With the opening of the year 1850, was commenced the first of a series of movements which led to the formation of a new charter for the city. This document makes all city officers elective by the people, and places the government in the hands of a Mayor, a Board of Common Council, and a Board of Aldermen. Many of the provisions of this charter are found healthful and wise in their operation, while many others are incomprehensible or impracticable. The first Mayor under this new charter felt himself obliged to resign his office, on the plea of incompetence to perform the duties assigned to him by the instrument. The Council, however, unwilling to dispense with so efficient an officer as he had proved himself, continued him in place as "_Mayor pro tem._," until the end of his term. Experience and the necessities of the city government will doubtless, as time progresses, so modify this instrument as to make its provisions work well and harmoniously. The annals of the city up to the year 1852 having now been presented to the reader, it only remains to offer a view of its present state in regard to population, commerce, manufactures and social position; which, together with a chapter on its future destiny, will conclude this history. It is not the intention of this work purposely to mislead any, as to the actual position of the city, and therefore, instead of embracing with the statistics of Louisville those of all the suburban villages and cities in the vicinity, as has universally been done by other western places, we purpose to give such statistics as belong exclusively to this city. If, however, it is ever honest for a city to aggrandize to itself all the prosperity of its suburban neighbors, it is eminently so with Louisville. The towns immediately around the falls are as ready to concede, as Louisville is to claim a perfect identity of interests. The pre-eminence which it has already gained over the neighboring towns forbids all hope of rivalry on their part, and compels them to unite their interests with those of Louisville as a means of their own prosperity. In certain branches of trade, New Albany or Jeffersonville may and do successfully compete with this city, but it is idle to imagine that this partial success can benefit them in such a way as to afford them any superiority in point of fact. On the contrary, this very success is owing entirely to their proximity to Louisville. Those branches of manufacture or of trade in which they excel find encouragement just so far as they are part and parcel of the manufactures or commerce of Louisville; and they would find no market for such wares, and no sale for such manufactures, did they depend only on their own resources of trade. It is the immediate contiguity of the large city which is their stimulus to exertion, and their means of preservation or of prosperity. They cannot but be considered as identical in interest with their elder sister. Nor, on the