pantly aver that in this lies its strength as a financial institution. In the writings of certain well-thought-of historians we find the statement that a great deal of dissatisfaction existed with the water-supply as far back as 1837. Indeed, we find in the Memorial History of the City of New York, by James Grant Wilson, the following statement of conditions: "There is not perhaps in the Union,' says a book published in 1837, a city more destitute of the blessings of good water than New York. The chief sources of water-supply at this time were the old 'Tea-water Pump" (located at the northeast corner of Orange and Chatham streets); "the town pumps, which then garnished nearly every block; the Manhattan Company; and Knapp's Spring, which furnished the supply to the upper part of the city. The mains of the Manhattan Company were distributed through the lower part of the island, and its fluid, like the gas of more recent days, was dispensed for a price. The water from Knapp's Spring was carted about in hogsheads, and sold at a penny a gallon. The town pumps were free. All the water used in the city was, and had always been, drawn from the island itself. The earliest projected reservoir was to have been placed on Broadway, between Pearl and White streets, on lands purchased from the Van Cortlandts in 1774, but the Revolutionary struggle prevented its construction. For a number of years after the Revolution various plans for increasing the city's supply were suggested, but no unanimity of opinion seems to have prevailed, except upon the one theme of the impropriety of granting any exclusive water franchise to individuals or private companies. Even in those early days the purity of the water from the Collect and the city's wells was questioned by eminent physicians, many of whom thought that the Bronx River would be a more wholesome source of supply than the springs beneath the sands of the city, into which all manner of impurities percolated. The objection to private water franchises seems shortly to have vanished, for in 1799 Burr obtained from the Legislature the charter of the Manhattan Company. This company was incorporated ostensibly to furnish water, but in reality to do a banking business. The only banks previously chartered were controlled by Federalists' capital, and Burr's friends, who were largely Republican (i. e., Democratic), could never have obtained a banking franchise from their political enemies had their designs been plainly announced. Under a clause shrewdly incorporated in its charter, permitting it to use its surplus capital in any enterprise not inconsistent with the laws of the State or of the Union, the Manhattan Company obtained full warrant for engaging in banking. But for many years it actually furnished the city's chief water-supply, pumping its waters from the Collect" (on the recent site of the Tombs), "or from its well at Cross and Duane streets, through the lower portions of the town. The into hollow log pipes distributed underground monopoly enjoyed by this company was not seriously disputed until after the close of the second war with England, when, with the extension of the city and the increase of its population, several new water companies were organized. The promoters of these incorporations were fertile in schemes; they had plans for obtaining water from the Rye Ponds, from the Housatonic River by an open canal, from Sharon, Connecticut, by the same means, and from artesian wells, which it was proposed to bore at different places in the city. Public sentiment, however, still insisted that water should be furnished by the city corporation, and that no privilege should be accorded to private capital. But practical obstacles, the rivalries of these companies, and the apathy of the people frustrated all efforts to increase the city's supply. Circumstances were soon to happen which would rudely awaken the city to the necessity of prompt and energetic action. "In 1828 the city was visited by a disastrous fire, which consumed over six hundred thousand dollars' worth of property, and this calamity renewed interest in the efforts to give the city purer and more abundant water. Resolutions were presented at meetings of the Common Council, by which a committee was appointed to consider and report. The committee urged the construction of a well and reservoir at Thirteenth Street and the Bowery, the laying of iron pipes throughout the city, the erection of steam-pumps to force the water into the reservoir, and of hydrants at the various street corners. One reason which the committee sagaciously advanced for the laying of the pipes was that whenever the long-desired object of supplying the city with water for domestic purposes should be carried into effect, these same pipes would be found serviceable. The immediate purpose of their introduction was to furnish water for use at fires. The report was reluctantly approved by the City Conncil, the well and reservoir constructed, and the pipes laid. "From this feeble and economical beginning,' says Charles King in his Memoir of the Aqueduct,‘sprang our noble Croton Aqueduct; for the immense and immediate advantage in cases of fire derived from the reservoir impressed more vividly upon the public mind the far greater advantages that would result from having a river at command.' But these measures neither increased nor improved the supply for domestic and commercial uses, although from time to time fresh projects were broached ---among others, for bringing the water from the Croton by open canal or pipes; for taking the waters of the Passaic above the Paterson Falls, and conveying them in pipes under the Hudson River. In all these progressive measures a worthy champion was found in the Board of Aldermen in Samuel Skrens, who was afterward a member of the first board of water commissioners. In January, 1821, he urged that a memorial should be presented to the Legislature asking a repeal of the privileges of the Manhattan Company, the vesting of all power for supplying water in the corporation of the city, and authority to the corporation to raise by loan a sum not exceeding two millions of dollars for introducing a supply of pure, wholesome water. Investigations made about this time by eminent chemists and physiciaus emphasized the need of prompt measures. A report was presented to the Board of Aldermen from the Lyceum of Natural History, prepared, it was assumed, by Dr. De Kay. This report set forth with startling clearness the menace to the city's health from the continued use of water impregnated with the discharges entering into the soil. In the most populous neighborhoods, and in the vicinity of the numerous graveyards which were then scattered through the town, the water was found by tests to be dangerously impure. The graveyards communicated a ropy appearance to the water,' and in warm weather the water itself was found to become offensive in a few hours. The noted coolness of the pump waters, then so highly prized by the community, might disguise these impurities, but could not eliminate the noxious elements. Until within the last few years the water on the elevated ground in Broadway was considered to be the best in the city, but in the progress of improvement this had become more and more unpalatable. Indeed,' continues the writer of the report, 'we know of families living above Broom Street, in Broadway, who are now supplied throughout the year by water-carts from the country; and in the direction of Laurens Street, we have been informed that this foreign supply is required still further to the north of Broom Street. In the sand bank underlying the city are daily deposited quantities of excrematious matter to an extent, were it not susceptible of demonstration, which would be assumed to be incredible. "If,' continues the report, 'the above facts be well founded, we must naturally anticipate a deterioration of our water with the increase of the city.'. The report, in closing, expressed in terse but strong language the conviction that no adequate supply of good or wholesome water could be obtained on the island for the wants of a growing community like New York. In the face of such startling facts, confirmed by various other analyses, the subject could not be abandoned. These analyses demonstrated the futility of all efforts to secure a pure or copious supply from the springs of the island. But the advocates of economy at once sought less expensive sources than the Croton River. Various projects were discussed within and outside of the City Council, and the idea of utilizing the Bronx River was again urged with great persistency." In any event, the Manhattan Company had outlived its usefulness as a water company. Whatever the duplicity of its chief promoters in securing their charter arising from the exigencies of politics, or whatever the corporation's shortcomings as a purveyor of water to the thirsty citizens of New York, the Manhattan Comhas, with the possible exception of a pany's record as a banking institution single decade of its existence, been one of steady progress and prosperity. Reference to its archives as reduced to their essence by the writer of a short article on the bank, published in the New York that the first directors of the Manhattan Journal of Commerce in 1894, shows Watts, John B. Church, Brockholst Liv Company were Daniel Ludlow, John ingston, William Edgar, William Laight, Paschal N. Smith, Samuel Osgood, John Stevens, John Broome, John B. Coles, and Aaron Burr, and Richard Harrison, Recorder, ex officio. The original capital of $500,000 was increased to $1,000,000 in 1800. By October, 1801, another $1,000,000 was added to the capital of the company, and the stock was then in such demand that it sold at a premium of 28 per cent.-in those days a condition of affairs that may be set down as extraordinary. Incorporation was passed in 1808, authorA supplement to the Act of izing the company to sell or to lease to the corporation of the city of New York their real estate and water privileges, and in that case to employ their whole capital as they would their surplus capital. The duration of the original charter was unlimited, but the act of 1808 provided that the charter of the bank should cease thirty years from the date of said sale or lease to the corporation of New York; and the act also provided that the State should be entitled to subscribe for $50,000 of the stock, which was accordingly done, and the capital then became $2,050,000. The imperfect character of the water works, and the insufficient supply and inferior quality of the water furnished by the company, offered no inducements to the city to purchase the water rights of the Manhattan, and the city accordingly never availed itself of its opportunity. In addition to their banking operations and the construction of water-works, the company in the early stage of its existence sought to introduce the business of insuring lives, but the novelty of life-insurance in this country at that time prevented the business from going into operation, and this scheme was soon abandoned as unprofitable. The water-works of the company were begun in 1799, and at the close of 1801, pipes, consisting of bored logs, had been laid within the city for twenty miles, supplying about 1400 houses. A large stone reservoir was built in Reade Street, extending to Chambers, and the water was obtained from wells in the rear of the Almshouse and from near the "Collect" pond. These works, including twentyfive miles of wooden and fourteen of iron pipe, engines, buildings, etc., were offered to the city in 1840 for $384,700, and the water expenditure by the company was stated at $41,303, while the revenue was only $1910. The profits from the banking business were large, dividends ranging from 7 to 10 per cent. for the first forty years, amounting in 1840 to $7,082,530. Owing to the bad management from 1830 to 1840, it was ascertained that losses aggregating about $1,000,000 had been sustained. These were made up by prudent administration by 1846, but the stockholders lost the dividends for these six years. The bank in 1809 established two branches of discount and deposit, one at Utica, and the other at Poughkeepsie, but both were closed in 1819. Daniel Ludlow, the first president, remained such until February, 1808, when he resigned. Mr. Ludlow's successor was Henry Remsen. On December 13, 1825, John G. Costar was chosen president. He was succeeded by Maltby Gelston, December 8, 1829. Then came Jonathan Thompson, March 24, 1840, and Caleb O. Hal sted, January 18, 1847. J. M. Morrison, for eighteen years cashier, was elected president in October, 1860. He resigned in 1879, and was succeeded by J. S. Harberger, who died October 9, 1880. Then William Henry Smith served until March 3, 1884, when D. C. Hays was elected to the vacant office. Mr. Stephen Baker is now president, succeeding Mr. Hays in 1893. Mr. Harberger was a clerk in the old United States Bank, and entered the services of the Manhattan Company in 1806. He was made cashier in 1857, and, as stated above, was president in 1879, when J. M. Baldwin was appointed cashier. Mr. Morrison began service with the company in 1840, after being connected with the Merchants' and the Bank of the United States, as first teller, and then cashier, which latter position he held for eighteen years, making, with his term as president from 1860 to 1879, a period of thirty-nine years' continuous service in the bank. His predecessors in the office of cashier were Henry Remsen, 1799 to 1808; Whitehead Fish, 1808 to 1810; Samuel Flewelling, 1810 to 1816; Andrew Seaman, 1816 to 1819, and Robert White, 1819 to 1840. It is of additional interest to note in conclusion that while the Manhattan Company is to-day known wholly as a banking institution, it is required to maintain a water committee, who annually report that no application for a supply of water has been denied; and as an assurance of the continued maintenance of its supply, there is always present at the annual meeting a pitcher of water, freshly drawn from its tank. Whether the directors or the stockholders test its quality by really drinking it is one of the secrets of an honored corporation into which the writer deemed it in questionable taste to pry. A POINT IN MORALS. BY ELLEN GLASGOW. THE question seems to be-" began the Englishman. He looked up and bowed to a girl in a yachting-cap who had just come in from deck and was taking the seat beside him. "The question seems to be-" The girl was having some difficulty in removing her coat, and he turned to assist her. "In my opinion," broke in a wellknown alienist on his way to a convention in Vienna, "the question is simply whether or not civilization, in placing an exorbitant value upon human life, is defeating its own aims." He leaned forward authoritatively, and spoke with a half-foreign precision of accent. "You mean that the survival of the fittest is checkmated," remarked a young journalist travelling in the interest of a New York daily, "that civilization should practise artificial selection, as it were?" The alienist shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly. "My dear sir," he protested, I don't mean anything. It is the question that means something." "Well, as I was saying," began the Englishman again, reaching for the salt and upsetting a spoonful, the question seems to be whether or not, under any circumstances, the saving of a human life may become positively immoral.” "Upon that point-" began the alienist; but a young lady in a pink blouse who was seated on the Captain's right interrupted him. 66 How could it?" she asked. "At least I don't see how it could; do you, Captain?" "There is no doubt." remarked the journalist, looking up from a conversation he had drifted into with a lawyer from one of the Western States, "that the more humane spirit pervading modern civilization has not worked wholly for good in the development of the species. Probably, for instance, if we had followed the Spartan practice of exposing unhealthy infants, we should have retained something of the Spartan hardihood. Certainly if we had been content to remain barbarians both our digestions and our nerves would have been the better for it, and melancholia would perhaps have been unknown. But, at the same time, the loss of a number of the more heroic virtues is overbalanced by an increase of the softer ones. Notably, human life has never before been regarded so sacredly.” "On the other side," observed the lawyer, lifting his hand to adjust his eyeglasses, and pausing to brush a rumb from his coat," though it may all be very well to be philanthropic to the point of pauperizing half a community and of growing squeamish about capital punish ment, the whole thing sometimes takes a disgustingly morbid turn. Why, it seems as if criminals were the real American heroes! Only last week I visited a man sentenced to death for the murder of his two wives, and, by Jove, the jailer was literally besieged by women sympathizers. I counted six bunches of heliotrope in his cell, and at least fifty notes." “Oh, but that is a form of nervous hysteria!" said the girl in the yachting cap, "and must be considered separately. Every sentiment has its fanatics-philanthropy as well as religion. But we don't judge a movement by a few overwrought disciples.' ་་ "That is true," said the Englishman, quietly. He was a middle-aged man, with an insistently optimistic countenance, and a build suggestive of general solidity. "But to return to the original proposition. I suppose we will all accept as a fundamental postulate the statement that the highest civilization is the one in which the highest value is placed upon individual life-" "And happiness," added the girl in the yachting-cap. "And happiness," assented the Englishman. "And yet," commented the lawyer, "I think that most of us will admit that such a society, where life is regarded as sacred because it is valuable to the individual, not because it is valuable to the state, tends to the non-production of heroes-" That the average will be higher and the exception lower," observed the journalist. "In other words, that there will be a general elevation of the mass, accompanied by a corresponding lowering of the few.” "On the whole, I think our system does very well," said the Englishman, carefully measuring the horseradish he was placing upon his oysters. "A mean between two extremes is apt to be satisfactory in results. If we don't produce a Marcus Aurelius or a Seneca, neither do we produce a Nero or a Phocas. We may have lost patriotism, but we have gained cosmopolitanism, which is better. If we have lost chivalry, we have acquired decency; and if we have ceased to be picturesque, we have become cleanly, which is considerably more to be desired." "I have never felt the romanticism of the Middle Ages," remarked the girl in the yachting cap. "When I read of the glories of the Crusaders, I can't help remembering that a knight wore a single garment for a lifetime, and hacked his horse to pieces for a whim. Just as I never think of that chivalrous brute, Richard the Lion-Hearted, that I don't see him chopping off the heads of his three thousand prisoners." "Oh, I don't think that any of us are sighing for a revival of the Middle Ages," ent-" returned the journalist. "The worship von Hartmann, and the rest, and I was of the past has usually for its devotees pretty well saturated myself. At that people who have only known the pres- age I was an ardent disciple of pessimism. I am still a disciple, but my ardor has abated-which is not the fault of pessimism, but the virtue of middle age-" "Which is as it should be," commented the lawyer. "If man was confined to the worship of the knowable, all the world would lapse into atheism." "Just as the great lovers of humanity were generally hermits," added the girl in the yachting-cap. “I had an uncle who used to say that he never really loved mankind until he went to live in the wilderness." "I think we are drifting from the point," said the alienist, helping himself to potatoes. "Was it not-can the saving of a human life ever prove to be an immoral act? I once held that it could." "Did you act upon it?" asked the law yer, with rising interest. "I maintain that no proposition can be said to exist until it is acted upon. Otherwise it is in merely an embryonic state--" The alienist laid down his fork and leaned forward. He was a notable-looking man of some thirty-odd years, who had made a sudden leap into popularity through several successful cases. He had a nervous, muscular face, with singularly penetrating eyes, and hair of a light sandy color. His hands were white and well shaped. "It was some years ago," he said, bending a scintillant glance around the table. "If you will listen-" There followed a stir of assent, accompanied by a nod from the young lady upon the Captain's right. "I feel as if it would be a ghost story," she declared. "It is not a story at all," returned the alienist, lifting his wineglass and holding it against the light. "It is merely a fact." Then he glanced swiftly around the table as if challenging attention. 46 'As I said," he began, slowly, "it was some few years ago. Just what year does not matter, but at that time I had completed a course at Heidelberg, and expected shortly to set out with an exploring party for South Africa. It turned out afterwards that I did not go, but for the purpose of the present story it is sufficient that I intended to do so, and had made my preparations accordingly. At Heidelberg I had lived among a set of German students who were permeated with the metaphysics of Schopenhauer, 66 A man is usually called conservative when he has passed the twenties," interrupted the journalist, "yet it is not that he grows more conservative, but that he grows less radical--" 66 Rather that he grows less in every direction," added the Englishman, "except in physical bulk." The alienist accepted the suggestions with an inclination, and continued. "One of my most cherished convictions," he said, "was to the effect that every man is the sole arbiter of his fate. As Schopenhauer has it. that there is nothing to which a man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.' Indeed, that particular sentence had become a kind of motto with our set, and some of my companions even went so far as to preach the proper ending of life with the ending of the power of individual usefulness." He paused to help himself to salad. "I was in Scotland at the time, where I had spent a fortnight with my parents, in a small village on the Kyles of Bute. While there I had been treating an invalid cousin who had acquired the morphine habit, and who, under my care, had determined to uproot it. Before leaving I had secured from her the amount of the drug which she had in her possession— some thirty grains-done up in a sealed package, and labelled by a London chemist. As I was in haste, I put it in my bag, thinking that I would add it to my case of medicines when I reached Leicester, where I was to spend the night with an old schoolmate. I took the boat at Tighnabruaich, the small village, found a local train at Gourock to reach Glasgow with one minute in which to catch the first express to London. I made the change and secured a first-class smokingcompartment, which I at first thought to be vacant, but when the train had started a man came from the dressing-room and took the seat across from me. At first I paid no heed to him, but upon looking up once or twice and finding his eyes upon me, I became unpleasantly conscious of his presence. He was thin al |