[An abridgment of the Short History by Samuel Harden Church, author of an important History of Cromwell and of several Historical Romances, Secretary of the Carnegie Institute, Assistant Secretary of the Pennsylvania Lines, and Grandson of Walter Scott and Samuel Church.]

      George Washington, the Father of his Country, is equally the Father of Pittsburgh, for he came thither in November, 1753, and established the location of the now imperial city by choosing it as the best place for a fort. With an eye alert for the dangers of the wilderness, and with Christopher Gist beside him, the young Virginian pushed his cautious way to "The Point" of land where the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers forms the Ohio. That, he declared, with clear military instinct, was the best site for a fort; and he rejected the promontory two miles below, which the Indians had recommended for that purpose. Washington made six visits to the vicinity of Pittsburgh, all before his presidency, and on three of them (1753, 1758, and 1770) he entered the limits of the present city. There is a tradition, none the less popular because it cannot be proved, which ascribes to Washington the credit of having suggested the name of Pittsburgh to General Forbes when the place was captured from the French. However this may be, we do know that Washington was certainly present when the English flag was hoisted and the city named Pittsburgh, on Saturday, Nov. 25, 1758. And at that moment Pittsburgh became a chief bulwark of the British Empire in America, and the strategic key of the great Middle West.

      Washington's first visit to Pittsburgh occurred in November, 1753, while he was on his way to the French fort at Leboeuff. He was carrying a letter from the Ohio Company to Contrecoeur, protesting against the plans of the French commander in undertaking [169] to establish a line of forts to reach from Lake Erie to the mouth of the Ohio River. On receiving the reply of Contrecoeur, the English began their preparations for sending troops to Pittsburgh.

      As soon as Washington's advice as to the location of the fort was received, Captain William Trent was despatched to Pittsburgh with a force of soldiers and workmen, packhorses, and materials, and he began in all haste to erect a stronghold. The French had already built forts on the northern lakes, and they now sent Captain Contrecoeur down the Allegheny with one thousand French, Canadians, and Indians, and eighteen pieces of cannon, in a flotilla of sixty bateaux and three hundred canoes. Trent had planted himself in Pittsburgh on Feb. 17, 1754, a date important because it marks the first permanent white settlement there. But his work had been retarded alike by the small number of his men and the severity of the winter; and when Contrecoeur arrived, in April, the young subaltern who commanded in Trent's absence surrendered the unfinished works, and was permitted to march away with his thirty-three men. The French completed the fort and named it Duquesne, in honor of the Governor of Canada; and they held possession of it for four years.

      Immediately on the loss of this fort Virginia sent a force under Washington to retake it. Washington surprised a French detachment near Great Meadows, and killed their commander, Jumonville. When a larger expedition came against him he put up a stockade, naming it Fort Necessity, which he was compelled to yield on terms permitting him to march away with the honors of war.

      The next year (1755) General Edward Braddock came over with two regiments of British soldiers, and, after augmenting his force with Colonial troops and a few Indians, began his fatal march upon Fort Duquesne. On July 9 his army, comprising 2,200 soldiers and 150 Indians, was marching down the south bank of the Monongahela. At noon the expedition crossed the river and pressed on toward Fort Duquesne, eight miles below, expectant of [170]

      Despondency seized the English settlers after Braddock's defeat. But two years afterward William Pitt became prime minister, and he thrilled the nation with his appeal to protect the Colonies against France and the savages.

      Pitt's letters inspired the Americans with new hope, and he promised to send them British troops and to supply their own militia with arms, ammunition, tents, and provisions at the king's charge. General Forbes, born at Dunfermline (whence have come others to Pittsburgh), commanded this expedition, comprising about 7,000 men. The militia from Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland was led by Washington. On Sept. 12, 1758, Major Grant, a Highlander, led an advance guard of 850 men to a point one mile from the fort, which is still called Grant's Hill, on which the court-house now stands, where he rashly permitted himself to be surrounded and attacked by the French and Indians, half his force being killed or wounded, and himself taken. Washington [171] followed soon after, and opened a road for the advance of the main body under Forbes. Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, had just been taken by General Amherst, with the result that supplies for Fort Duquesne were cut off. When, therefore, Captain Ligneris, the French commandant, learned of the advance of a superior force, having no hope of reinforcements, he blew up the fort, set fire to the adjacent buildings, and drew his garrison away.

      On Saturday, Nov. 25, 1758, amidst a fierce snowstorm, the English took possession of the place, and Colonel Armstrong, in the presence of Forbes and Washington, hauled up the puissant banner of Great Britain, while cannons boomed and the exulting victors cheered. On the next day General Forbes wrote to Governor Denny from "Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburgh,^* the 26th of November, 1758," and this was the first use of that name.

      As a place of urgent shelter the English proceeded to build a new fort about two hundred yards from the site of Fort Duquesne, which is traditionally known as the first Fort Pitt, and was probably so called by the garrison, although the letters written from there during the next few months refer to it as "the camp at Pittsburgh." This stronghold cut off French transportation to the Mississippi by way of the Ohio River, and the only remaining route, by way of the Great Lakes, was soon afterward closed by the fall of Fort Niagara.

      The new fort being found too small, General Stanwix built a second Fort Pitt, much larger and stronger, designed for a garrison of 1,000 men.

      A redoubt (the "Blockhouse"), built by Colonel Bouquet in 1764, still stands, in a very good state of preservation, being cared for by the Daughters of the American Revolution. The protection of the garrison naturally attracted a few traders, merchants, and pioneers to Pittsburgh, and a permanent population began to grow. [172]

      In 1768 the Indians ceded their lands about Pittsburgh to the Colonies, and civilization was then free to spread over them. In 1774 a land office was opened in Pittsburgh by Governor Dunmore, and land warrants were granted on payment of two shillings and sixpence purchase money, at the rate of ten pounds per one hundred acres.

      Washington made his last visit to Pittsburgh in October, 1770, when, on his way to the Kanawha River, he stopped here for several days, and lodged with Samuel Semple, the first innkeeper, at the corner of Water and Ferry Streets. This house was later known as the Virginian Hotel. Washington's journal says there were in Pittsburgh twenty houses situated on Water Street, facing the Monongahela River. These were occupied by traders and their families. The population at that time is estimated at 126 men, women, and children, besides a garrison consisting of two companies of British troops.

      In October, 1772, Fort Pitt was ordered abandoned. The works about Pittsburgh, from first to last, had cost the British Crown some $300,000, but the salvage on the stone, brick, and iron of the existing redoubts amounted to only $250. The Blockhouse [173] was repaired and occupied for a time by Dr. John Connelly; and during the Revolution it was constantly used by our Colonial troops.

      With the French out of the country, and with William Pitt out of office and incapacitated by age, the Colonies began to feel the oppression of a British policy which British statesmen and British historians to-day most bitterly condemn. America's opposition to tyranny found its natural expression in the Battle of Lexington, Apr. 19, 1775. The fires of patriotism leaped through the continent and the little settlement at Pittsburgh was quickly aflame with the national spirit. On May 16 a convention was held at Pittsburgh, which resolved that:

      "This committee have the highest sense of the spirited behavior of their brethren in New England, and do most cordially approve of their opposing the invaders of American rights and privileges to the utmost extreme, and that each member of this committee, respectively, will animate and encourage their neighborhood to follow the brave example."

      No foreign soldiers were sent over the mountains to Pittsburgh, but a more merciless foe, who would attack and harass with remorseless cruelty, was impressed into the English service, despite the horrified protests of some of her wisest statesmen. American treaties with the Indians had no force against the allurements of foreign gold, and under this unholy alliance men were burnt at the stake, women were carried away, and cabins were destroyed.

      In 1781 General William Irvine was put in command at Fort Pitt. The close of the war with Great Britain in that year was celebrated by General Irvine by the issue of an order at the fort, Nov. 6, 1781, requiring all, as a sailor would say, "to splice the mainbrace."

      The Penn family had purchased the Pittsburgh region from the Indians in 1768, and they would offer none of it for sale until 1783. Up to this time they had held the charter to Pennsylvania; but as [174]

they had maintained a steadfast allegiance to the mother country, the general assembly annulled their title except to allow them to retain the ownership of various manors throughout the State, embracing half a million acres.

      In order to relieve the people of Pittsburgh from going to Greensburg to the court-house in their sacred right of suing and being sued, the General Assembly erected Allegheny County out of parts of Westmoreland and Washington Counties, Sept. 24, 1788. The first court was held at Fort Pitt; and the next day a ducking-stool was erected for the district, at "The Point" in the three rivers.

      In 1785 the dispute between Virginia and Pennsylvania for the possession of Pittsburgh was settled by the award of a joint commission in favor of Pennsylvania.

      A writer says that in 1786 Pittsburgh contained thirty-six log houses, one stone and one frame house, and five small stores. Another records that the population "is almost entirely Scots and Irish, who live in log houses." A third says of these log houses, "Now and then one had assumed the appearance of neatness and comfort."

      The first newspaper, the Pittsburgh "Gazette," was established [175] July 29, 1786. A mail route to Philadelphia, by horseback, was adopted in the same year. On Sept. 29, 1787, the Legislature granted a charter to the Pittsburgh Academy, a school that has grown steadily in usefulness and power as the Western University of Pennsylvania, and which has in 1908 appropriately altered its name to University of Pittsburgh.

      In 1791, the Indians became vindictive and dangerous, and General Arthur St. Clair, with a force of 2,300 men, was sent down the river to punish them. Neglecting President Washington's imperative injunction to avoid a surprise, he led his command into an ambush and lost half of it in the most disastrous battle with the redskins since the time of Braddock. In the general alarm that ensued, Fort Pitt being in a state of decay, a new fort was built in Pittsburgh at Ninth and Tenth Streets and Penn Avenue,--a stronghold that included bastions, blockhouses, barracks, etc., and was named Fort Lafayette. General Anthony Wayne was then selected to command another expedition against the savages, and he arrived in Pittsburgh in June, 1792. After drilling his troops and making preparations for two years, in the course of which he erected several forts in the West, including Fort Defiance and Fort Wayne, he fought the Indians and crushed their strength and spirit. On his return a lasting peace was made with them, and there were no further raids about Pittsburgh.

      It was not long after the close of the Revolutionary War before Pittsburgh was recognized as the natural gateway of the Atlantic seaboard to the West and South, and the necessity for an improved system of transportation became imperative. The earliest method of transportation through the American wilderness required the Eastern merchants to forward their goods in Conestoga wagons to Shippensburg and Chambersburg, Penn., and Hagerstown, Md., and thence to Pittsburgh on packhorses, where they were exchanged for Pittsburgh products; and these in turn were carried by boat to New Orleans, where they were exchanged for sugar, molasses, and similar commodities, which were carried through [176]

the gulf and along the coast to Baltimore and Philadelphia. For passenger travel the stage-coach furnished the most luxurious method then known.

      The people of Pennsylvania had given considerable attention to inland improvements, and as early as 1791 they began to formulate the daring project of constructing a canal system from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, with a portage road over the crest of the Allegheny Mountains. In 1825 the governor appointed commissioners for making surveys, certain residents of Pittsburgh being chosen on the board, and in 1826 (February 25) the Legislature passed an act authorizing the commencement of work on the canal at the expense of the State. The western section was completed and the first boat entered Pittsburgh on Nov. 10, 1829. Subsequent acts provided for the various eastern sections, including the building of the portage railroad over the mountains, and by Apr. 16, 1834, a through line was in operation from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. The railroad quickly superseded the canal, however; and when men perceived that the mountains could be conquered by a portage road it was a natural step to plan the Pennsylvania and Baltimore and Ohio railroads, on a system of easy grades, so that [177] all obstacles of height and distance were annihilated. The Pennsylvania Railroad was incorporated Apr. 13, 1846, and completed its roadway from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh Feb. 15, 1854. The canal was for a time operated by the Pennsylvania Canal Company in the interest of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, but its use was gradually abandoned.

      Other railroads came as they were needed. The Baltimore and Ohio received a charter from the State of Maryland on Feb. 28, 1827, but did not reach Pittsburgh until Dec. 12, 1860, when its Pittsburgh and Connellsville branch was opened. The Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad was built into Pittsburgh July 4, 1851, and became part of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway in 1856, that line reaching Chicago in 1859. The Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway (the "Pan Handle") was opened between Pittsburgh and Columbus, O., Oct. 9, 1865. The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, now a part of the New York Central Lines, was opened into Pittsburgh in February, 1879. The Wabash Railway completed its entrance into the city on June 19, 1904.

      In 1784 the town was laid out, and settlers, among whom were many Scotch and Irish, came rapidly. The town was made the county seat in 1791, incorporated as a borough in 1794, the charter was revived in 1804, and the borough was chartered as a city in 1816. The first charter granted to Pittsburgh in 1816 vested the more important powers of the city government in a common council of fifteen members and a select council of nine members. In 1887 a new charter was adopted, giving to the mayor the power to appoint the heads of departments, who were formerly elected by the councils. On March 7, 1901, a new charter, known as "The Ripper," was adopted, under the operations of which the elected mayor (William J. Diehl) was removed from his office, and a new chief executive officer (A. M. Brown) appointed in his place by the governor, under the title of recorder. By an act of Apr. 23, 1903, the title of mayor was restored under the changes then made [178]

the appointing power rests with the mayor, with the consent of the select council.

      A movement to consolidate the cities of Pittsburgh and Allegheny, together with some adjacent boroughs, was begun in 1853-54. It failed entirely that year, but in 1867 Lawrenceville, Peebles, Collins, Liberty, Pitt, and Oakland, all lying between the two rivers, were annexed to Pittsburgh, and in 1872 there was a further annexation of a district embracing twenty-seven square miles south of the Monongahela River, while in 1906 Allegheny was also annexed; and, as there was litigation to test the validity of the consolidation, the Supreme Court of the United States, on Dec. 6, 1907, declared in favor of the constitutionality of the act.

      Pittsburgh has passed through many battles, trials, afflictions, and adversities, and has grown in the strength of giants until it now embraces in the limits of the county a population rapidly approaching one million.

      Pittsburgh ranks high as a banking centre. She is the second city in the United States in banking capital and surplus, and leads all American cities in proportion of capital and surplus to gross deposits, with 47.1 per cent, while Philadelphia ranks second, [179] with 26 per cent. In 1907, the Chamber of Commerce Report shows, there were 290 banks and trust companies in the Pittsburgh district, with a combined capital of $80,513,067, and a surplus of $98,184,874. The gross deposits were $435,607,609, while the total resources amounted to $679,049,637. Pittsburgh, with clearing-house exchanges amounting to $2,743,570,483, ranks sixth among the cities of the United States, being exceeded by the following cities in the order named: New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and St. Louis.

      The tax valuation of Pittsburgh property is $609,632,427. She mines one quarter of the bituminous coal of the United States. With an invested capital of $641,000,000, she has 3,029 mills and factories, with an annual product worth $551,000,000, and 250,000 employees on a pay-roll of about $1,000,000 a day, or $350,000,000 a year. Her electric street-railway system multiplies itself through her streets for 492 miles. Natural-gas fuel is conveyed into her mills and houses through 1,000 miles of iron pipe. Her output of coke makes one train ten miles long every day throughout the year. Seven hundred passenger-trains and 10,000 loaded freight-cars run to and from her terminals every day. Nowhere else in the world is there so large a Bessemer-steel plant, crucible-steel plant, plate-glass plant, chimney-glass plant, table-glass plant, air-brake plant, steel-rail plant, cork works, tube works, or steel freight-car works. Her armor sheathes our battle-ships, as well as those of Russia and Japan. She equips the navies of the world with projectiles and range-finders. Her bridges span the rivers of India, China, Egypt, and the Argentine Republic; and her locomotives, rails, and bridges are used on the Siberian Railroad. She builds electric railways for Great Britain and Brazil, and telescopes for Germany and Denmark. Indeed, she distributes her varied manufactures into the channels of trade all over the earth.

      But while these stupendous industries have given Pittsburgh her wealth, population, supremacy, and power, commercial materialism is not the ultima thule of her people. [180]

      Travelers who come to Pittsburgh, forgetting the smoke which often dims the blue splendor of its skies, are struck with the picturesque situation of the town; for they find rolling plateaus, wide rivers, and narrow valleys dropping down from high hills or precipitous bluffs throughout the whole district over which the city extends. Yet the surpassing beauty of nature is not more impressive to the thinking stranger than the work of man, who has created and dominates a vast industrial system. The manufactories extend for miles along the banks of all three rivers. Red fires rise heavenward from gigantic forges where iron is being fused into wealth. The business section of the city is wedged in by the rivers, its streets are swarming with people, and there is a myriad of retail houses, wholesale houses, banks, tall office buildings, hotels, theatres, and railway terminals; but right where these stop the residence section begins, like another city of happy homes--an immense garden of verdant trees and flowering lawns divided off by beautiful avenues, where some houses rise which in Europe would be called castles and palaces, with scarce a fence between to mark the land lines, giving an aspect almost of a park rather than of a city. There are many miles of asphalt streets set [181] off with grass-plots. On the rolling hills above the Monongahela River is Schenley Park (about 440 acres), with beautiful drives, winding bridle-paths, and shady walks through narrow valleys and over small streams. Above the Allegheny River is Highland Park (about 290 acres), containing a placid lake and commanding fine views from the summits of its great hills. It also contains a very interesting zoölogical garden.

      In Schenley Park is the Carnegie Institute, with its new main building, dedicated in April (11, 12, and 13), 1907, with imposing ceremonies which were attended by several hundred prominent men from America and Europe. This building, which is about six hundred feet long and four hundred feet wide, contains a library, an art gallery, halls of architecture and sculpture, a museum, and a hall of music; while the Carnegie Technical Schools are operated in separate buildings near-by. It is built in the later Renaissance style, being very simple and yet beautiful. Its exterior is of Ohio sandstone, while its interior finish is largely in marble, of which there are sixty-five varieties, brought from every famous quarry in the world. In its great entrance-hall is a series of mural decorations by John W. Alexander, a distinguished son of Pittsburgh. The library, in which the institution had its beginning in 1895, contains about 300,000 volumes, has seven important branches, and 177 stations for the distribution of books. Mr. Harrison W. Craver is now the efficient librarian. The Fine Arts Department contains many casts of notable works of architecture and sculpture, sufficient to carry the visitor in fancy through an almost unbroken development from the earliest times in which man began to produce beautiful structures to the present day. It is now the aim of this department to develop its galleries on three lines: first, to gather early American paintings from the very beginning of art in this country; second, to acquire such portraits of eminent men as will, in the passage of years, make these halls to some extent a national portrait-gallery; and, third, to obtain such pieces of contemporary art as will lead to the formation of a thoroughly [182]

representative collection of modern painting. Mr. John W. Beatty, Director of Fine Arts, has made the building up of this department his ripest and best work. The Museum embraces sections of paleontology, mineralogy, vertebrate and invertebrate zoölogy, entomology, botany, comparative anatomy, archaeology, numismatics, ceramics, textiles, transportation, carvings in wood and ivory, historical collections, the useful arts, and biological sciences. Its work in the department of paleontology is particularly noteworthy, as it has extended the boundaries of knowledge through its many explorations in the western fossil fields. The success of the Museum is largely due to the energy and erudition of Dr. W. J. Holland, its amiable director. In the music-hall, a symphony orchestra is maintained, and free recitals are given on the great organ twice every week by a capable performer.

      The annual celebration of Founder's Day at the Carnegie Institute has become one of the most notable platform occasions in America, made so by the illustrious men who participate in the exercises. Some of these distinguished orators are William McKinley and Grover Cleveland, former Presidents of the United States; John Morley and James Bryce, foremost among British [183] statesmen and authors; Joseph Jefferson, a beloved actor; Richard Watson Gilder, editor and poet; Wu Ting Fang, Chinese diplomat; and Whitelaw Reid, editor and ambassador. At the great dedication of the new building, in April, 1907, the celebration of Founder's Day surpassed all previous efforts, being marked by the assembling of an illustrious group of men, and the delivery of a series of addresses, which made the festival altogether beyond precedent.

      Mr. Andrew Carnegie has founded this splendid Institute, with its school system, at a cost already approximating $20,000,000, and he must enjoy the satisfaction of knowing it to be the rallying-ground for the cultured and artistic life of the community. The progress made each year goes by leaps and bounds; so much so that we might well employ the phrase used by Macaulay to describe Lord Bacon's philosophy: "The point which was yesterday invisible is to-day its goal, and to-morrow will be its starting-point." The Institute has truly a splendid mission.

      The University of Pittsburgh was opened about 1770, and incorporated by the Legislature in 1787 under the name Pittsburgh Academy. The University embraces a College and Engineering School, a School of Mines, a Graduate Department, a Summer School, Evening Classes, Saturday Classes, besides Departments of Astronomy, Law, Medicine, Pharmacy, and Dentistry. It now has a corps of 151 instructors and a body of 1,138 students.

      The city has some very attractive public buildings and office buildings and an unusual number of beautiful churches. The Allegheny County Court-House, in the Romanesque style, erected in 1884-88 at a cost of $2,500,000, is one of Henry H. Richardson's masterpieces. The Post-Office and the Customs Office are housed in a large Government Building of polished granite.

      The city has twenty or more hospitals for the care of its sick, injured, or insane, ten of which have schools for the training of nurses. There is the Western Pennsylvania Institute for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb in Pittsburgh, which is in part [184]

maintained by the State, where trades are taught as a part of the educational system. The State also helps to maintain the Western Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind, the Home for Aged and Infirm Colored Women, and the Home for Colored Children. Among other charitable institutions maintained by the city are the Home for Orphans, Home for the Aged, Home for Released Convicts, an extensive system of public baths, the Curtis Home for Destitute Women and Girls, the Pittsburgh Newsboys' Home, the Children's Aid Society of Western Pennsylvania, the Protestant Home for Incurables, the Pittsburgh Association for the Improvement of the Poor, and the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Children, and Aged Persons. Under the management of Women's Clubs several playgrounds are open to children during the summer, where competent teachers give instruction to children over ten years of age in music, manual training, sewing, cooking, nature-study, and color-work.

      The water-supply of Pittsburgh is taken from the Allegheny River and pumped into reservoirs, the highest of which is Herron Hill, 530 feet above the river. A slow sand filtration plant purifies the entire supply. [185]

      Pittsburgh maintains by popular support one of the four symphony orchestras in America. She has given many famous men to science, literature, and art. Her Astronomical Observatory is known throughout the world. Her rich men are often liberal beyond their own needs; particularly so William Thaw, who spent great sums for education and benevolence; Mrs. Mary Schenley, who has given the city a great park, over four hundred acres in the very heart of its boundaries; and Henry Phipps, who erected the largest conservatory for plants and flowers in our country. There is one other, Andrew Carnegie, whose wise and continuous use of vast wealth for the public good is nearly beyond human precedent.

      If Pittsburgh people were called upon to name their best known singer, they would, of course, with one accord, say Stephen C. Foster. His songs are verily written in the hearts of millions of his fellow-creatures, for who has not sung "Old Folks at Home," "Nelly Bly," "My Old Kentucky Home," and the others? Ethelbert Nevin is the strongest name among our musical composers, his "Narcissus," "The Rosary," and many others being known throughout the world.

      Charles Stanley Reinhart, Mary Cassatt, and John W. Alexander are the best known among our painters. Henry O. Tanner, the only Negro painter, was born in Pittsburgh and learned the rudiments of his art here. Albert S. Wall, his son, A. Bryan Wall, George Hetzel, and John W. Beatty have painted good pictures, as have another group which includes William A. Coffin, Martin B. Leisser, Jaspar Lawman, Eugene A. Poole, Joseph R. Woodwell, William H. Singer, Clarence M. Johns, and Johanna Woodwell Hailman. Thomas S. Clarke is a Pittsburgh painter and sculptor. Philander C. Knox, United States Senator, and John Dalzell, member of the House of Representatives, are prominent among those who have served Pittsburgh ably in the National Government.

      Perhaps the most important piece of literature from a local [186]

pen is Professor William M. Sloane's "Life of Napoleon." This is a painstaking and authoritative record of the great Frenchman who conquered everybody but himself. Dr. William J. Holland, once chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh, now director of the Carnegie Museum, has given to the field of popular science "The Butterfly Book"--an author who knows every butterfly by its Christian name. Then Andrew Carnegie's "Triumphant Democracy" presents masses of statistics with such lightness of touch as to make them seem a stirring narrative.

      George Seibel has written three beautiful plays which have not yet been produced, because the modern stage-managers seem to prefer to produce unbeautiful plays. One of these is "Omar Khayyam," which was accepted and paid for by Richard Mansfield, who died before he could arrange for its production. Mrs. Mary Roberts Rinehart is a young author who is coming to the front as a writer of successful dramas, stories, and books. Her novel, "The Circular Staircase," was a pronounced success.

      That truly gifted woman, Margaretta Wade Deland, was born in Pittsburgh in 1857, and resided here until her marriage in 1880. [187] Among her books are "John Ward, Preacher," "The Story of a Child," "Philip and His Wife," and "Old Chester Tales."

      I have sometimes heard a sneer at Pittsburgh as a place where undigested wealth is paramount. I have never beheld the city in that character. On the contrary, I have, on frequent occasions, seen the assemblage of men native here where a goodly section of the brain and power of the nation was represented. There is much wealth here, but the dominant spirit of those who have it is not a spirit of pride and luxury and arrogance. There is much poverty here, but it is the poverty of hope, which effort and opportunity will transform into affluence. And especially is there here a spirit of good fellowship, of help one to another, and of pride in the progress of the intellectual life. And with all of these comes a growth toward the best civic character, which in its aggregate expression is probably like unto the old Prophet's idea of that righteousness which exalteth a nation.

[CCP 168-188]