about 700 miles of pipes to distribute its gas from the wells to some 13,000 families. While the heating company of our twin city, supplied by the Philadelphia company, has about ninety miles of pipe and supplies about 700 families. It gives steady employment to some 300 men, and operates its enormous business upon a capital of $11,509,000.

The Allegheny Light Company makes the streets and homes of our city brilliant, safe and attractive. It has a capital of $1,300,000. It uses 250 miles of wire, 36,000 arcs of sixteen candle power, 200 horse-power, 103 employes. The East End Electric Light Company has an investment of $750,000, employing sixty men, having 200 miles of wire, 800 arcs of 2,000 candle power, and 25,000 arcs of sixteen candle power each. There are estimated to be at least $110,000 invested in private plants, having at least 5,000 sixteen candle power lamps, and 100 arcs. If ye seek the light, it shall be given you.

How are these gigantic and important enterprises mastered and governed? I answer, because with us are the sober, patient, frugal, industrious and intellectual forces combined in all the best of the races of men. Great results are the product and ripened fruitage of skill, care and prudence mingled with the daring and adventurous spirit so near of kin to genius. A city grows with the steady and sturdy growth of the everlasting hills. It perpetuates and impresses itself alone because it measures and meets its opportunities and its demands. Let us thank God they are neither rare nor far separated! A royal blending of

the whole it is that makes us a regal people and a mighty nation. In our postal facilities, pace is kept along the line of the most active of our pursuits. In the last year there were employed as carriers 133 men. There were registered letters delivered, 50,881; letters delivered, 14.959,695; postal cards, 2,723,475 newspapers delivered, 5,293.773; total number of pieces handled by the carriers, aggregating 37,000,000; the drop letters and postal cards, 8,438,858. The post office has been called the pulse of the people. The money order department for the last quarter of 1890 shows in amount $689.321.03, the receipts of this office ranking the city of Pittsburg to-day with Brooklyn, Baltimore, San Francisco and Washington. There are but six cities in this entire republic that in this respect leads us, namely, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Boston, Philadelphia and Cincinnati.

For the conduct of this varied business, our system of railroads, unrivaled in equipment, facility and adaptation by any other system entering in or departing from the great centres of the land, is taxed to its utmost, as shown by the fact that, in the year 1890, the total tonnage of this city amounted to 27,000,000. The total number of cars handled in one month was 110,000, with an average capacity of 25 tons and an average load of twenty tons.

One of the best authorities upon this subject within our cities computes that our tonnage in purely Pittsburg business may be safely estimated at 18,000,000 tons per year, equal to 1,000,000 cars, or an average of 3,000 cars per day. Two thousand loaded freight cars enter, and 1,000 depart daily, showing that this city receives daily some 40,000 tons, re-distributed at least one-half over the country, and this irrespective of the through traffic of the railways.

This movement represents in all probability not less than 3,000,000,000 tons handled one mile per annum for the Pittsburg district exclusively. The entire freight traffic by rail, of the entire country, is estimated at about 50,000,000,000 tons carried one mile annually.

A comparison with the trans-Mississippi group presented in the census, shows that Pittsburg gives railways more business than the whole of that region; and, therefore, in the face of these stupendous facts may we not be pardoned for saying that the amount of tonnage originating in and passing through the city of Pittsburg exceeds that of any other city in the Union, not excepting New York.

A brief century marks our history, and yet within that time its development has been almost as marvellous as it has been matchless. Primitive forests have become the crowded city; the wilderness has, in a night, changed its form; the vast mountains and rivers, running north and south, have been bridged and tunneled from east to west, and over them move the mighty masses of men in majestic march, as well as the ponderous commerce and traffic of a nation. Myriads of men, pressing and crowding the highways of the land, have found holy rest, assured safety, prosperity and peace; and have bound themselves together in the indissoluble ties of a common country, a common weal, and a common Christianity. Under our family tree gathers the yellow man of Asia, the black man of Africa, the red man of America, side by side with Celt, and Gaul and Anglo-Saxon, Teuton, Slav, Latin, and all the races of earth, protected by one flag, defended by one nation; while around our lofty and glittering dome, seen from the shores of every clime, gather and rest the hope, the admiration and the benediction of mankind; and if to the nations of the Old World we present a new face, so do we, as a brilliant writer has recently said, "A new civilization, so unique, so compact and so forceful, that under its march it defies the crusade of the Cossack and the Chinese."

And now I take my leave of you, as I do of this prolific theme in the words of our own poet :

"I am monarch of all the forges,

I have solved the riddle of fire;
The Amen of Nature to need of man
Echoes at my desire.

I search with the subtle soul of flame,
The heart of the rocky earth,
And hot from my anvils the prophecies
Of the miracle years blaze forth.

"I am swart with the soot of my chimneys,
I drip with the sweat of toil;

Iquell and sceptre the savage wastes,

And charm the curse from the soil.

I fling the bridges across the gulfs

That hold us from the To Be,

And build the roads for the bannered march

Of crowned Humanity."

[Applause.]

HOME, SWEET HOME." RESPONDED TO BY RT. REV. CORTLANDT

WHITEHEAD.

Mr. Watson I am pleased to introduce to you now, ladies and gentlemen, Rt. Rev. Cortlandt Whitehead, Bishop of Allegheny, who will speak to us on the subject-"Home, Sweet Home."

"'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."

[Applause.]

BISHOP WHITEHEAD: Ladies and Gentlemen:-1 am overwhelmed with two or three considerations. In the first place, "Home, Sweet Home," for me, would mean things connected with the city of Pittsburg; and the speech I could make about the city has been most eloquently made by the gentlemen who have preceded me. You have noticed, no doubt, that very much is said about Pittsburg. We are not ashamed to speak of our city; neither are we too modest to declare to our neighbors what we know is her enterprise, her morality and her intelligence; all these things have been laid before you. There are one or two things, however, which these gentlemen have omitted to say. One is that we are blessed with the greatest variety of street car systems that could possibly be devised. I doubt if there is any city in the world which produces on one corner four or five different kinds of vehicles, so that you may stand the chance of being ground under the wheels of a steam engine, or rolled under an electric car, or dragged along the ground by a cable car, or trampled under the feet of the animals attached to a horse car, not to mention the wagons and drays that pass the same corner at the same time. Therefore, in addition to all the things to be said about Pittsburg, it is quite proverbial that we have here, when we go out from our homes, the chance of being killed in six or seven different ways, which is something which cannot be said of any other place in the world. [Laughter.] Then there is another thing that has not been sufficiently dwelt upon, although I hope it has forced itself upon the attention of all who have been with us during the week, and that is the attention which the Pittsburg people bestow upon those who visit their city. There is no room with us for the spirit which Father Prout rebuked in his congregation, when he said that he had gone to Donnybrook Fair and seen them all there the week before, and there was not one of them who had the grace to say to him, "Father Prout, have you a mouth in your face?" There is nothing of that spirit, I am quite sure, with the Pittsburg people; and I am equally sure that all those who have been here will feel that they are quite welcome to come again.

I am overwhelmed, ladies and gentlemen, by another consideration, and that is, that you have given me such a difficult subject, and such a large subject to speak upon at this late hour, for usually this subject, or these words, "Home, Sweet Home," indicate that everything is through with, and we are going home presently; but I warn you that this is not the case to-night. There are some eloquent speakers to succeed me, and you must not imagine for a moment that this toast is the last, as it ought, possibly, to be; but, not being the last, I feel that I must not say all that is in my heart to say. Who am I that I should speak briefly of home; of all that word implies, all that it means for childhood and youth and manhood; all that it means for old age, of rest and comfort? The Secretary, when he gave me the subject, added the very discouraging remark that it had no very close connection with the American Street-Railway Association, or with the business which brought the organization here. Since we woke up here one fine morning to find ourselves plastered over with street railways, and since there are two tracks going past my door-and when the cars pass you cannot hear yourself speak-I sometimes think that perhaps he was right. I know street-railways have broken up the peace of one household; and that is my own; and so I am quite sure he was right when he said there was no

connection between the two. And yet there is after all. There is a story of an Irishman, who landed at Castle Garden and proceeded to see the city of New York. Pat got into the elevated railroad car at the southern terminus and proceeded to go the rounds. The cars were crowded and he had to stand up and hold on to a strap. After riding for squares and squares, and there being no opportunity for him to sit down, he finally looked around and said, "Begorra, haven't any of yez got any homes?" [Laughter.] Now, there is something in that. Brethren of the convention, your street car railways, after all, are not so much to get people to their business-for they will be sure to get there some how-but something takes poseession of everybody about five or six o'clock in the afternoon, and they want to go home; and that is where the street-railway comes in as the most helpful thing in one's daily life. If you will only provide enough cars for us to go home comfortably, we will forgive you all the rest ; forgive you the danger to life; forgive you the disagreeable noises that you make in passing our doors, and all the rest, if you will only supply enough cars for us to get home. Rapid transit has thus very much to do with enabling the mass of the people to have homes of their own, and to ensure their enjoyment of them.

I warn you that you have asked a clergyman to make a speech; and how can I make a speech without adding an application? I cannot take up a collection, or I would gladly do it. [Laughter.] I congratulate you, gentlemen, that you applaud that sentiment. It shows an increase of generosity on the part of the laity, which is very pleasing to the clerical heart. If I cannot have the collection, I must have the exhortation. I want to know, in all seriousness, and speaking as a passenger-not as a director-I want to know what is the reason that your Association cannot take within its scope something besides the mere motive power of the steam car, or cable car, or electric car? Cannot something be done towards the furtherance of what I might call homely manners on the part of the employees of the road? I know perfectly well that many of them are cheerful, ready to take suggestions kindly, and be polite to their passengers; but it seems to me that there ought to be a course of instruction in hygienics; there ought to be something told the conductors about ventilation, for instance. There ought to be some direction given them with regard to the proper temperature of the cars, and in regard to their personal manners in receiving passengers, in helping them on and off the cars, and rendering such assistance as they can. I will tell you an instance in my personal experience in this age, country and city, I may say, of expectoration. I said to a conductor very kindly, one day, "My dear friend, I have some ladies with me to-day; don't you think it would be just as well for you not to expectorate on the steps, but in the other direction?" He looked at me for a moment, and said, "I never thought of that before." If I had gone at him “with hammer and tongs," as the phrase is, he would not have given me so civil an answer. That is simply a little incident of what I mean. It seems to me that the Association might well take within its scope the improvement of the manners of those in their employ, and thereby the condition of the passengers who travel on their lines. In London, they have no such facilities as we have for going about, in the way of horse cars or electric cars, or cable cars; but they have 'busses that are constantly running in every direction; and the man in charge is interested in having it filled with

passengers.

to get in the 'bus. the time, and he is different it is here. impatience at times

He does not look away from any one on the sidewalk who wants He is on the lookout for passengers; he is hailing them all helping them and the Company thereby. You know how You know how very hard it is to restrain certain words of when the conductor will pay no attention to you whatever but seems to be trying to get away from you so that you cannot possibly get on the car.

It occurred to me that as you had been kind enough to favor me with this invitation to speak to-night, it might not be out of place for me to suggest that you might well try to make an improvement in these matters, which, after all, have so much to do with the personal comfort of those who travel in the cars. I know I have taxed your patience longer than I ought to have done, at this late hour, and I have no doubt that you want me to practice a little of what I said at the beginning, that it is late, and, therefore, time for us to be thinking seriously of "Home, Sweet Home." [Applause.}

LETTER OF REGRET FROM MR. JOHN S. WISE.

Mr. Watson: We regret very much that Mr. John S. Wise has been unavoidably kept away from this banquet. He fully expected to be here, and had promised to respond to the toast, "Street-Railways." The Secretary has received a letter from Mr. Wise, and will now read it, if you will kindly give him your

attention.

The Secretary: The letter reads as follows:

HUSTINGS COURT,
RICHMOND, Va., October 20th, 1891.

MR. W. J. RICHARDSON, Secretary, AMERICAN STRRET-RAILWAY ASSOCIA⚫ TION, PITTSBURG, PA.,

Dear Sir:-It is with sincere regret that I am compelled to write to you that I cannot be present at your banquet Thursday night.

I came here yesterday to try a case, never doubting it would be finished to-day. Unfortunately, two days have already been consumed in securing a jury, and it is not yet complete. As a consequence, I am sewed up. There is no way of getting away in time to reach Pittsburg, and so I must send my apologies and regrets.

I sincerely hope I will not seriously inconvenience you. It is a great disappointment to me. You see how I am fixed. If I could break away and go, I would most surely do so.

With many thanks to you for the compliment paid me, and deep regrets for the unforeseen occurrence which compels my absence, and with best wishes for the success of your meeting, believe me to be,