Daily National Intelligencer

STATISTICS.-ALEXANDRIA.

FROM THE ALEXANDRIA GAZETTE

The town of Alexandria, on the Potomac river, according to a late census, contains 8527 inhabitants, to which may be added at least 500, who reside beyond the corporate limits, but are daily employed in town, which will make the present population nine thousand.

The census taken in 1791, amounted to 2,676 in 1800, to 5443-and in 1810, to 7143.

This town was laid out by act of assembly in the year 1749. The river runs due north and south, and the streets running with the river, vary only 10 degrees from the same course, and are all parallel, and are 14 in number and a strand, and are 66 feet wide, except Washington, which is 100 feet, and Water, 50.- Those running east and west, cross at right angles, and are of the same width, except Franklin, which is 100 feet, and are 20 in number. The squares contain 2 acres each, and are laid off into 4 building lots of half an acre each. Those lots sold at the commencement of an average of from $30 to 70 each. The town runs from the river westward, a few feet short of one mile, and binds on the river 8414 feet, or one and a half miles, & 614 feet. The streets are generally paved. King street, which is the centre street, east and west, meets the great western and other transportation roads, and is paved from the river to its extremity. Washington street is the centre street, north and south, and meets at its extremities the great United States mail road. passing north and south, so that the two great transportation and mail roads cross each other in the centre of the town. The river is bold & straight for some distance above and below the town, and is one mile wide. The range of wharves which form a line abreast to the channel of the river, is 4544 feet from north to south. The channel is 1200 feet wide, and averages from 6 to 7, 8 and 9 fathoms, and from 22 to 36 feet of water is brought to the end of the wharves where ships are made fast.

The town is surrounded by a range of hills, about 150 feet above its level, in the shape of a crescent, about 4 miles between its points, which terminate on the river. The ground below the hills, forms two inclined plains with a gradual curvature in the middle; one leads to the river, and the other to the foot of the range of heights, which are swept at their termination by small rivulets, leading into Great Hunting Creek, and Four Mile Run, two streams whose sources rise to the westward, and enter the Potomac, the former below and the latter above the town. The tide flows two miles up each, to their falls, on one of which is erected a large cotton factory, and some grist mills, and on the other a range of merchant mills.

The price of building lots, fronting on paved streets, is from 25 to 70 dollars per foot front, and lots in the unimproved parts, from 1000 to 1400 dollars each, & lands adjoining the town, are from 200 to 300 dollars per acre; the price of a building lot now averages per foot front, the price of half an acre at the commencement.

The town was incorporated in 1779. and the charter amended in 1804, competent to all purposes of Police. The town contains 262 merchants and shop keepers, 34 licensed taverns, 165 drays and carts, and 97 pleasure carriages one commodious alms-house, one fire proof tobacco ware house, one brewery, five biscuit and eight loaf bread bake houses.

The commerce on the 30th June, consisted of 28,945 40 95ths tons of shipping, and the exports to foreign ports, exclusive of coastwise, for one year, ending the same period, to $1,567,753 80 100 -and the duties payable on imports for one year, to $600,119 59-100.-There are four incorporated banks, and two unchartered, with an aggregate of capital exceeding two millions.

The public property consists of two water lots at each extremity of the town. which begin to yield a handsome annuity, and the lot in the centre for a market space.

There are two Episcopal, one Presbyterian, one Methodist, and one Baptist Church, one Friends Meeting House and one Catholic Chapel, one small Academy without endowments, or the necessary unity of patronage of its founders, or those interested in its welfare; one free school, averaging 150 scholars; two female academies, and ten private schools, two Masons' Lodges, and a Museum in its infancy, but promising an early maturity.

The first settlers of the town were most part Europeans, particularly from White Haven and Glasgow, with a proportion of Pennsylvanians; the houses are generally built of brick and upon the less modern Philadelphia plan, the most of the merchants having been from that place.

It is a lamentable fact, that the fine arts have here not found a congenial soil, and the higher branches of education and the mechanical arts, have been but partially smiled upon--the former are, with a few exceptions, confined to the professional men, and the latter still more circumscribed-to this in some measure may be attributed the great absence of commercial opulence. The human understanding can only be enlarged and a knowledge of great commercial enterprize possessed by means of a liberal education. The inhabitants are or the most part of the middle grade-inordinate wealth is as little seen as the extreme of poverty. The females exceed in numbers of the males about one in a hundredthe former are remarkable for their comeliness. The marriages average about 140 per ann.

The judiciary is composed of one circuit court, a court of admiralty, a levy court of limited jurisdiction, and one orphans'court.

The public buildings for the accommodation of the judiciary, are of the most inferior grade—the police of the town is wholesome and well executed-and from the immense wealth of the back country trading to this place, it would reasonably seem that few positions offer fairer prospects to commercial enterprize or greater opportunities to persons in pursuit of the good things of this world, or in their devotions to that which is to come.