AND WITH BIRMINGHAM. 379 



progress has been more rapid, and it probably exceeds 

 Glasgow now by 50,000 inhabitants at least. 



But then two-fifths of the New York population are 

 foreigners born, and they and their families make up 

 more than half the inhabitants. Both cities, it is true, 

 have been almost equally indebted to immigration, but 

 except the low Irish who have been drifted into both 

 cities, and who are an incubus rather than an aid, and 

 far from being an element of progress Glasgow is 

 peopled wholly by native-born Scotch, and is thus the 

 work of the people of the land. This city, therefore, 

 may be regarded as a true testimony to the energy, 

 enterprise, and perseverance of the people who inhabit 

 the western Lowlands of Scotland. It is far more 

 wonderful, as the result of half a century of exclusively 

 home exertion, than the rapid rise of New York is, or 

 than that of any other American city in which I have 

 been. 



The growth of the inland city of Birmingham and its 

 suburbs is not less an undoubted illustration of native 

 energy. Since the beginning of the century its progress 

 has been as follows : 



1801. 1811. 1821. 1831. 1841. 1851. 



73,670 85,755 100,722 146,986 220,00 300,000 



It does not equal either Glasgow or New York in 

 size, but its growth, in the centre of an inland district, 

 through the instrumentality of native-born talent, working 

 upon native mineral productions, leaves no doubt as to 

 the physiological question of the inherent energy of 

 the home-born who inhabit it. 



I present these home pictures not with the view in any 

 way of lessening the greatness, or the many just causes 

 of admiration which the North American cities present. 

 But such comparisons are, I think, fitted to operate use 

 fully upon that class of minds which habitually magni 

 fies and gilds, and sees unknown perfections in places 



