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has been characteristic of our period of civilization, is due mainly to 

 the increase of facilities for communication, transportation and ex- 

 change throughout the world, as there is every reason to believe that 

 it is, we can but anticipate, in the immediate future, a still more 

 rapid movement in the same direction. 



We are now extending railroads over this continent at the rate 

 of more that fifteen hundred miles a year, and before our next Presi- 

 dent takes his seat, we shall have applied an amount of labor which 

 is represented by the enormous sum of two thousand millions of 

 dollars, to this work, most of it preparatory, and more than half of 

 it directed to the opening up of new lands to profitable cultivation. 

 The productive capacity of the country thus laid open, and the de- 

 mand upon commerce of its people, has scarcely yet begun to be 

 manifested. We have but half made our first road to the Pacific, 

 and we have only within a year begun to extend our steam naviga- 

 tion to Japan and China, where the demands upon civilized com- 

 merce of a frugal and industrious population, much larger than that 

 of all Christendom, yet remain to be developed. We are ourselves 

 but just awake to the value of the electric telegraph in lessening the 

 risks of trade on a large scale, and giving it order and system. 

 Thus, we seem to be just preparing to enter upon a new chapter of 

 commercial and social progress, in which a comprehension of the 

 advantages that arise from combination and co-operation will be the 

 rule among merchants, and not, as heretofore, the exception. 



CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH THE EVILS OF LARGE TOWNS 

 HAVE DIMINISHED. 



The rapid enlargement of great towns which has hitherto occur- 

 red, must then be regarded as merely a premonition of the vastly 

 greater enlargement that is to come. We see, therefore, how im- 

 perative, with reference to the interests of our race, is this question, 

 whether as the enlargement of towns goes on the law of improve- 

 ment is such that we may reasonably hope that life in them will con- 

 tinue to grow better, more orderly, more healthy'? One thing seems 

 to be certain, that the gain hitherto can be justly ascribed in very 

 small part to direct action on the part of those responsible for the 

 good management of the common interests of their several popula- 

 tions. Neither humanity nor the progress of invention and dis- 

 covery, nor the advancement of science has had much to do with it. 

 It can not even, in any great degree, be ascribed to the direct action 

 of the law of supply and demand. 



Shall we say, then, that it has depended on causes wholly beyond 



