s generally good, but defective in some
places. Nearly 400 miles of water-mains have been laid. The streets are
lighted by about 19,000 gas lamps, besides lamps set out by private
parties. They are paved with the Belgian and wooden pavements, cobble
stones being almost a thing of the past. For so large a city, New York
is remarkably clean, except in those portions lying close to the river,
or given up to paupers.

The city is substantially built. Frame houses are rare. Many of the old
quarters are built of brick, but this material is now used to a limited
extent only. Broadway and the principal business streets are lined with
buildings of iron, marble, granite, brown, Portland, and Ohio stone,
palatial in their appearance; and the sections devoted to the residences
of the better classes are built up mainly with brown, Portland, and Ohio
stone, and in some instances with marble. Thus the city presents an
appearance of grandeur and solidity most pleasing to the eye. The public
buildings will compare favorably with any in the world, and there is no
city on the globe that can boast so many palatial warehouses and stores.
Broadway is one of the best built thoroughfares in the world. The stores
which line it are generally from five to six stories high above ground,
with two cellars below the pavement, and vaults extending to near the
middle of the street. The adjacent streets in many instances rival
Broadway in their splendors. The stores of the city are famous for their
elegance and convenience, and for the magnificence and variety of the
goods displayed in them. The streets occupied by private residences are
broad, clean and well-paved, and are lined with miles of dwellings
inferior to none in the world in convenience and substantial elegance.
The amount of wealth and taste concentrated in the dwellings of the
better classes of the citizens of New York is very great.

[Picture: BROADWAY, LOOKING UP FROM EXCHANGE PLACE]

The population of New York, in 1870, according to the United States
census of that year, was 942,337. There can be no doubt that at the
present time the island contains over 1,000,000 _residents_. Thousands
of persons doing business in New York reside in the vicinity, and enter
and leave the city at morning and evening, and thousands of strangers, on
business and pleasure, come and go daily. It is estimated that the
actual number of people in the city about the hour of noon is nea