THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF PENNSYLVANIA..

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 195, 22 December 1876, Page 13

THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF PENNSYLVANIA..

t-i (From the Address of the Hon. B. H. Brewster.) So great and so steady has been, the advancement of the people of this State in the development and acquisition of the material resources that volumes have been written containing fatiguing tables, which are wise to record and useful to be read and remen> bered, but they are suited better for the eye of the student and thinker than for the ear of the hearer or mouth of the speaker: I shall not fatigue you by even an abbreviated recital of the events that occurred, or the condition of the people of the Province prior to the hundred years from this date. About one hundred and ten years ago Benjamin Franklin, who still is the greatest man that this country ever produced, and who is a philosopher and thinker to be ranked with Archimedes, Pythagons, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, in his examination before the committee of the House of Commons, declared that the white inhabitants of Pennsylvania at that day numbered but 160,000, and that the white inhabitants of North America from sixteen to sixty years of age were but about 300,000. Contrast that with our present condition. The city of Philadelphia, where you now are, contains 817,443 citizens, and it lies and they live in an area of 229fc square miles. It has 1000 miles of streets and roads opened, and 500 miles of these are paved. It is lighted by nearly 10,000 gas lamps. It has 134 miles of sewers, over 600 miles of gas mains, and 546 miles of water pipes; over 212 miles of city railways, and over 1800 passenger cars passing over them daily; 425 steatn boilers, more than 400 public schools with suitable buildings, and over 1600 school teachers, and over 80,000 pupils ; 30,000 bath-rooms supplied with hot and cold water, and for the use of that -water the citizens pay more than $1,000,000 annually ; 400 places of public worship.with accommodation for 300,000 persons; 9000 manufactories having a capital or near §200,000,000, employing 145,000 hands, the product of whose labor is near $400,000,000. In 1873 we exported over $34,000,000 and imported $26,000,000. The amount paid for duties is near §8,500,000. The real estate assessed for taxation is $518,000,000 and we collected nearly $9,000,000 for taxes. The very Park in which this grand Exhibition is now made contains 2991 acres, and is one of the largest in the world, and is enjoyed every year by millions of people ; and we have 130,000 neat and comfortable residences and homes. Compare this condition of our great city now | with its condition in 1776 and 1777. In October, 1777, General Howe, then being in possession of the city of Philadelphia, had an accurate census taken, and it was ascertained that in the city and liberties there were but 5470 houses, and of these 587 were untenanted, and there were but 21,776 inhabitants, exclusive of the army and strangers, and about the same time the number of churches were but 16. Why the population of the State itself, from being but 160,000, is now near 4,000,000. From the day that Pennsylvania renounced her allegiance to the crown of Great Britain, and dissolved and overthrew the Proprietary Government, has her march been steady and uninterrupted "in the course of political, social, commercial, and mechanical prosperity. In population she exceeds the Netherlands, Portugal, Greece, Chili, Morocco, Columbia, the Argentine Confederation, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Paraguay, and in dignity of character as a people she knows no superior. Since 1778 great cities that were unknown have grown up within her borders, and thousands now dwell where at that time was a wilderness frequented by wild animals. Alleghany City, Harrisburg, Lancaster, Norristowri, Pittsburgh, Reading, Scranton, Wilkesbarre, Williamsport, York, and Erie were then, some of them, mere struggling settlements, and most of them did not exist. Within the border of Pennsylvania there are elements of wealth, and material for productive industry in quantities, and of a character that are not to be found in any part of the United States, and I think I may safely say, in any part of the world. I speak of her coal fields, anthracite and bituminous, and her ever-flowin" fountains of petroleum; and there are also her agricultural yeI sources, her forests, her quarries of marble and limestone, and mines lof iron. How much better is it for us as a people that we possess these elements of wealth, that stimulate all our energies, skill, and honest industry to produce and use, than to have mountains of gold or caves of precious gems. Such wealth as that would debauch and demoralize. It would make the rich creatures of silken luxury aud the poor the abject slaves of these vicious masters. The productive industry of this state down to 1870 in agriculture was $183,946,027; in mining, $67,208,390; in manufactures, $711,894,344, and in fisheries, $38,114. In that year there were 11,516,975 acres of productive land, and of woodland, 5,740,864 acres, making in all 17,094,200 acres of land. The cash value of the farms was $1,043,481,582 ; of implements of husbandry, ! $35,653,075 ; her live stock was valued at $115,647,075 ; the whole [ TOlue of her farm productions vas ♦183,946,027, ' ~

The coal trade of Pennsylvania commenced in 1820, with a total production and sale of 365 tons. In 1873 the State produced 22, 828,118 tons of anthracite and 6,085,228 tons of bituminous coal. About the year 1858, the Perm Bock Oil Company was organized on a farm near Titusville. It produced about eight barrels a day. From that time to 1870 there have been produced 32,512,226 barrels of this oil, of which 15,851,246 barrels were exported to all parts of the world. Now compare this condition of our State with its resources one hundred years ago, when Dr. Franklin said there were but about 100,000 white inhabitants, and when, according to the highest statement given, when it assumed sovereign powers, its population was not over 300,000.