America was not yet discovered then.  Those who had gone West twenty years back, in 1859, were, in 1879, the leading men of Chicago, and Omaha, and Denver, and Minneapolis, and Dubuque.  When I left, England was still suffering from the effects of the long-continued panic in America.

Brooklyn had improved; still, we were threatened with a tremendous influx of people.  The new bridge at Fulton Ferry across the East River would soon be opened.  It looked as though there was to be another bridge at South Ferry, and another at Peck Slip Ferry.  Montauk Point was to be purchased by some enterprising Americans, and a railroad was to connect it with Brooklyn.  Steamers from Europe were to find wharfage in some of the bays of Long Island, and the passage across the Atlantic reduced to six days!  Passengers six days out of Queenstown would pass into Brooklyn.  This was the Brooklyn to be, as was seen in its prospectus, its evolution in 1879-80.

Our local elections had resulted in a better local government.  With the exception of an unsuccessful attempt by the Board of Canvassers to deprive Frederick A. Schroeder of his seat in the Senate, because some of the voters had left out the middle initial in his name in their ballots, all was better with us politically than it had been.  To the credit of our local press, the two political rivals, the Brooklyn Eagle and the Times, united in their efforts to support Senator Schroeder’s claim.

There was one man in Brooklyn at this time who was much abused and caricatured for doing a great work—­Professor Bergh, the deliverer of dumb animals.  He was constantly in the courts in defence of a lame horse or a stray cat.  I supported and encouraged him.  I always hoped that he would induce legislation that would give the poor car-horses of Brooklyn more oats, and fewer passengers to haul in one car.  He was one of the first men to fight earnestly against vivisection—­which was a great work.

Just after we had settled down to a more comfortable and hopeful state of mind Mr. Thomas Kinsella, one of our prominent citizens, startled us by showing us, in a published interview, how little we had any right to feel that way.  He told us that our Brooklyn debt was $17,000,000, with a tax area of only three million and a half acres.  It was disturbing.  But we had prospects, energies.  We had to depend in this predicament upon the quickened prosperity of our property holders, upon future examiners to be scrupulous at the ballot box, on the increase of our population, which would help to carry our burdens, and on the revenue from our great bridge.  These were local affairs of interest to us all, but in December, 1879, we had a more serious problem of our own to consider.  This concerned the future of the new Tabernacle.