New York, November 12.— It is said one of the first bills to be introduced in the Legislature will be one providing for the creation of a new State by permitting a constitutional amendment to be passed and approved by the United States government divorcing sixteen counties of the State and including them in what shall be known as the State of Manhattan.

The plan proposed is for the counties of New York, Kings, Queens, Richmond, Suffolk, Westchester, Orange, Putnam, Columbia, Dutchess, Ulster, Greene, Rockland, Albany, Rensselaer and part of Schoharie to be formed into one State with a population of 3,902,220, as compared with 2,631,123 for the forty-four remaining counties. This would make the new State of Manhattan the second largest State in the Union in regard to population, Pennsylvania alone exceeding it.

The remaining counties left to comprise the State of New York would make a State the sixth largest in the Union, exceeded only in population by Pennsylvania, Manhattan, Illinois, Ohio and Missouri. The new State would contain a territory in its sixteen counties of 8,960 square miles as compared with a territory containing forty-four counties of 40,493 square miles.

(Originally published in The Advocate, Topeka, Kansas, November 17, 1897)