port is the American terminus of nearly all the
steamship lines plying between the United States and foreign countries.
About two-thirds of all the imports of the United States arrive in New
York, and about forty per cent. of all the exports of the country are
shipped from the same point. In 1870, the total imports amounted to
$315,200,022. The Customs duties on these amounted to $135,310,995. The
imports are given at their foreign cost in gold, and freight and duty are
not included in this estimate. The exports for the same year (including
$58,191,475 in specie) were worth $254,137,208. The total of imports and
exports for that year was $569,337,230, the value of the foreign trade of
New York.

The domestic trade is also immense. During the year 1864 some of the
receipts of the port were as follows:

Barrels of wheat flour 3,967,717
Bushels of wheat 13,453,135
" oats 12,952,238
" corn 7,164,895
Packages of pork 332,454
" beef 209,664
" cut meats 268,417
" butter 551,153
" cheese 756,872
Tierces and barrels of lard 186,000
Kegs of lard 16,104
Barrels of whiskey 289,481
" petroleum 775,587

New York has many advantages over its rivals. Merchants find a better
and a more extensive and varied market, and as they like to combine
pleasure with business, find more attractions here than elsewhere. New
York is emphatically a great city, and it is entirely free from
provincialisms of any kind. The narrow notions of smaller places are
quickly replaced here with metropolitan and cosmopolitan ideas, tastes
and habits. Moreover, the city is the chief centre of wealth, of art, of
talent, and of luxury. These things are too firmly secured to be taken
away, and strangers must come here to enjoy them. Merchants from other
States and cities like the liberal and enterprising spirit which
characterizes the dealings of the New York merchants. They can buy here
on better terms than elsewhere, and their relations with the merchants of
this city are generally satisfactory and pleasant. Besides this, they
find their visits here of real benefit to them in their own callings.
The energy, or to use an American term, "the push" of New York
exhil