In 1876 the thickly-built portions of the city may be said to extend from Mifflin street on the south to Alleghany avenue on the north, and from the Delaware to the Schuylkill River. Within these limits, from Fourth to Broad street, there are miles of houses constructed as closely as possible, whilst from Broad street to the Schuylkill, between Reed street and Columbia avenue, there is a large number of houses, which in some places are as closely built as in the old parts of the city. It is difficult to designate those sections of Philadelphia where the urban character ceases and suburban peculiarities are taken up. The area of the city is nearly 130 square miles, or 82,600 acres. There are about 1200 miles of streets opened and over 600 paved. They were lighted at the beginning of 1876 by 10,729 public gas-lamps. In the houses and buildings and streets there were in use 1,191,393 gas-lights, of an average illuminating power of 16.61 candles. Gas was also supplied by the Northern Liberty works to a considerable number of consumers. The City and Northern Liberties gas-works manufactured, in 1875, 14,621,169,687 cubic feet of gas. Gas was furnished to consumers during the greater part of 1876 at $2.15 per 1000 cubic feet. The gasmains extended 672 miles. Water was furnished in every house by pipes connecting with 662 miles of street water-mains, which were filled from seven great reservoirs, the water being supplied from the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers from six pumping works and stations. In 1875 the works pumped into the reservoirs 15,097,160,069 gallons, which, in order to show the rapid increase of consumptionit may be noted-is more than 500,000,000 gallons beyond the supply of the previous year. The water was connected in the streets with 5363 fireplugs for use by engines and hose in cases of conflagration. The fire department consisted of 32 companies with 34 steam fire-engines, 4 hand-engines, 13 hose-carriages, 5 hook-and-ladder trucks, the whole being worked by 389 men and 123 horses. There were 74 public drinking-fountains. In the houses the water was carried into kitchens, chambers, closets and bath-rooms, the latter generally being supplied by kitchen ranges with facility to furnish warm water as well as cold. The number of baths supplied with water was 51,214, being a far greater number of baths than are to be found in any other city of the world. The price of water was low, ranging from $3 for the smallest dwellings up to $20 and $25 for the largest houses, water in large quantities for manufactories and workshops being supplied at proportionate prices. The entire assessment for 1875 amounted to $1,025,278.50; and according to the rate of water furnished, the price paid was one cent for 147 gallons. For the relief of the inhabitants and for the benefit of health there were about 150 miles of sewers and culverts. Transportation and conveyance along the paved streets were rendered more easy by the tracks laid down by 19 horse railway companies upon 245 miles of streets. In 1875 they had in use 1056 cars, drawn by 6087 horses. There were carried during that year 85,387,337 passengers. The receipts of the horse railways were $5.631,316. The streets were guarded and the peace preserved by a police force which numbered, at the beginning of 1876, 1200 patrolmen, 25 turnkeys, 27 lieutenants, 4 captains, a fire-marshal and a chief of police. This force was temporarily increased during the period of the Centennial Exhibition in 1876 for the preservation of peace and the protection of strangers. The expenditures of the city in 1875 were $13,446,451.73, and the receipts, including a balance on hand, were $15,774,375.33, leaving a cash balance on January of $2,463,502.72. The funded and floating debt at the beginning of 1876 was $69,716,524.17. The assessed value of taxable property was $575,283,988. The amount of taxes to be raised on this assessment was $10,518,462.86. In addition to the means for preserving health ensured by a system of building which allows no new dwelling-house to be built upon a street of less than 20 feet in width and with a clear yardspace of 12 feet square adjoining at the rear or the side, together with ventilation and drainage, must be added the advantages of having cheap and nutritious food furnished by a fertile agricultural country which surrounds the city, and by easy means of access from the sea-shore. Thus meats, poultry, eggs, butter, vegetables, with fish, oysters, game, etc., are plentiful, and are furnished in 28 market-house buildings, all of which are spacious and some elegant, in addition to which there are 7 street markets. At the drove-yards in 1875 there were sold for city consumption 152,720 beeves and cows, 491,500 sheep, 243,300 hogs. In addition, farmers themselves bring meats and poultry in great abundance. Complete statistics on this subject cannot be obtained. It is sufficient to say that the supply is plentiful and good. The means of warming houses are entirely changed. The Franklin fireplace and the ten-plate stove, in which wood was consumed as fuel, have given way to appliances for the burning of anthracite coal. The cooking-stove in the humble dwelling, the kitchen range in houses of greater pretension, and the coal stove for use in stores and apartments, replace the old wood-burning arrangements. Furnaces and portable heaters in the cellars warm the greater proportion of buildings of all kinds, public or private, stores, factories or dwellings. The health of the population under the advantages named is better than in any other city in the United States, and exceeded by only one city in the world. The number of deaths during the year 1875 was 17,805. This excludes still-born, premature births and bodies brought into the city for burial. Taking the population at the beginning of 1876 at the figure of the municipal census, the deaths amount to 1 in every 45.09 of the population, or 22.11 for every 1000 living persons. This is a lower rate than any other city in the world except London, the death-rate of that city in 1872 being 22.07 per 1000. Paris stood at 24.4, Berlin 24.6, New York 30.1, Rome 32.4, Vienna 34.4, and Madras 37.6. The number of births in 1875 was 17,933; number of registered marriages, 6144. There were few manufactures in Philadelphia at the time of the outbreak of the Revolution, except such as were connected with absolute necessity for personal service, such as those of the shoemaker, hatter, tailor and weaver of homespun goods, with a few other trades, the material for which could not be supplied from abroad. The passage of the Stamp Act first called attention to the necessity of encouraging American manufactures. The policy of the British Parliament had been repressive of manufacture in the colonies, the object being to compel the provincials to rely upon British workmen for all sorts of manufactured materials, and to discourage mechanical industry in America. At a meeting of the mer ECLIPSES IN 1877. IN 1877 there will be five Eclipses, three of the Sun and two of the Moon. Only one of them, an Eclipse of the Moon in August, will afford any entertainment in the United States. The Eclipses in order are First: A Total Eclipse of the Moon, Feb. 26 and 27, 1877, visible in Western Asia and Eastern Europe. Second: A Partial Eclipse of the Sun, March 14, 1877, visible in South America south of south Latitude 150, and from thence over the Ocean to near the South Pole. Third: A Partial Eclipse of the Sun, August 8, 1877, visible mainly in Central Asia. Fourth: A Total Eclipse of the Moon, August 23, 1877, partly visible in Philadelphia, early in the evening of August 23. Fifth A Partial Eclipse of the Sun, September 6, 1877, visible in Central Asia and around the North Pole. 1 25 8 27 8 44 8.28 P.M. Spica rises. 6.011.04 P.M. 6.1 159 9 0 9 18 6.2 2 37 9 37 9 56 6.4 3 17 10 15 10 36 6.5 3 58 10 56 11 17 6.5 4 45 II 40| 0 51 I 12 16.5 0 30 6.4 2 22 5.9 5 54 5.4 7 23 7 47 5.8 8 9 8 316.0 1 32 1 53 8 519 12 6.2 2 15 2 38 9 34 9 57 6.4 2 59 3 23 10 18 10 42 6.5 C. 5.45 A.M. 4.04 A.M. 5.27 A.M. 8 h. 5.11 A.M. Spring com. 10.03 P.M. Regulas S 5.01 P.M.40. 2.31 P.M. gr. Hel. L. 10.32 P.M. Rigal sets(S. 9.57 P.M. 29. 1.19 A.M. 2 rises. 10.47 P.M. 7 set. 1.44 P.M. S. [S. 0.26 P.M. gr.Hel.Lat 11.21 P M.Antares rises. 4.52 A.M. rises. A FOOL can ask more questions than a wise man can answer; but a wise man cannot ask more questions than he will find a fool ready to answer. LAST Monday our contemporary, the Public Ledger, completed its fortieth year, and marked its entrance upon the forty-first by a generous increase in its size and the donning of a handsome new suit of type. In its new form the Ledger gives more reading matter than any other twocent newspaper in America. Not in quantity alone does this journal excel; the quality of its matter is of the very best. Edited with rare judgment and discretion, every line may be read aloud in the family circle. While avoiding verbiage, the Ledger invariably gives ample accounts of all public events of importance. Independent in the true sense of the word, it is entirely free from political cliques, "financial rings" and sectarian bias. It is a paper of the People, a champion of the Right, a scourger of the Wrong, the triend of the Oppressed, and the advocate of Charity, Humanity and True Progress. All good men must rejoice at the prosperity of so exemplary a journal.-Sunday Dispatch, Philadel |phia, April 2. was about 11,000 and the capital $250,000,000. About 160,000 hands are employed in good times in these manufactures. During the ten years previous to the outbreak of the Revolution the commerce of Philadelphia had increased very greatly. In 1773 the number of square-rigged vessels employed in the commerce of the port was 426, and of sloops and schooners 370. The amount of the export tonnage was 46,972 tons. The exports amounted to £720,135 13s. 74d. sterling. They included flour, bread, wheat and corn, beef, pork and hams, planks, boards, staves and timber, with many other things. The greater proportion of these commodities went to Great Britain. At the same time the estimate of the value of the imports into Philadelphia from Great Britain alone was £611,000 sterling. In 1875 the exports from Philadelphia were worth $31,936,727; the imports, $23,457,334. The duties received at the custom-house were $8,164,518.71. In the foreign trade the vessels employed were, foreign 604 of 388,751 tons and 501 American of 563.528 tons. The total of arrivals coastwise was 8238 American vessels and 1126 foreign; total, 9364. The principal importations were from England, Cuba and Belgium. The principal exports were to Great Britain, Belgium and Germany. The chief articles exported were breadstuffs, petroleum, naphtha, benzine, provisions, leaf-tobacco, sugar, snuff and cotton in bales. The value of bread-stuffs exported in 1875 was $9,222,971. Sailing-vessels only carried on the commerce and navigation of the last century. They were small, a ship of over 200 tons being considered first class. The introduction of the use of steam in navigation has created immense changes in the course of commerce. The lines of steamships--American, International and Red Starfrom Philadelphia to Liverpool and Antwerp, run several vessels, and have contributed much to the increase of commerce, particularly in the handling and shipment of grain, to the success of which grain-elevators and storage-buildings have largely assisted. By the elevators at Washington avenue and Girard Point nine vessels can be loaded at the same time. There are oceansteamship lines to New York, Boston, Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans and Havana, and various other places on the coast. The coal-trade brings to the city, by the Reading and North Pennsylvania Railroads and the Schuylkill and Lehigh Canals, about four millions of tons of chants of Philadelphia in April, 1768, an address annually, a large proportion of which is shipped in the coasting-trade. There was not an artificial road of any kind in Pennsylvania during the Revolutionary war. The highways were simply passages cut through fields and forests, the road-bed being the natural earth. Philadelphia is now the terminus of six great railroads, whilst on the opposite side of the river the railroads to New York, Long Branch, Cape May and Atlantic City are entirely Philadelphia roads. The Pennsylvania Railroad operates and controls more than 2000 miles of railroads in the United States. The Reading Railroad owns more than 1400 miles of railroads, and the freight and passenger transportation of these corporations is immense. In 1776 the College of Philadelphia, with medical department, and the Friends' Academy were our only literary and scientific educational institutions. At the present time, in addition to Girard 99 9 M 100 10 Tu 5 30 101 11 W 5 28 102 12 Th 5 27 103 13 F 104 14 S 105 15 S 5 31 1 286 32 3 43 9 6 2 39 26 10 42 11 5 5 36 6 15.5 0.24 A.M. 1 12 6 33 7 30 5.8 2.18 P.M. 8 6.0 4.11 A.M. 5 25 8 46 6.2 I 47 2 30 I 27 8 27 2 89 9.27 6.3 611 32 0 23 6.3 052 I 19 6.1 2 17 5.8 6 59 5 275-4 Jupiter 50 north of the Moon Apr. 4. HEBREW CALENDAR FOR 1877. 1 July 9 11 19 21 4.09 A.M. rises. he. in 2. rises. C. C. 1.17 A.M.. 4.16 A.M. in Peribel. 11.33 P.M. Spica S. 5.12 A.M. rises. 8.-P.M. 2 stat. 0.13 A.M. oe. « Gemin 11.36 P.M. SHC. 2.20 A.M. ♂ rises. 9.36 P.M. Sirius sets. 10.21 P.M. O ♂ O. 10.56 P.M. Pole N. 11.46 A.M. gr.Hel.Lat 6.11 P.M. 9. [N 3.12 A.M. h rises. 11.37 P M. Arcturus S. 10.58 P.M. 2 rises. New Moon. New Moon. Sabbath. Rosh Hashana. 10 Fast of Guedaliah, 15 Sabbath. Yom Kippur.* 1st Day of Suckoth,* Hoshaana Rabba. 5. 10. " Elul Venus 50 44 2 5638. Tishri College for orphans, there are nearly 500 public schools, with 95,552 pupils and 1878 teachers. There are four medical colleges and numerous academies, seminaries, private schools and other institutions of learning. There were two hospitals a century ago, the Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia, the latter connected with the almshouse for pauper assistance. There are now 19 hospitals for the relief of the sick and 3 for treatment of the insane. There are 15 dispensaries for the supply of medicine and medical attendance to the poor. There are 21 asylums for orphans and abandoned children, 19 homes for aged men and women, an asylum for the deaf and dumb, 3 institutions for the relief of the blind, 5 asylums for the reformation of fallen women, a home for inebriates, 11 industrial aid societies, 13 assistance societies, to soup societies and many other institutions with charitable objects. In 1776 there were in Philadelphia city and county five congregations of the Church of England (Christ's, St. Peter's, St. Paul's, Trinity, in Oxford township, and St. Thomas', at White Marsh). There were three Presbyterian churches, one Associate Presbyterian and one Scots Presbyterian in the city, and one at Frankford, a Baptist church at Pennypack, in Philadelphia, and in Montgomery township; 7 German Lutheran churches (Zion, St. Michael's, Germantown, New Hanover, St. Peter's, at Barren Hill, Frank ford and at the Trappe), 7 German Reformed churches in the city and county, 1 Moravian and 1 Methodist: 3 Swedish Lutheran (Gloria Dei, St. James, Christ's Church, at Upper Merion); 2 Roman Catholic. The Society of Friends had three meeting-houses in the city, meeting-houses in Germantown and at the various townships. At the beginning of 1876 there were in the city 534 religious congregations, including Israelites, as follows: Baptist 71, Congregational 2, Evangelical Association 6, Friends (Orthodox) 8 meeting-houses, Friends (Hicksite) 8, Israelites 9 synagogues, Lutheran, General Council 22, General Synod 6, German Mission Synod 1, Independent 1, Methodists, including African M. E., 104, Moravian 4, New Church or Swedenbor gian 3, Presbyterian 78, Presbyterian Reformed 13, United Presbyterian 11, Protestant Episcopal 93, Reformed Episcopal 5, Reformed 20, Roman Catholic 43, Unitarian 2, Universalists 4, other sects 21. In all the features which distinguish a great metropolis, as connected with religion, morality, charity, benevolence, industry, trade, art, science, literature, education, Philadelphia is behind no city of its size in the world, whilst by its broad territorial size, peculiarities of building, cheap and good markets, with abundance of air, light and water, it exceeds in comfort within the reach of the poorest classes any other city in the world, and is justly entitled to the appellation, of late years most appropriately given to it, of the "City of Homes.' ELECTIONS IN 1877. IN 1877 general elections will be held in the city of Philadelphia as follows: Last day for naturalization, January 20. sioner. Last days for extra assessment, 5th and 6th of Last day for payment of taxes, October 6th. QUALIFICATIONS OF ELECTors. case he had been a resident and removed therefrom and again returned, when six months' residence will be sufficient. If he is not native born, but the son of a citizen naturalized during the son's minority, he must also produce proof of his father's naturalization, of which the naturalization certificate will be the best evidence. A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN over twenty-two years of age must have paid within two years a State or county tax, which shall have been assessed at least two months and paid one month before the election. He must have resided in the State one year, or if, having previously been a qualified elector or native-born citizen of the State, he shall have removed therefrom and returned, then six months immediately preceding the election. He must have resided in the election district where he offers to vote at least two months immediately preceding the election. If his name is not upon the registry list, he must produce at least one qualified voter of the district or division to prove his residence by affidavit, and himself make affidavit to the facts upon which he claims a right to vote, also that he has not moved into the district for the purpose of voting therein. Proof of payment of taxes must be made by producing the tax receipt, or by affidavit that it has been lost, destroyed or was never received. A NATURALIZED CITIZEN must have the same qualifications as to residence in the State and district, assessment and payment of taxes, as a nativeborn citizen. He must have been naturalized one month before the election. If his name is not on the registry list, he must prove his residence by the testimony of a citizen of the district or division, and himself state by affidavit when and where and by what court he was naturalized, and produce his naturalization certificate for examination. On challenge, he may be also required, even when his name is upon the registry list, to produce a naturalization certificate, unless he has been for five years consecutively a voter in the district. QUALIFICATIONS OF ELECTION Officers. No person can be an election officer who holds, or within two months has held, any office or apFeb-pointment under the federal or State governments, or under any city or county, or any municipal board, commission or trust, in any city, except justices of peace, aldermen, notaries public and persons in the military service of the State. For city and ward officers, on Tuesday, ruary 20th. To be elected: Mayor, members of councils, assessors, election officers, school di rectors, etc. Last day for payment of taxes, January 20, 1877. |