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during those years — those long, those everlasting years — from 1SG1 

 to 1864, there had been great changes. Our city had been changing, 

 and in all its change we saw a tendency becoming manifest which 



gave some of us much anxietj . 



I speak of a tendency which we then saw toward results which 

 we could not help anticipating with disquietude. Let us look at the 

 facts, however, as they are patent to us to-day, and you will better 

 understand what it was that we then saw, or thought we saw. Dur- 

 ing the last two years nearly one-half more houses have keen built 

 in Brooklyn than in New York. New York in 1807 built two thou- 

 sand eight hundred and eighty houses. Brooklyn three thousand six 

 hundred and fifty-nine. New York in 18G8 built two thousand one 

 hundred and twelve houses; Brooklyn three thousand three hundred 

 and seven. It is certain that our population is increasing more 

 rapidly than that of New York, and unless New York shall absorb 

 the eastern towns of Westchester county, our city must he expe< 

 to gain yearly until it shall become the larger of the two. The ques- 

 tion with which Ave are most concerned is, then, not so much the 

 amount of population which we are to have in the future, as its char- 

 acter and its capacity. By character I mean especially its ability to 

 meet its moneyed obligations, and thus bring down the percentage of 

 its taxation. 



It is never desirable that classes should be separated in the way 

 they were tending to separate here five years ago ; it is never desir- 

 able that the rich should so draw themselves apart in distinct com- 

 munities or quarters as to throw upon the poor an overwhelming 

 share of the burdens of carrying on the necessary expenses of their 

 local government. You are aware of the terrible suffering which has 

 occurred this year in the eastern suburbs of London from this cause; 

 and also in some of the suburbs of Paris, where a complaint was 

 lately made, that in a district containing 23,000 inhabitants, there was 

 not a single resident rich enough to be called on for charitable aid to 

 those in complete destitution. 



By the construction of the Central Park, New York placed us for 

 a time at special disadvantage in the competition for securing taxable 

 capital. She had done so before when she had brought in the Croton, 

 and to restore our advantage we had then been compelled, after wait- 

 ing as long as we could, to undertake our Water Works. If we 

 had not constructed them when we did, what would Brooklyn be 

 now? Simply a poor suburb of New York. In the same way we 

 were stimulated, after New York had made it necessary, to build the 

 Academy of Music. In one thing only have Ave yet shown ourselves 



