OF OLD NEW YORK

ment, commerce and finance have played a more im¬
portant part than is generally understood. Streets from
which decent families had been driven by vicious neigh¬
bors are now the centre of the silk or dry-goods trades
and great loft buildings stand where disreputable houses
once flaunted their loathsome business in the faces of
passers-by. The mad speculation of the gold board has
to a great extent been replaced by the business-like
methods of men rated high in Bradstreet's. Wall Street,
once regarded as a mere gambling establishment in which
fortunes were made and lost in a day, has become a
clearing house doing more business with investors than
with those who speculate on a margin. Commerce has
reared the huge buildings that have given to the city its
wonderful sky-line, and the same resistless force has
pushed the area of paved streets and sewers farther
north' than even the original Astors ever dreamed of.
Men of genius, energy and vision have accumulated
through commercial undertakings great fortunes, and
they have given of their wealth for charitable and educa¬
tional purposes to an extent of which the world has no
previous record.
 

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