multiplied until she was made a city in 1816. In 1845 (April 10th), a great fire destroyed about one third of the total area of the city, including most of the large business houses and factories, the bridge over the Monongahela, the large hotel known as the Monongahela House and several churches;—in all about eleven hundred buildings. The Legislature appropriated $50,000 for the relief of the sufferers.
In 1877, the municipal government, being, in its personnel, at the moment incompetent to preserve the fundamental principles on which it was established, permitted a strike of railroad employees to grow without restriction as to the observance of law and order until it became an insurrection. Three million dollars' worth of property was destroyed by riot and incendiarism in a few hours. When at last outraged authority was properly shifted from the supine city chieftains to the indomitable State itself, it became necessary, before order could be restored, for troops to fire, with a sacrifice of human life. The lesson was worth all it cost, and anarchy has never dared to raise its head in the corporation limits since that time.
