iards elbowing fair-haired Saxons and Scandinavians; newly-arrived immigrants, round-eyed with wonder, pressing against homogeneous loafers, calmly expectorative and insolently inattentive.

The bordering stores are occupied by a diversity of interests. Out of the upper window one-half a wherry projects, to indicate that its tenant is a boatbuilder; from the doorway of another a suit of yellow oil-skins is suspended as the sign of a clothier; and a wooden quadrant or compass marks the abiding-place of the indispensable optician. The procession with its background is stirringly dramatic. First, there is the fusillade of the wheels, which drowns all other sounds in its continuous thunder; then the ceaseless friction of the multitude-a triumphal march of the nations, as a play-bill might call it; and we can pardon the complacent self-sufficiency of the merchant, the overbearing rudeness of his manners, as he looks from his office-window or doorway upon the superb pageantry, and realizes that he is one of the motors. Should he be willing to forget his own importance for a moment, the symphonic grind of the wheels would iterate and reiterate it upon his brain.

"Stand aside there!"

The crowded wagons make room to let an ambulance pass. One of the unconsidered trifles of humanity, whose shoulders bear the burden of traffic, has been crushed beneath his load; or one of the nimble sailors, who in working aloft appear like black specks against the lucid blue of the sky, has fallen to the deck. A few idlers follow the ambulance to the end of a wharf; the surgeon springs out with his instrument-case under his arm. "What has happened?" That-that huddled human form, still alive, but already pale at the first approach of death, with rivulets of blood pouring down its ghastly face from the ears and nostrils, has missed its hold on a topmastyard, and struck the hard deck with a sickly thud. The surgeon is a practised hand, and an evident believer in Nélaton's theory that, in urgent cases, "there is no time to be in a hurry." He is admirably deliberate; finds what he wants on the exact spot to which he reaches, and carefully wraps the broken limbs of the sufferer in folds of lint. Little alleviation is possible, however, and the complete relief is in death. The ambulance is driven away, and the spectators retire.

Accidents are common along the river-front, and this one has the effect of toning down our felicitations on the external brilliancy of the traffic, and reminding us of the lives that are spent in its maintenance. Strong men, with their breasts and arms bared to the sun, and their garments wet with sweat, men with blank or careworn faces, hurry along the narrow gang-planks from ship to shore in an interminable file, bearing upon their stooping shoulders burdens that press their jaws against their chests. Up and down, up and down, they pass and repass, not often speaking or altering the dull inexpressiveness of their countenances until they lose, in our imagination, all the divine spirituality of human consciousness, and become as mechanical as the cogs of a

wheel. Cheap material in the most generous system of political economy! From eight to ten hours a day of duty so laborious that it seems to exceed the limit of man's endurance, and scarcely enough pay to sustain them in the squalor of their tenementhomes! These 'longshoremen, as they are called, supply the fuel whose burning sends out the tumultuous stream of traffic, and behind the splendid procession of the river-street are the wan faces of starving lives exhausted in toil.

At the southern end of the East River waterfront are the canal-docks which receive the freight of the Erie Canal, and the locality is so deceptively quiet that a stranger would never suspect how immense a commerce belongs to it. The turtle-like canalboats-painted white in some instances, but much oftener reds and greens, or yellows and blues, in fulfillment of the boatman's strongly chromatic fancies-are moored in such proximity that we may walk across them from wharf to wharf. A few men and women are visible upon their decks, and strings of family washing flutter in the breeze; upon one boat there is a cradle, upon another a dog is gamboling, and upon another a cat reveals itself; some of the cabin-windows are neatly curtained with lace, and flowers peep out from behind the curtains-these and a few other signs hint of the interior domesticity. Should we lift the deck off one of the cleanest boats we would probably find the stern divided into three or four small compartments, provided with the necessary conveniences for a small family-more than the necessary conveniences, even such luxuries as parlororgans and sewing-machines-while the forward end is partitioned off into a stable for the horses or mules, and a forecastle for the men. I do not mean to say that all the boats realize this description; but the boatmen, contrary to what is sometimes said of them, are well-to-do as a class, and their quarters are very respectable. The greater space amidships forms a hold for the cargo, and its actual capacity exceeds

appearances.

The principal lines of transportation from the West to the East include about ten thousand miles of railway, seven thousand miles of river, sixteen hundred miles of lake, and sixteen hundred miles of canal. The total freight carried over them in one year is about ten million tons, one-fourth of which is transported by boats through the Erie Canal and down the Hudson River, a striking exhibit, which is emphasized by the fact that the canal is only open for six months in the year. The boats travel over ten million miles a season, and give employment to about twenty-eight thousand men and sixteen thousand horses and mules. Passing through the quiet valleys of the Genesee and the Mohawk, they appear so primitive in structure and slow in motion that few persons unfamiliar with the facts would be willing to give them credit for much usefulness; they are towed on the river in long strings by great white tow-boats, but, inert as they apparently are, their services to commerce far surpass those of the railway, whose trains travel in one day a greater distance than the boats travel in a week.

like reading a chapter of universal geography. To what a degree of excellence ocean-travel has been brought! Five thousand tons is not an extraordinary size

five boats of various sizes, from one hundred to one thousand tons burden, and the capital invested in them is over three and a half million dollars. They are not such "palatial" vessels as those which connect San Francisco and Oakland; some of them are in the last stage of decay, but the best are commodious, and transport thousands of passengers across the rivers daily with unvarying safety.

The pilots are seamen of experience, who, prior to their enlistment in the service, have been required to show thorough familiarity with the wily currents of the river, and to prove themselves even stronger of nerve and surer in decision than the sailors of trackless seas. A countless flotilla is in their path day and night; when the wind falls suddenly, sloops and schooners are drifting about helplessly, and the pilots must have both skill and courage in full measure when they are steering among them.

A walk through the pleasant umbrage of Battery Park, from which we look down the glittering bay to the Narrows, brings us to the North River, along which we continue our tour amid another crowd of vehicles and pedestrians. Most of the wharves are covered by sheds, and most of the vessels are ocean or coastwise steamers. The new iron steamers of the Pacific Mail line, the white river-palaces of the Hudson, the old-fashioned side - wheelers of the Southern trade, the immense ocean - transports of Great Britain, are drawn together, and reading the destinations inscribed on the façades of the sheds is

for one of these Liverpool steamers, and the ponderosity and bulk have been secured without the sacrifice of speed. Nearly every month the time of passage between England and America is reduced, and one steamer recently excelled her previous record by making the voyage in a few hours over seven days! Marble chimney-pieces and bronze statuary in the saloon, electric bells in the berths, unlimited hot and cold water for the toilet, bath-rooms and barber-shops, mid-ocean on the Atlantic! It looks like a fantasy, but these are the "modern improvements" found in the steamers of to-day.

The seeming incongruity by which the rivers are designated as "North" and "East" extends to the river-streets, that on the east side being called South because it leads to the south, and that on the west West Street because it is the western border of the city. On West Street the crowd and turmoil of South Street are repeated: the buildings are occupied as stores, warehouses, saloons, sailors' boarding-houses, tobacco-shops, and shipping-offices, and, though they are often ill-adapted to their purposes, they are nearly invariably raggedly picturesque.

If, indeed, picturesqueness were the only thing desirable and necessary in the water-front of a great seaport, we might be content with ours; but, unfortunately, picturesqueness is usually the antithesis of convenience, and when we turn a practical eye upon these dilapidated old piers, narrow streets, and tumble-down warehouses, their inadequacy be

those at Birkenhead, on the opposite side of the river, and all additions made since 1854, the Liverpool docks cover six hundred and ten acres; the length of quay frontage within them is over fourteen miles, and the river-wall bounding them is five miles long and fifty feet high. The variation of the tide in the river is from eighteen to thirty-three feet, and, as the height of the water in the docks is uniformly equal to that of high tide, the shipping in them at low

The great variations of the tide make it impossible to load or unload vessels abreast of ordinary piers in the Mersey; the anchorage which that river affords is too small and exposed for the shipping of the port, and, if it were large enough, the expense and delay of loading and unloading vessels by lighters would be unendurable to commerce. Only one system-that of inclosed wet-docks with entrancegates-is applicable to these conditions, and that has been admirably carried out in Liverpool. Omitting

three feet higher than the river. There are not more than a hundred days in the year when vessels drawing more than eighteen feet can enter them, and the time during which vessels of any burden can be admitted is limited to about six hours a day.

The great difference between high and low tide has made a similar system necessary in London. But New York has such natural advantages in the equability of its tides and in the immense area of its water-front and its harbor that, according to General George B. McClellan, who until 1873 was chief-en

The Hudson washes thirteen miles of the city's shore-line, every foot of which might be made available for vessels of the greatest tonnage; the East River washes nine and a quarter miles, most of which might also be made available to vessels of all classes; and the Harlem has an available front of two and a quarter miles. The area of the Hudson and East Rivers immediately opposite the city which is available for anchorage is thirteen and a half square miles; the anchorage of the Upper Bay is fourteen square miles, and of the Lower Bay eighty-eight square miles. The total available water-front of the city is twenty-four and three-fourths miles, and the average variation of the tide is four and three-tenths feet.

The New Jersey shore on one side, and the Long Island shore on the other, offer additional facilities, of which we have taken no account; and the Harlem

River itself would be looked upon in many parts of the world as sufficient for a great commerce.

"It is evident," General McClellan has written in one of his reports, "that we need not resort to the English system of inclosed docks. The arrangement best suited to our wants is a continuous riverwall, so located as to widen the river-street very considerably, with ample covered piers projecting from it. This is the simplest, most convenient, and by far the most economical system that can be suggested. It will bring into play all the extraordinary natural advantages of the port, and will give every facility for the cheap and rapid handling of vessels and their cargoes."

Who that loves the city, and is familiar with the' crush, confusion, and dilapidation of South and West Streets, can resist the possibilities which this charming project suggests? Think of the demolition of all these crazy old jetties and lofts, and the substitution of firm granite or concrete piers, extending laterally from a broad river-street! think of the solid stone road-beds and the smooth foot-paths, such as those of the Thames Embankment! think of the capacious warehouses fronting on the river-streets, and the many other improvements that the reformation of the dock-system would entail! A revolution would scarcely be too dear a price if we could find a Napoleon and a Haussmann to realize the fascinating vision.

The plans proposed by General McClellan, approved by the Dock Commissioners, and now being carried out with various modifications of detail, are as follows: I. A permanent river-wall of béton and masonry, or masonry alone, so far outside the existing wharf-line as to give a river-street two hundred and fifty feet wide along the North River, two hundred feet wide along the East River, from the southern extremity of the city to Thirty-first Street, and one hundred and seventy-five feet wide along both streets above that point. 2. A series of piers projecting from the river-wall, of ample dimensions and adequate construction, which will allow an unobstructed passage of the water. 3. The erection

General McClellan is not a visionary person; his contemplated improvements are not as sweeping nor as brilliant as those of a Haussmann, and in preference to a grander scheme, the cost of which might deter its accomplishment, he has proposed one that is eminently practicable and inexpensive. The estimated cost of the river-wall per mile is $933,271, and the. piers are to be, not of iron or masonry, but of preserved wood. "I have no doubt," says General McClellan, " as to the immediate necessity of widening the river-streets and building a permanent riverwall; but I think it sound policy to content our

selves for the present with piers of cheap materials, leaving for other generations, richer than ours, the construction of more permanent structures."

An uncomfortable set of people foresee the decline of New York, and the transfer of its commerce to other ports, as a more brilliant visionary once foresaw a contemplative New-Zealander gazing on the ruins of London. The distant future may have awkward changes in store, and the supremacy maintained so long by this city may pass to Boston or Baltimore; but that future is too distant for thought now, and in sweet probability the grass will be very thick and very green over the graves of these prophets before many blades have sprouted among the