1902.] INRODUCTORY ADDRESS." 25 



the memory of many of us, and especially since our fathers 

 were born. In 1820 Hartford had a population of 6,901; 

 New Haven had a population of 8,327, if I remember the 

 figures correctly. The public square in New Haven had no 

 sidewalks. It was grown up to bushes, and the people of the 

 city did not believe that it would ever pay to lay a pavement. 

 The city of Bridgeport did not exist in 1820. Waterbury had 

 decreased in population during the twenty preceding years. 

 There was no manufacturing of any kind there; nothing 

 worthy of the name. Here and there a gristmill or a fulling 

 mill or a tannery, or a little cotton factory. The shoemaker 

 and the blacksmith and the tailor and the housewife did nine- 

 tenths of the manufacturing that was done to meet the ne- 

 cessities of the people. It took longer to transport merchan- 

 dise across the State of Connecticut than it does now to carry 

 it to San Francisco, and for the purposes of trade communica- 

 tion Bridgeport is not as far from San Francisco today as it 

 was from New Haven in 1820. For many years thereafter 

 the changes were very slow. Hartford, from 1840 to 1850, 

 ten long years, gained 732 people. The average population of 

 123 towns in the year 1820 was 2,237, ^"^ there were only 

 seven towns in Connecticut that had a population of 2,000 

 above that average. In the last decade Hartford has gained 

 26,601, more people than there were in Hartford, New Haven, 

 Bridgeport, Waterbury, and Middletown combined in 1820; 

 more people than there are in the whole of Tolland county. 

 Right in Bridgeport, where in 1820 there was a little dock 

 and four or five lone houses, there are 70,000 people today, 

 more people than there are in Tolland and Windham counties 

 combined. Now, my friend, his Honor, the Mayor, in his 

 address suggested something about constitutional reform. 

 I am not quoting these figures as a preface to an argument in 

 favor of constitutional reform, but as he has suggested that 

 subject, I want to say to the farmers present, whose views 

 upon that subject may not coincide with mine, this: you be- 



