of order among proprietors, by vigorously enforcing the punctual payment of the interest when it becomes due." Here is a new way of having things done decently and in order. Now, what hope can there be of ultimate redemption if the very interest has to be vigorously enforced? How will they vigorously enforce punctual payment of interest but by bringing the property to sale? Whether will such a system as this conduce to order or disorder? Such means may lead to misery and distress, but to thrift and order, never. "By receiving and investing certain small annual payments at compound interest, they not only are enabled to restore to the borrower his estate perfectly free, but also make him feel that every year his debt is decreasing in amount, through his own prudence." Most generous and disinterested people!

On the whole, it appears that these land-credit banks are nothing but gambling institutions, designed to create debts, and to introduce, through the negotiation of lettres de gage, &c., the landed property, with all its important interests, into the excitement and speculation of the "money market." No man can be otherwise impressed who reads carefully the account of the figure cut by these lettres de gage in their various perambulations in the hands of scheming financiers. It is stated, and with an air of satisfaction, that not less than twenty millions worth of lettres de gage circulate in a German population of twenty-eight millions! The Credit Foncier of France is a villainous system of lottery and hazard, having its gambling features only perhaps a little more prominent than those of similar institutions in other countries. It requires small reflection to see that the principles upon which all such institutions are founded, though by whatever name known, subvert the simple order of nature, destroy all manly independence of character, open wide doors for schemers and gamblers, encourage want of faith in the never-failing promises of God, and result in misery and sorrow, when once the sleeping suspicions -misnamed commercial confidence of the public are aroused.

The reviewer refers to the Mosaic law regulating the restoration to property on the year of jubilee. I give him credit for not speaking flippantly of this right royal law. But does he propose any such safeguard against the rapacity of usury? Or would he like to see such a law enforced? I would recommend him to reconsider his rudiments of social science, for it appears to me he has a deal of rubbish to clear away before he gets down to the solid rock of the Mosaic social economy.

The Mosaic law of release is one of the most benevolent laws of that benevolent system, and well worthy of being copied by modern governments. With regard both to the release of the seventh year, and to that of the fiftieth, there is a wisdom exemplified which it is impossible for us too much to admire. Both of these laws proceed upon the assumption of the greatest good for the greatest number, a principle upon which the whole economy of our social existence rests. As the year of release of the seventh year provided a positive national remedy for the evils introduced by those who had contravened the anti-usury Mosaic laws bearing upon money, goods, and chattels, so the law of release of the fiftieth year provided a great national barrier against the accumulation of large landed estates; and, at the same time, exercised a remedy for those who had been compelled by indebtedness, or other misfortune, to sell their paternal properties. If the seventh year's release provided a remedy for the evils of the usury of money and goods, the fiftieth year's

release provided a remedy for the evils of the usury of land. Practically, a Jewish family never could become a race of wanderers or outcasts; for, though it might, for a time, undergo the trials and sorrows of expatriation, yet the trumpet of jubilee was sure, at no very distant date, to usher in the joyful day of return to home and possession. And let him who has experienced the fulfillment of hopes long deferred, endeavor to realize, if he can, the glory of that morn which should fill a nation's heart with joy and gladness. There is a perfection, a simplicity, a perpetuity, about the Mosaic agarian laws which, on sober reflection, must commend them to every mind. The lawful possession of property was fenced on every side, and defended from every intruder. These laws, whilst recognizing universal equality as a very good thing, form, at the same time, the only sure safeguard against that inequality in the possession of property, which has been the bane of every civilized nation; which has exposed thousands of homes to the inroads of poverty and distress; and created, especially in high commercial communities, the invidious distinction of a laboring class. It is impossible for us to conceive the beauty and rich profusion of a Jewish harvest home, in those times of comfort and peace, when God bestowed upon their highly favored land the blessings of His good treasure. The heart of the Christian world beats high with anticipation that that goodly time shall soon be reproduced on a mightier scale-when the sword of war shall be beaten into the plowshare of peace-and earth's long drawn furrows shall proclaim that the years of complaining have ceased, and that the long promised years of rest have come. In a word, the Old Testament social economy is founded on the eternal principles of truth, justice, and equity, and must, therefore, be of universal application. These laws acknowledged a principle which, I think, has only to be stated to be approved-that he who owns the land should cultivate it, and that he who cultivates the land should own it.

The written constitution of the Bible acknowledges no system of tenantcy. In truth, we cannot disassociate the usury of land from the usury of money, or the usury of goods. The renting of land is the usury of land, and is to be condemned equally with the usury of money. Commerce suffers by the one, agriculture by the other. The land cannot, indeed, be bartered away like an article of merchandise, or a piece of money, and the evils of the system of tenantcy may not on this account be just so patent as those which are seen every day in the usury of money. Yet, in the long run, the effects are pretty much the same. He who rents a piece of land must sell his produce at an enhanced rate in order to pay a profit to both landlord and tenant, in precisely the same manner as he who buys his cottons with borrowed money, must sell them at a fictitious price, in order to pay both merchant and banker. On the other hand, he who owns and cultivates the land, can afford to sell at a cheaper rate, just as he who buys his cottons with his own ready money, can afford to undersell his neighbor who trades with borrowed money. All who have ever rented an acre of ground, will at once subscribe to the truth of these statements. In both cases, the industrious must support the idle; in both cases production is circumscribed; and in both cases prices are enhanced beyond the natural and healthy limits imposed by the inexorable rules of demand and supply. These three pernicious results of usury, again, react upon society in producing untold misery and wretchedness. The healthy division of labor is altogether disarranged,

and hosts of people, who ought to be producing their share of the great staples of life, spend their lives in a state of inaction, in meretricious display, or in pursuits which only minister to and foster depraved tastes. And, however active such people may be in following such pursuits, they are, in reality, as much pensioners upon society as the positively idle. To usury, and to usury alone, must we trace that feverish anxiety which we now yearly witness, regarding the yield of the growing crops. And it must be confessed that there is enough, in the present crowded and dependent state of our large cities, to warrant the most anxious solicitude. So thorough is the disarrangement caused by this mighty system of evil, that our fair, our beautiful, our bountiful earth, is in danger of being reproached with inability to support its human inhabitants. The evils of the tenant system, or of one man holding more of the world's surface than will afford a comfortable maintenance to himself and family, are so well exemplified in the territorial divisions of England and Scotland, in the estates and middlemen of Ireland, and in the serfdom of Russia, that I need not add more than merely refer to them. True freedom, true independence, true patriotism, can never consort with such unequal divisions. There must everywhere be a healthy limit to territorial possession. Rollin bas truly said that "the soul of popular States is equality."* I am thus particular in specifying some, at least, of the evils of the usury of land, because the European system of land banks has recently been introduced, with no small flourish, into the American continent. The all but universal individual proprietorship which so happily prevails here, is one of the most prominent and interesting features of the social system of America. This is the brightest star in her banner, and the surest safeguard of her liberties. But monopolizing forces are at work which may overturn this state of things, and lead to the same evils as were engendered by the feudal system of Europe. By all means let us keep a jealous eye upon European fashions and institutions, and especially beware of land sharks. Let me enjoin American farmers and owners of land to turn a deaf ear to all such charmers. The introduction, into the soil, of foreign capital, and foreign interests, will, by no means, conduce to the greenness of the fields of America.

W. B.

Art. III.-CANALS OF THE UNITED STATES.

A BRIEF VIEW OF THE CANALS, THEIR PAST HISTORY AND PRESENT STATE-LIKE CAUSES PRODUCE LIKE EFFECTS-CERTAINTY AND CELERITY, WITH SAVING OF TIME, AND THIS, TOO, EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR, ARE THE WATCH-WORDS OF COMMERCE, PRODUCED BY RAILWAYS, TO THE DECADENCE OF CANALS.

THESE plain axioms have produced the revolution taking place in the mode of transportation, both in Europe and the United States. It is a fact, now well established, that all tonnage of value, cattle, and perishable articles are leaving the canals for the railways, more and more each successive year, as the consumer and producer will pay for time, certainty, and celerity, while banks patronize railways to get short drafts.

* Sixty thousand families own all the territory of Great Britain. Five noblemen own about onefourth of all Scotland.

We took this ground, twenty years ago, to endeavor thereby "to do the State some service," as in part stated in the November number of the Merchants' Magazine, (page 547.) We will further enlarge on this subject, to correct, if possible, at another time, the views entertained in 1840 by the canal advocates in this State and in Pennsylvania, who proclaimed as their creed, "that canals are always growing better, while railways are growing worse," a doctrine that, unfortunately for the rising generation of taxpayers, the State of New York has acted on, at one period and now, to the serious detriment of her credit, with the certain prospect of increased taxation to sustain her credit and pay her State indebtedness.

The present canal system, and the political management of our canals by conventions held in Rochester and Utica, and by Clinton Leagues in New York, to make political capital, under the absurd plea of "saving them," and their "more speedy enlargement," and in propounding questions to members nominated to the Legislature in all parts of the State, has become an evil that requires correction.

Experiencia docit is a good motto of the Latins. Experience, however, does not teach the statesmen of New York. They shut their eyes to the history of canals in the States around them. We have been infatuated with our success with the Erie Canal, a work unique in its character, uniting, with the Oswego Canal, as they do, inland seas, and the vast and fertile coasts on their borders, with the city of New York.

To recount, as briefly as possible, the fate of canals in the several States, is by no means a pleasant task. It may, however, be a useful lesson to our next Legislature to ponder on, and may be useful in illustration of our text-like causes produce like effects"-while experience should teach us that all the wisdom of the State is not concentrated in a selfconstituted league of forwarders and seedy politicians, who would use the canal mania, with which the State of New York has been inoculated, to still ride this political hobby; and, let us add, to such an extent, that it it is high time the people should pause, and take soundings for a new departure. We say this, in view of the reckless, the heedless expenditures on the log-rolling latteral canals, under the plea of repairs, "to be made on the plan of the enlarged canal," when the whole of these latteral canals have been superseded by railways, with the exception of the Oswego Canal, and this important work would not be an exception, if the Oswego and Syracuse Railroad was finished; that is to say, connected with the mills and harbor of Lake Ontario, or, what would be better, (our favorite hobby,) a direct railway from Oswego to Troy, to intersect at that point the Hudson River Railroad and the Hoosic Tunnel route to Boston, and thus connect the West with the wharves of New York, and with Boston, on a line, and the only one, that can contend successfully with the Great Western and the Grand Trunk railways of Canada, leading through manufacturing New England to Boston and Portland, as well as Quebec, destined, in looking to the future, to relieve the Erie and Oswego canals of all plethora of business.

But to refer to the history of canals, and their fate, in sagacious New England. The Essex Canal, in Massachusetts, has been superseded by the Boston and Lowell Railroad; the Blackstone Canal by the Providence and Worcester Railroad by its side. The tow-paths of these canals are serving for railways, while the water in them is being diverted and used to supply mills and spinning-jennies. The Farmington Canal-to repeat

an old story-to open which, and for the important occasion, Governor Clinton and the magistrates of New York were invited to attend, and a great deal said of its importance and of its future success, has gone into oblivion. A railway is constructed on and near its tow-path, and is vivifying the manufactures and agriculture of Connecticut by producing celerity and certainty.

The six New England States, while they have abandoned the construction of canals as an obsolete idea, have completed, up to 1st January, 1858, (see the Merchants' Magazine for March, 1858, page 385,) 3,884 miles of railways, at a cost of $146,805,163; and as a whole system and investment, (although there are many competing and premature lines running north and south,) they have paid about 6 per cent per annum since their commencement. The State of Massachusetts, in her sagacious enterprise, has the honor of having completed the first railway in the United States-the Quincy, on which to transport her granite to market. Then Maryland followed with her Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, to pass the Alleghany ridge, 2,700 feet high, and with very exceptionable grades; yet over 2,000,000 barrels of flour were transported in 1857-8 over this road to Baltimore, principally from the valley of the Ohio, formerly controlled by the New York canals. Of this 2,000,000 barrels of flour, more than one-third was shipped coastwise to Philadelphia, New York, and the New England States. "The value in grain transported over this road in 1858 was $5,300,000; provisions, $6,000,000; live stock, $4,174,000; dry goods, $30,000,000. The hog receipts in Baltimore in 1858 was 183,161." "Of 43,031 beef cattle slaughtered in Baltimore, 14,400 came over the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and 47,881 sheep."

The engineering wisdom of the State of New York next came into the field, and projected and built the Albany and Schenectady Railroad, with two inclined planes, that have since been superseded, and laid a track down State-street, on the call of the citizens of Albany, which of course had to be abandoned, also the dark, pick-pocket dépôt of 30 feet by 100, in which the great trade and travel to and from the West was to be concentrated.

In New Jersey, the Morris Canal, 101 miles long, to Easton, Pennsylvania, constructed at a cost of $4,300,000, has sunk its capital to reach the coal mines, and we believe only lives in the memory of the stock dealers of Wall-street. It has never earned a dividend, and is now superseded by railways parallel to it, contending for the same trade. Such is also the case with the Delaware and Raritan Canai, 43 miles long, 7 feet deep by 70 feet wide, costing $3,000,000. This canal has two or three locks, starting from Trenton, on the Delaware, and terminating at New Brunswick. It commenced with steam and horse power, and is now operated mainly by mule-power. Comparatively, with its capacity, it does a very limited business. At its commencement, it did not earn one per cent net on its cost. Family and political influence, it is said, was brought to bear in the New Jersey Legislature on the proprietors of the Camden and Amboy Railroad, costing about the same sum as the Delaware and Raritan Canal, and this latter bad investment was forced on the railroad, with special privileges granted to make it a monopoly for transportation through New Jersey. The railway was to have the privilege (a doubtful constitutional one) to charge, we believe, about one dollar per head for each foreign passenger passing through the State for the benefit of the