Cincinnati is a city that has a past. As Daniel Webster said, that at least is secure. Among the many places that have been and are the Athens of America, this was perhaps the first. As long ago as the first visit of Charles Dickens to this country it was distinguished as a town of refinement as well as cultivation; and the novelist, who saw little to admire, though much to interest him in our raw country, was captivated by this little village on the Ohio. It was already the centre of an independent intellectual life, and produced scholars, artists, writers, who subsequently went east instead of west. According to tradition, there seems to have been early a tendency to free thought, and a response to the movement which, for lack of a better name, was known in Massachusetts as transcendentalism.
The evolution of Cincinnati seems to have been a little peculiar in American life. It is a rich city, priding itself on the solidity of its individual fortunes and business, and the freedom of its real property from foreign mortgages. Usually in our development the pursuit of wealth comes first, and then all other things are added thereto, as we read the promise. In Cincinnati there seems to have been a very considerable cultivation first in time, and we have the spectacle of what wealth will do in the way of the sophistication and materialization of society. Ordinarily we have the process of an uncultivated community gradually working itself out into a more or less ornamented and artistic condition as it gets money. The reverse process we might see if the philosophic town of Concord, Massachusetts, should become the home of rich men engaged in commerce and manufacturing. I may be all wrong in my notion of Cincinnati, but there is a sort of tradition, a remaining flavor of old-time culture before the town became commercially so important as it was before the war.
It is difficult to think of Cincinnati as in Ohio. I cannot find their similarity of traits. Indeed, I think that generally in the State there is a feeling that it is an alien city; the general characteristics of the State do not flow into and culminate in Cincinnati as its metropolis. It has had somehow an independent life. If you look on a geologic map of the State, you see that the glacial drift, I believe it is called, which flowed over three-fourths of the State and took out its wrinkles did not advance into the south-west. And Cincinnati lies in the portion that was not smoothed into a kind of monotony. When a settlement was made here it was a good landing-place for trade up and down the river, and was probably not so much thought of as a distributing and receiving point for the interior north of it. Indeed, up to the time of the war, it looked to the South for its trade, and naturally, even when the line of war was drawn, a good deal of its sympathies lay in the direction of its trade. It had become a great city, and grown rich both in trade and manufactures, but in the decline of steamboating and in the era of railways there were physical difficulties in the way of adapting itself easily to the new conditions. It was not easy to bring the railways down the irregular hills and to find room for them on the landing. The city itself had to contend with great natural obstacles to get adequate foothold, and its radiation over, around, and among the hills produced some novel features in business and in social life.
What Cincinnati would have been, with its early culture and its increasing wealth, if it had not become so largely German in its population, we can only conjecture. The German element was at once conservative as to improvements and liberalizing, as the phrase is, in theology and in life. Bituminous coal and the Germans combined to make a novel American city. When Dickens saw the place it was a compact, smiling little city, with a few country places on the hills. It is now a scattered city of country places, with a little nucleus of beclouded business streets. The traveller does not go there to see the city, but to visit the suburbs, climbing into them, out of the smoke and grime, by steam “inclines” and grip railways. The city is indeed difficult to see. When you are in it, by the river, you can see nothing; when you are outside of it you are in any one of half a dozen villages, in regions of parks and elegant residences, altogether charming and geographically confusing; and if from some commanding point you try to recover the city idea, you look down upon black roofs half hid in black smoke, through which the fires of factories gleam, and where the colored Ohio rolls majestically along under a dark canopy. Looked at in one way, the real Cincinnati is a German city, and you can only study its true character “Over the Rhine,” and see it successfully through the bottom of an upturned beer glass. Looked at another way, it is mainly an affair of elegant suburbs, beautifully wooded hills, pleasure-grounds, and isolated institutions of art or charity. I am thankful that there is no obligation on me to depict it.
It would probably be described as a city of art rather than of theology, and one of rural homes rather than metropolitan society. Perhaps the German element has had something to do in giving it its musical character, and the early culture may have determined its set more towards art than religion. As the cloud of smoke became thicker and thicker in the old city those who disliked this gloom escaped out upon the hills in various directions. Many, of course, still cling to the solid ancestral houses in the city, but the country movement was so general that church-going became an affair of some difficulty, and I can imagine that the church-going habit was a little broken up while the new neighborhoods were forming on the hills and in the winding valleys, and before the new churches in the suburbs were erected. Congregations were scattered, and society itself was more or less disintegrated. Each suburb is fairly accessible from the centre of the city, either by a winding valley or by a bold climb up a precipice, but owing to the configuration of the ground, it is difficult to get from one suburb to another without returning to the centre and taking a fresh start. This geographical hinderance must necessarily interfere with social life, and tend to isolation of families, or to merely neighborhood association.
Although much yet remains to be done in the way of good roads, nature and art have combined to make the suburbs of the city wonderfully beautiful. The surface is most picturesquely broken, the forests are fine, from this point and that there are views pleasing, poetic, distant, perfectly satisfying in form and variety, and in advantageous situations taste has guided wealth in the construction of stately houses, having ample space in the midst of manorial parks. You are not out of sight of these fine places in any of the suburbs, and there are besides, in every direction, miles of streets of pleasing homes. I scarcely know whether to prefer Clifton, with its wide sweeping avenues rounding the hills, or the perhaps more commanding heights of Walnut, nearer the river, and overlooking Kentucky. On the East Walnut Hills is a private house worth going far to see for its color. It is built of broken limestone, the chance find of a quarry, making the richest walls I have anywhere seen, comparable to nothing else than the exquisite colors in the rocks of the Yellowstone Falls, as I recall them in Mr. Moran’s original studies.
If the city itself could substitute gas fuel for its smutty coal, I fancy that, with its many solid homes and stately buildings, backed by the picturesque hills, it would be a city at once curious and attractive to the view. The visitor who ascends from the river as far as Fourth Street is surprised to find room for fair avenues, and many streets and buildings of mark. The Probasco fountain in another atmosphere would be a thing of beauty, for one may go far to find so many groups in bronze so good. The Post-office building is one of the best of the Mullet-headed era of our national architecture—so good generally that one wonders that the architect thought it expedient to destroy the effect of the monolith columns by cutting them to resemble superimposed blocks. A very remarkable building also is the new Chamber of Commerce structure, from Richardson’s design, massive, mediæval, challenging attention, and compelling criticism to give way to genuine admiration. There are other buildings, public and private, that indicate a city of solid growth; and the activity of its strong Chamber of Commerce is a guarantee that its growth will be maintained with the enterprise common to American cities. The effort is to make manufacturing take the place in certain lines of business that, as in the item of pork-packing, has been diverted by various causes. Money and effort have been freely given to regain the Southern trade interrupted by the war, and I am forced to believe that the success in this respect would have been greater if some of the city newspapers had not thought it all-important to manufacture political capital by keeping alive old antagonisms and prejudices. Whatever people may say, sentiment does play a considerable part in business, and it is within the knowledge of the writer that prominent merchants in at least one Southern city have refused trade contracts that would have been advantageous to Cincinnati, on account of this exhibition of partisan spirit, as if the war were not over. Nothing would be more contemptible than to see a community selling its principles for trade; but it is true that men will trade, other things being equal, where they are met with friendly cordiality and toleration, and where there is a spirit of helpfulness instead of suspicion. Professional politicians, North and South, may be able to demonstrate to their satisfaction that they should have a chance to make a living, but they ask too much when this shall be at the expense of free-flowing trade, which is in itself the best solvent of any remaining alienation, and the surest disintegrator of the objectionable political solidity, and to the hinderance of that entire social and business good feeling which is of all things desirable and necessary in a restored and compacted Union. And it is as bad political as it is bad economic policy. As a matter of fact, the politicians of Kentucky are grateful to one or two Republican journals for aid in keeping their State “solid.” It is a pity that the situation has its serious as well as its ridiculous aspect.
Cincinnati in many respects is more an Eastern than a Western town; it is developing its own life, and so far as I could see, without much infusion of young fortune-hunting blood from the East. It has attained its population of about 275,000 by a slower growth than some other Western cities, and I notice in its statistical reports a pause rather than excitement since 1878-79-80. The valuation of real and personal property has kept about the same for nearly ten years (1886, real estate about $129,000,000, personal about $42,000,000), with a falling off in the personalty, and a noticeable decrease in the revenue from taxation. At the same time manufacturing has increased considerably. In 1880 there was a capital of $60,623,350, employing 74,798 laborers, with a product of $148,957,280. In 1886 the capital was $76,248,200, laborers 93,103, product $190,722,153. The business at the Post-office was a little less in 1886 than in 1883. In the seven years ending with 1886 there was a considerable increase in banking capital, which reached in the city proper over ten millions, and there was an increase in clearings from 1881 to 1886.
It would teach us nothing to follow in detail the fluctuations of the various businesses in Cincinnati, either in appreciation or decline, but it may be noted that it has more than held its own in one of the great staples—leaf tobacco—and still maintains a leading position. Yet I must refer to one of the industries for the sake of an important experiment made in connection with it. This is the experiment of profit-sharing at Ivorydale, the establishment of Messrs. Procter and Gamble, now, I believe, the largest soap factory in the world. The soap and candle industry has always been a large one in Cincinnati, and it has increased about seventy-five per cent, within the past two years. The proprietors at Ivorydale disclaim any intention of philanthropy in their new scheme—that is, the philanthropy that means giving something for nothing, as a charity: it is strictly a business operation. It is an experiment that I need not say will be watched with a good deal of interest as a means of lessening the friction between the interests of capital and labor. The plan is this: Three trustees are named who are to declare the net profits of the concern every six months; for this purpose they are to have free access to the books and papers at all times, and they are to permit the employes to designate a book-keeper to make an examination for them also. In determining the net profits, interest on all capital invested is calculated as an expense at the rate of six per cent., and a reasonable salary is allowed to each member of the firm who gives his entire time to the business. In order to share in the profits, the employé must have been at work for three consecutive months, and must be at work when the semi-annual account is made up. All the men share whose wages have exceeded $5 a week, and all the women whose wages have exceeded $4.25 a week. The proportion divided to each employé is determined by the amount of wages earned; that is, the employés shall share as between themselves in the profits exactly as they have shared in the entire fund paid as wages to the whole body, excluding the first three months’ wages. In order to determine the profits for distribution, the total amount of wages paid to all employés (except travelling salesmen, who do not share) is ascertained. The amount of all expenses, Including interest and salaries, is ascertained, and the total net profits shall be divided between the firm and the employés sharing in the fund. The amount of the net profit to be distributed will be that proportion of the whole net profit which will correspond to the proportion of the wages paid as compared with the entire cost of production and the expense of the business. To illustrate: If the wages paid to all employés shall equal twenty per cent, of the entire expenditure in the business, including interest and salaries of members of the firm, then twenty per cent, of the net profit will be distributed to employés.
It will be noted that this plan promotes steadiness in work, stimulates to industry, and adds a most valuable element of hopefulness to labor. As a business enterprise for the owners it is sound, for it makes every workman an interested party in increasing the profits of the firm—interested not only in production, but in the marketableness of the thing produced. There have been two divisions under this plan. At the declaration of the first the workmen had no confidence in it; many of them would have sold their chances for a glass of beer. They expected that “expenses” would make such a large figure that nothing would be left to divide. When they received, as the good workmen did, considerable sums of money, life took on another aspect to them, and we may suppose that their confidence in fair dealing was raised. The experiment of a year has been entirely satisfactory; it has not only improved the class of employés, but has introduced into the establishment a spirit of industrial cheerfulness. Of course it is still an experiment. So long as business is good, all will go well; but if there is a bad six months, and no profits, it is impossible that suspicion should not arise. And there is another consideration: the publishing to the world that the business of six months was without profit might impair credit. But, on the other hand, this openness in legitimate business may be contagious, and in the end promotive of a wider and more stable business confidence. Ivorydale is one of the best and most solidly built industrial establishments anywhere to be found, and doubly interesting for the intelligent attempt to solve the most difficult problem in modern society. The first semi-annual dividend amounted to about an eighth increase of wages. A girl who was earning five dollars a week would receive as dividend about thirty dollars a year. I think it was not in my imagination that the laborers in this establishment worked with more than usual alacrity, and seemed contented. If this plan shall prevent strikes, that alone will be as great a benefit to the workmen as to those who risk capital in employing them.
Probably to a stranger the chief interest of Cincinnati is not in its business enterprises, great as they are, but in another life just as real and important, but which is not always considered in taking account of the prosperity of a community—the development of education and of the fine arts. For a long time the city has had an independent life in art and in music. Whether a people can be saved by art I do not know. The pendulum is always swinging backward and forward, and we seem never to be able to be enthusiastic in one direction without losing something in another. The art of Cincinnati has a good deal the air of being indigenous, and the outcome in the arts of carving and design and in music has exhibited native vigor. The city has made itself a reputation for wood-carving and for decorative pottery. The Rockwood pottery, the private enterprise of Mrs. Bellamy Storer, is the only pottery in this country in which the instinct of beauty is paramount to the desire of profit. Here for a series of years experiments have been going on with clays and glazing, in regard to form and color, and in decoration purely for effect, which have resulted in pieces of marvellous interest and beauty. The effort has always been to satisfy a refined sense rather than to cater to a vicious taste, or one for startling effects already formed. I mean that the effort has not been to suit the taste of the market, but to raise that taste. The result is some of the most exquisite work in texture and color anywhere to be found, and I was glad to learn that it is gaining an appreciation which will not in this case leave virtue to be its own reward.
The various private attempts at art expression have been consolidated in a public Museum and an Art School, which are among the best planned and equipped in the country. The Museum Building in Eden Park, of which the centre pavilion and west wing are completed (having a total length of 214 feet from east to west), is in Romanesque style, solid and pleasing, with exceedingly well-planned exhibition-rooms and picture-galleries, and its collections are already choice and interesting. The fund was raised by the subscriptions of 455 persons, and amounts to $310,501, of which Mr. Charles R. West led off with the contribution of $150,000, invested as a permanent fund. Near this is the Art School, also a noble building, the gift of Mr. David Sinton, who in 1855 gave the Museum Association $75,000 for this purpose. It should be said that the original and liberal endowment of the Art School was made by Mr. Nicholas Longworth, in accordance with the wish of his father, and that the association also received a legacy of $40,000 from Mr. R. R. Springer. Altogether the association has received considerably over a million of dollars, and has in addition, by gift and purchase, property gained at nearly $200,000. The Museum is the fortunate possessor of one of the three Russian Reproductions, the other two being in the South Kensington Museum of London and the Metropolitan of New York. Thus, by private enterprise, in the true American way, the city is graced and honored by art buildings which give it distinction, and has a school of art so well equipped and conducted that it attracts students from far and near, filling its departments of drawing, painting, sculpture, and wood-carving with eager learners. It has over 400 scholars in the various departments. The ample endowment fund makes the school really free, there being only a nominal charge of about $5 a year.
In the collection of paintings, which has several of merit, is one with a history, which has a unique importance. This is B. R. Haydon’s “Public Entry of Christ into Jerusalem.” This picture of heroic size, and in the grand style which had a great vogue in its day, was finished in 1820, sold for £170 in 1831, and brought to Philadelphia, where it was exhibited. The exhibition did not pay expenses, and the picture was placed in the Academy as a companion piece to Benjamin West’s “Death on the Pale Horse.” In the fire of 1845 both canvases were rescued by being cut from the frames and dragged out like old blankets. It was finally given to the Cathedral in Cincinnati, where its existence was forgotten until it was discovered lately and loaned to the Museum. The interest in the picture now is mainly an accidental one, although it is a fine illustration of the large academic method, and in certain details is painted with the greatest care. Haydon’s studio was the resort of English authors of his day, and the portraits of several of them are introduced into this picture. The face of William Hazlitt does duty as St. Peter; Wordsworth and Sir Isaac Newton and Voltaire appear as spectators of the pageant—the cynical expression of Voltaire is the worldly contrast to the believing faith of the disciples—and the inspired face of the youthful St. John is that of John Keats. This being the only portrait of Keats in life, gives this picture extraordinary interest.
The spirit of Cincinnati, that is, its concern for interests not altogether material, is also illustrated by its College of Music. This institution was opened in 1878. It was endowed by private subscription, the largest being $100,000 by Mr. R. R. Springer. It is financially very prosperous; its possessions in real estate, buildings—including a beautiful concert hall—and invested endowments amount to over $300,000. Its average attendance is about 550, and during the year 1887 it had about 650 different scholars. From tuition alone about $45,000 were received, and although the expenditures were liberal, the college had at the beginning of 1888 a handsome cash balance. The object of the college is the development of native talent, and to evoke this the best foreign teachers obtainable have been secured. In the departments of the voice, the piano, and the violin, American youth are said to show special proficiency, and the result of the experiment thus far is to strengthen the belief that out of our mixed nationality is to come most artistic development in music. Free admission is liberally given to pupils who have talent but not the means to cultivate it. Recognizing the value of broad culture in musical education, the managers have provided courses of instruction in English literature, lectures upon American authors, and for the critical study of Italian. The college proper has forty teachers, and as many rooms for instruction. Near it, and connected by a covered way, is the great Music Hall, with a seating capacity of 5400, and the room to pack in nearly 7000 people. In this superb hall the great annual musical festivals are held. It has a plain interior, sealed entirely in wood, and with almost no ornamentation to impair its resonance. The courage of the projectors who dared to build this hall for a purely musical purpose and not for display is already vindicated. It is no doubt the best auditorium in the country. As age darkens the wood, the interior grows rich, and it is discovered that the effect of the seasoning of the wood or of the musical vibrations steadily improves the acoustic properties, having the same effect upon the sonorousness of the wood that long use has upon a good violin. The whole interior is a magnificent sounding-board, if that is the proper expression, and for fifty years, if the hall stands, it will constantly improve, and have a resonant quality unparalleled in any other auditorium.
The city has a number of clubs, well housed, such as are common to other cities, and some that are peculiar. The Cuvier Club, for the preservation of game, has a very large museum of birds, animals, and fishes, beautifully prepared and arranged. The Historical and Philosophical Society has also good quarters, a library of about 10,000 books and 44,000 pamphlets, and is becoming an important depository of historical manuscripts. The Literary Society, composed of 100 members, who meet weekly, in commodious apartments, to hear an essay, discuss general topics, and pass an hour socially about small tables, with something to eat and drink, has been vigorously-maintained since 1848.
An institution of more general importance is the Free Public Library, which has about 150,000 books and 18,000 pamphlets. This is supported in part by an accumulated fund, but mainly by a city tax, which is appropriated through the Board of Education. The expenditures for it in 1887 were about $50,000. It has a notably fine art department. The Library is excellently managed by Mr. A. W. Whelpley, the librarian, who has increased its circulation and usefulness by recognizing the new idea that a librarian is not a mere custodian of books, but should be a stimulator and director of the reading of a community. This office becomes more and more important now that the good library has to compete for the attention of the young with the “cheap and nasty” publications of the day. It is probably due somewhat to direction in reading that books of fiction taken from the Library last year were only fifty-one per cent, of the whole.
An institution established in many cities as a helping hand to women is the Women’s Exchange. The Exchange in Cincinnati is popular as a restaurant. Many worthy women support themselves by preparing food which is sold here over the counter, or served at the tables. The city has for many years sustained a very good Zoological Garden, which is much frequented except in the winter. Interest in it is not, however, as lively as it was formerly. It seems very difficult to keep a “zoo” up to the mark in America.
I do not know that the public schools of Cincinnati call for special mention. They seem to be conservative schools, not differing from the best elsewhere, and they appear to be trying no new experiments. One of the high-schools which I saw with 600 pupils is well conducted, and gives good preparation for college. The city enumeration is over 87,000 children between the ages of six and twenty-one, and of these about 36,000 are reported not in school. Of the 2300 colored children in the city, about half were in school. When the Ohio Legislature repealed the law establishing separate schools for colored people, practically creating mixed schools, a majority of the colored parents in the city petitioned and obtained branch schools of their own, with colored teachers in charge. The colored people everywhere seem to prefer to be served by teachers and preachers of their own race.
The schools of Cincinnati have not adopted manual training, but a Technical School has been in existence about a year, with promise of success. The Cincinnati University under the presidency of Governor Cox shows new vitality. It is supported in part by taxation, and is open free to all resident youth, so that while it is not a part of the public-school system, it supplements it.
Cincinnati has had a great many discouragements of late, turbulent politics and dishonorable financial failures. But, for all that, it impresses one as a solid city, with remarkable development in the higher civilization.
In its physical aspect Louisville is in every respect a contrast to Cincinnati. Lying on a plain, sloping gently up from the river, it spreads widely in rectangular uniformity of streets—a city of broad avenues, getting to be well paved and well shaded, with ample spaces in lawns, houses detached, somewhat uniform in style, but with an air of comfort, occasionally of elegance and solid good taste. The city has an exceedingly open, friendly, cheerful appearance. In May, with its abundant foliage and flowery lawns, it is a beautiful city: a beautiful, healthful city in a temperate climate, surrounded by a fertile country, is Louisville. Beyond the city the land rises into a rolling country of Blue-Grass farms, and eastward along the river are fine bluffs broken into most advantageous sites for suburban residences. Looking northward across the Ohio are seen the Indiana “Knobs.” In high-water the river is a majestic stream, covering almost entirely the rocks which form the “Falls,” and the beds of “cement” which are so profitably worked. The canal, which makes navigation round the rapids, has its mouth at Shipping-port Island. About this spot clusters much of the early romance of Louisville. Here are some of the old houses and the old mill built by the Frenchman Tarascon in the early part of the century. Here in a weather-beaten wooden tenement, still standing, Taras-con offered border hospitality to many distinguished guests; Aaron Burr and Blennerhasset were among his visitors, and General Wilkinson, the projector of the canal, then in command of the armies of the United States; and it was probably here that the famous “Spanish conspiracy” was concocted. Corn Island, below the rapids, upon which the first settlement of Louisville was made in 1778, disappeared some years ago, gradually washed away by the swift river.
Opposite this point, in Indiana, is the village of Clarksville, which has a unique history. About 1785 Virginia granted to Gen. George Rogers Clark, the most considerable historic figure of this region, a large tract of land in recognition of his services in the war. When Virginia ceded this territory to Indiana the township of Clarksville was excepted from the grant. It had been organized with a governing board of trustees, self-perpetuating, and this organization still continues. Clarksville has therefore never been ceded to the United States, and if it is not an independent community, the eminent domain must still rest in the State of Virginia.
Some philosophers say that the character of a people is determined by climate and soil. There is a notion in this region that the underlying limestone and the consequent succulent Blue-Grass produce a race of large men, frank in manner, brave in war, inclined to oratory and ornamental conversation, women of uncommon beauty, and the finest horses in the Union. Of course a fertile soil and good living conduce to beauty of form and in a way to the free graces of life. But the contrast of Cincinnati and Louisville in social life and in the manner of doing business cannot all be accounted for by Blue-Grass. It would be very interesting, if one had the knowledge, to study the causes of this contrast in two cities not very far apart. In late years Louisville has awakened to a new commercial life, as one finds in it a strong infusion of Western business energy and ambition. It is jubilant in its growth and prosperity. It was always a commercial town, but with a dash of Blue-Grass leisure and hospitality, and a hereditary flavor of manners and fine living. Family and pedigree have always been held in as high esteem as beauty. The Kentuckian of society is a great contrast to the Virginian, but it may be only the development of the tide-water gentleman in the freer, wider opportunities of the Blue-Grass region. The pioneers of Kentucky were backwoodsmen, but many of the early settlers, whose descendants are now leaders in society and in the professions, came with the full-blown tastes and habits of Virginia civilization, as their spacious colonial houses, erected in the latter part of the last century and the early part of this, still attest. They brought and planted in the wilderness a highly developed social state, which was modified into a certain freedom by circumstances. One can fancy in the abundance of a temperate latitude a certain gayety and joyousness in material existence, which is contented with that, and has not sought the art and musical development which one finds in Cincinnati. All over the South, Louisville is noted for the beauty of its women, but the other ladies of the South say that they can always tell one from Louisville by her dress, something in it quite aware of the advanced fashion, something in the “cut”—a mystery known only to the feminine eye.
I did not intend, however, to enter upon a disquisition of the different types of civilization in Cincinnati and in Louisville. One observes them as evidences of what has heretofore been mentioned, the great variety in American life, when one looks below the surface. The traveller enjoys both types, and is rejoiced to find such variety, culture, taking in one city the form of the worship of beauty and the enjoyment of life, and in the other greater tendency to the fine arts. Louisville is a city of churches, of very considerable religious activity, and of pretty stanch orthodoxy. I do not mean to say that what are called modern ideas do not leaven its society. In one of its best literary clubs I heard the Spencerian philosophy expounded and advocated with the enthusiasm and keenness of an emancipated Eastern town. But it is as true of Louisville as it is of other Southern cities that traditional faith is less disturbed by doubts and isms than in many Eastern towns. One notes here also, as all over the South, the marked growth of the temperance movement. The Kentuckians believe that they produce the best fluid from rye and corn in the Union, and that they are the best judges of it. Neither proposition will be disputed, nor will one trifle with a legitimate pride in a home production; but there is a new spirit abroad, and both Bourbon and the game that depends quite as much upon the knowledge of human nature as upon the turn of the cards are silently going to the rear. Always Kentuckians have been distinguished in politics, in oratory, in the professions of law and of medicine; nor has the city ever wanted scholars in historical lore, men who have not only kept alive the traditions of learning and local research, like Col. John Mason Brown, but have exhibited the true antiquarian spirit of Col. H. T. Durrett, whose historical library is worth going far to see and study. It will be a great pity if his exceedingly valuable collection is not preserved to the State to become the nucleus of a Historical Society worthy of the State’s history. When I spoke of art it was in a public sense; there are many individuals who have good pictures and especially interesting portraits, and in the early days Kentucky produced at least one artist, wholly self-taught, who was a rare genius. Matthew H. Jouett was born in Mercer County in 1780, and died in Louisville in 1820. In the course of his life he painted as many as three hundred and fifty portraits, which are scattered all over the Union. In his mature years he was for a time with Stuart in Boston. Some specimens of his work in Louisville are wonderfully fine, recalling the style and traditions of the best masters, some of them equal if not superior to the best by Stuart, and suggesting in color and solidity the vigor and grace of Vandyck. He was the product of no school but nature and his own genius. Louisville has always had a scholarly and aggressive press, and its traditions are not weakened in Mr. Henry Watterson. On the social side the good-fellowship of the city is well represented in the Pendennis Club, which is thoroughly home-like and agreeable. The town has at least one book-store of the first class, but it sells very few American copyright books. The city has no free or considerable public library. The Polytechnic Society, which has a room for lectures, keeps for circulation among subscribers about 38,000 books. It has also a geological and mineral collection, and a room devoted to pictures, which contains an allegorical statue by Canova.
In its public schools and institutions of charity the city has a great deal to show that is interesting. In medicine it has always been famous. It has four medical colleges, a college of dentistry, a college of pharmacy, and a school of pharmacy for women. In nothing, however, is the spirit of the town better exhibited than in its public-school system. With a population of less than 180,000, the school enrolment, which has advanced year by year, was in 1887, 21,601, with an aggregate belonging of 17,392. The amount expended on schools, which was in 1880 $197,699, had increased to $323,943 in 1887—a cost of $18.62 per pupil. Equal provision is made for colored schools as for white, but the number of colored pupils is less than 3000, and the colored high-school is small, as only a few are yet fitted to go so far in education. The negroes all prefer colored teachers, and so far as I could learn, they are quite content with the present management of the School Board. Co-education is not in the Kentucky idea, nor in its social scheme. There are therefore two high-schools—one for girls and one for boys—both of the highest class and efficiency, in excellent buildings, and under most intelligent management. Among the teachers in the schools are ladies of position, and the schools doubtless owe their good character largely to the fact that they are in the fashion: as a rule, all the children of the city are educated in them. Manual training is not introduced, but all the advanced methods in the best modern schools, object-lessons, word-building, moulding, and drawing, are practised. During the fall and winter months there are night schools, which are very well attended. In one of the intermediate schools I saw an exercise which illustrates the intelligent spirit of the schools. This was an account of the early settlement, growth, and prosperity of Louisville, told in a series of very short papers—so many that a large number of the pupils had a share in constructing the history. Each one took up connectively a brief period or the chief events in chronological order, with illustrations of manners and customs, fashions of dress and mode of life. Of course this mosaic was not original, but made up of extracts from various local histories and statistical reports. This had the merit of being a good exercise as well as inculcating an intelligent pride in the city.
Nearly every religious denomination is represented in the 142 churches of Louisville. Of these 9 are Northern Presbyterian and 7 Southern Presbyterian, 11 of the M.E. Church South and 6 of the M.E. Church North, 18 Catholic, 7 Christian, 1 Unitarian, and 31 colored. There are seven convents and monasteries, and a Young Men’s Christian Association. In proportion to its population, the city is pre-eminent for public and private charities: there are no less than thirty-eight of these institutions, providing for the infirm and unfortunate of all ages and conditions. Unique among these in the United States is a very fine building for the maintenance of the widows and orphans of deceased Freemasons of the State of Kentucky, supported mainly by contributions of the Masonic lodges. One of the best equipped and managed industrial schools of reform for boys and girls is on the outskirts of the city. Mr. P. Caldwell is its superintendent, and it owes its success, as all similar schools do, to the peculiar fitness of the manager for this sort of work. The institution has three departments. There were 125 white boys and 79 colored boys, occupying separate buildings in the same enclosure, and 41 white girls in their own house in another enclosure.
The establishment has a farm, a garden, a greenhouse, a library building, a little chapel, ample and pleasant play-yards. There is as little as possible the air of a prison about the place, and as much as possible that of a home and school. The boys have organized a very fair brass band. The girls make all the clothes for the establishment; the boys make shoes, and last year earned $8000 in bottoming chairs. The school is mainly sustained by taxation and city appropriations; the yearly cost is about $26,000. Children are indentured out when good homes can be found for them.
The School for the Education of the Blind is a State institution, and admits none from outside the State. The fine building occupies a commanding situation on hills not far from the river, and is admirably built, the rooms spacious and airy, and the whole establishment is well ordered. There are only 79 scholars, and the few colored are accommodated by themselves in a separate building, in accordance with an Act of the Legislature in 1884 for the education of colored blind children. The distinction of this institution is that it has on its premises the United States printing-office for furnishing publications for the blind asylums of the country. Printing is done here both in letters and in points, by very ingenious processes, and the library is already considerable. The space required to store a library of books for the blind may be reckoned from the statement that the novel of “Ivan-hoe” occupies three volumes, each larger than Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary. The weeklySunday-school Timesis printed here. The point writing consists entirely of dots in certain combinations to represent letters, and it is noticed that about half the children prefer this to the alphabet. The preference is not explained by saying that it is merely a matter of feeling.
The city has as yet no public parks, but the very broad streets—from sixty to one hundred and twenty feet in width—the wide spacing of the houses in the residence parts, and the abundant shade make them less a necessity than elsewhere. The city spreads very freely and openly over the plain, and short drives take one into lovely Blue-Grass country. A few miles out on Churchill Downs is the famous Jockey Club Park, a perfect racing track and establishment, where worldwide reputations are made at the semi-annual meetings. The limestone region, a beautifully rolling country, almost rivals the Lexington plantations in the raising of fine horses. Driving out to one of these farms one day, we passed, not far from the river, the old Taylor mansion and the tomb of Zachary Taylor. It is in the reserved family burying-ground, where lie also the remains of Richard Taylor, of Revolutionary memory. The great tomb and the graves are overrun thickly with myrtle, and the secluded irregular ground is shaded by forest-trees. The soft wind of spring was blowing sweetly over the fresh green fields, and there was about the place an air of repose and dignity most refreshing to the spirit. Near the tomb stands the fine commemorative shaft bearing on its summit a good portrait statue of the hero of Buena Vista. I liked to linger there, the country was so sweet; the great river flowing in sight lent a certain grandeur to the resting-place, and I thought how dignified and fit it was for a President to be buried at his home.
The city of Louisville in 1888 has the unmistakable air of confidence and buoyant prosperity. This feeling of confidence is strengthened by the general awakening of Kentucky in increased immigration of agriculturists, and in the development of extraordinary mines of coal and iron, and in the railway extension. But locally the Board of Trade (an active body of 700 members) has in its latest report most encouraging figures to present. In almost every branch of business there was an increase in 1887 over 1886; in both manufactures and trade the volume of business increased from twenty to fifty per cent. For instance, stoves and castings increased from 16,574,547 pounds to 19,386,808; manufactured tobacco, from 12,729,421 pounds to 17,059,006; gas and water pipes, from 56,083,380 pounds to 63,745,216; grass and clover seed, from 4,240,908 bushels to 6,601,451. A conclusive item as to manufactures is that there were received in 1887 951,767 tons of bituminous coal, against 204,221 tons in 1886. Louisville makes the claim of being the largest tobacco market in the world in bulk and variety. It leads largely the nine principal leaf-tobacco markets in the West. The figures for 1887 are—receipts, 123,569 hogsheads; sales, 135,192 hogsheads; stock in hand, 36,431 hogsheads, against the corresponding figures of 62,074, 65,924, 13,972 of its great rival, Cincinnati. These large figures are a great increase over 1886, when the value of tobacco handled here was estimated at nearly $20,000,000. Another great interest always associated with Louisville, whiskey, shows a like increase, there being shipped in 1887 119,637 barrels, against 101,943 barrels in 1886. In the Louisville collection district there were registered one hundred grain distilleries, with a capacity of 80,000 gallons a day. For the five years ending June 30, 1887, the revenue taxes on this product amounted to nearly $30,000,000. I am not attempting a conspectus of the business of Louisville, only selecting some figures illustrating its growth. Its manufacture of agricultural implements has attained great proportions. The reputation of Louisville for tobacco and whiskey is widely advertised, but it is not generally known that it has the largest plough factory in the world. This is one of four which altogether employ about 2000 hands, and make a product valued at $2,275,000. In 1880 Louisville made 80,000 ploughs; in 1886, 190,000. The capacity of manufacture in 1887 was increased by the enlargement of the chief factory to a number not given, but there were shipped that year 11,005,151 pounds of ploughs. There is a steadily increasing manufacture of woollen goods, and the production of the mixed fabric known as Kentucky jeans is another industry in which Louisville leads the world, making annually 7,500,000 yards of cloth, and its four mills increased their capacity twenty per cent, in 1887. The opening of the hard-wood lumber districts in eastern Kentucky has made Louisville one of the important lumber markets: about 125,000,000 feet of lumber, logs, etc., were sold here in 1887. But it is unnecessary to particularize. The Board of Trade think that the advantages of Louisville as a manufacturing centre are sufficiently emphasized from the fact that during the year 1887 seventy-three new manufacturing establishments, mainly from the North and East, were set up, using a capital of $1,290,500, and employing 1621 laborers. The city has twenty-two banks, which had, July 1, 1887, $8,200,200 capital, and $19,927,138 deposits. The clearings for 1887 were $281,110,402—an increase of nearly $50,000,000 over 1886.
Another item which helps to explain the buoyant feeling of Louisville is that its population increased over 10,000 from 1886 to 1887, reaching, according to the best estimate, 177,000 people. I should have said also that no city in the Union is better served by street railways, which are so multiplied and arranged as to “correspondences” that for one fare nearly every inhabitant can ride within at least two blocks of his residence. In these cars, as in the railway cars of the State, there is the same absence of discrimination against color that prevails in Louisiana and in Arkansas. And it is an observation hopeful, at least to the writer, of the good time at hand when all party lines shall be drawn upon the broadest national issues, that there seems to be in Kentucky no social distinction between Democrats and Republicans.