unstinting capitalist asks him to create, life in them will be 

 much better worth having than it is. And the financial oppor- 

 tunity to do all this appears when New York can borrow money 

 at two and a half per cent a rate one half as much as her citizens 

 are obliged to pay for individual borrowings. What has been 

 said with regard to cities and towns applies equally to means of 

 communication between them and villages the common roads, 

 whose badness Prof. Shaler tells us imposes a tax of at least ten 

 dollars a year on the average American household. Road im- 

 provement offers scope and verge for the profitable and safe in- 

 vestment of a good many millions now idle. Passing 

 from matters of municipal and county administration to State 

 and national interests, does not cheap and abundant capital make 

 it possible to conserve the Adirondacks as a State park, and as 

 the source of the principal rivers of New York ; to establish a 

 national system of afforestation ; to reclaim the arid plains of the 



