New York | Page 6

respect, society will make its own laws, appeal to its
own opinions, and submit only to its own edicts. Association is beyond
the control of any regular and peaceful government, resting on
influences that seem, in a great measure, to be founded in nature--the
most inflexible of all rulers. Tastes, conditions, connections, habits, and
even prejudices, unite to form a dynasty that never has yet been
dethroned. New York is nearer to a state of nature, probably, as regards
all its customs and associations, than any other well-established place
that could be named. With six hundred thousand souls, collected from
all parts of Christendom--with no upper class recognized by, or in any
manner connected with, the institutions, it would seem that the circles

might enact their own laws, and the popular principle be brought to
bear socially on the usages of the town--referring fashion and opinion
altogether to a sort of popular will. The result is not exactly what might
be expected under the circumstances, the past being intermingled with
the present time, in spite of theories and various opposing interests; and,
in many instances, caprice is found to be stronger than reason.
{conscription = the military draft; the Faubourg = the fashionable
neighborhoods of Paris; the popular principle = democracy}
We have no desire to exaggerate, or to color beyond their claims, the
importance of the towns of Manhattan. No one can better understand
the vast chasm which still exists between London and New York, and
how much the latter has to achieve before she can lay claim to be the
counterpart of that metropolis of Christendom. It is not so much our
intention to dilate on existing facts, as to offer a general picture,
including the past, the present, and the future, that may aid the mind in
forming something like a just estimate of the real importance and
probable destinies of this emporium of the New World.
It is now just three-and-twenty years since, that, in another work, we
ventured to predict the great fortunes that were in reserve for this
American mart, giving some of the reasons that then occurred to us that
had a tendency to produce such a result. These predictions drew down
upon us sneers, not to say derision, in certain quarters, where nothing
that shadows forth the growing power of this republic is ever received
with favor. The intervening period has more than fulfilled our
expectations. In this short interval, the population of the Manhattan
towns has more than trebled, while their wealth and importance have
probably increased in a greatly magnified proportion. Should the next
quarter of a century see this ratio in growth continued, London would
be very closely approached in its leading element of
superiority--numbers. We have little doubt that the present century will
bring about changes that will place the emporium of the Old World and
that of the New nearly on a level. This opinion is given with a perfect
knowledge of the vast increase of the English capital itself, and with a
due allowance for its continuance. We propose, in the body of this

work, to furnish the reasons justifying these anticipations.
{another work = James Fenimore Cooper, "Notions of the Americans:
Picked up by a Travelling Bachelor" (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and
Carey, 1828)--a detailed description, in the guise of letters written by a
fictitious Belgian traveler, of the geography, history, economy,
government, and culture of the United States}
Seventeen years since, the writer returned home from a long residence
in Europe, during which he had dwelt for years in many of the largest
towns of that quarter of the world. At a convivial party in one of the
most considerable dwellings in Broadway, the conversation turned on
the great improvements that had then been made in the town, with
sundry allusions that were intended to draw out the opinions of a
traveller on a subject that justly ever has an interest with the
Manhattanese. In that conversation the writer--his memory impressed
with the objects with which he had been familiar in London and Paris,
and Rome, Venice, Naples, etc., and feeling how very provincial was
the place where he was, as well as its great need of change to raise it to
the level of European improvement--ventured to say that, in his opinion,
speaking of Broadway, "There was not a building in the whole street, a
few special cases excepted, that would probably be standing thirty
years hence." The writer has reason to know that this opinion was
deemed extravagant, and was regarded as a consequence of European
rather than of American reasoning. If the same opinion were uttered
to-day, it would meet with more respect. Buildings now stand in
Broadway that may go down to another century, for they are on a level
with the wants