ifth, fell in 1860 to 14.12, or
one-seventh, and in 1870 to 12.65, or an eighth. The next census will
beyond doubt point more strongly in the same direction. If, whilst
dwindling in magnitude, the dusky shape perplex us by assuming
suddenly a novel form, we may yet be assured that it is the same in
substance and in manageability. Its hue is whitening with the fleece
of five millions of cotton bales. The cloud has a silver lining--a
golden one in fact--for ours is pecuniarily a serviceable phantom to
the extent of adding to our annual income a sum equal to eight or ten
times the entire yearly export of the colonies. Should he lead us,
like the Land--und--Wild--Graf, into the pit of ruin, he will have
first bottomed it with an ample and soft cushion of lint whereon to
fall.

Extremes meet, and modern culture, like ancient anarchy, drives its
people into cities. Such is the tendency on both sides of the ocean.
Improvement must result from associated effort, and of that cities are
the last expression. All the European towns are outgrowing the rural
districts. With us the change states itself in an advance, since 1790,
of the city population from 3.4 to 20.9 per cent. of the aggregate.
Broadcloth has gained on homespun in the proportion of six to one,
Giles having thus six mouths to fill where he formerly had but one.
We shall show farther on how gallantly he meets this draft. New York,
with its suburbs, contains more Germans than any German city save
Vienna and Berlin, more Irish than Dublin, and more English-speaking
inhabitants than Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol and
Leeds together. All the colonial towns in a lump would scarce add a
twentieth to her numbers, and her militia embraces nearly twice as
many men as served, first and last, in the Continental army.

[Illustration: THE COTTON GIN.]

But the column that sums the souls does not state the complete life of
the cities. Man has in our day a host of allies that work with him and
at his command--slaves of iron, steel and brass wholly unknown to our
great--grand-fathers--fed also by the farmer, through the miner as an
intermediate. Steam-engines, to the number of 40,191, and of 1,215,711
horse-power--all of the stationary variety, and exclusive of nearly
half as many that traverse the country and may be classed among the
rural population--have succeeded the websters and spinners who were
wont to clothe all the world and his wife, and who survive only in
t