treasury of New Jersey! The railway has regularly, for a number of years, earned from 15 to 16 per cent, and divides the same with the canal in 8 per cent dividends on both canal and railway.

The history of the canals, and other State improvements of Pennsylvania connected with them, in the log-rolling principle on which the canals were constructed, presents a costly and painful exhibition of the mania caught by that State from the State of New York, after our first success with the Erie Canal. Pennsylvania, after having been forced to suspension in paying the interest on her State indebtedness, (exceeding $35,000,000-we believe near $40,000,000,) and finding, after a fair trial, (as we shall find in New York,) that the State, confessedly, "was incompetent to manage her public works with economy;" that the canals were fair game for each political party to plunder as they came into power, came to the sound conclusion that it was best to sell her public works, particularly the main stem from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, if she could get $7,000,000, at which they were limited. They were in the market two years, before the Central Railway of Pennsylvania was induced by the State to purchase them. The result has been, as the late Governor tells us, that the canal is better managed by private enterprise than it was before under appointments made for political services, liable to constant change by a popular vote, perhaps just at the moment the incumbent had just learned his duties. The Schuylkill Canal, under private management, has been enlarged to 6 feet by 60, (the best possible size,) 108 miles long, and has a descending lockage all the way from the coal fields, and has a constant and steady business in the transportation of coal. Before the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad was projected and completed, the stock of this canal company was up to $160 for $50 paid per share, giving at that time 20 per cent dividends. In the contest with the railway for supremacy, the canal had to intermit its dividends four years, contending for the same trade. The railway, finally, we believe, dictated terms, or rates of transportation, to the canal. They have now, we believe, mutually agreed on a rate to remunerate them for transportation, which, for the railway, for 1857, was $1 41, and in 1858, $1 21, (the average of the seasons, $1 31,) per ton per mile. We have not the official report for 1859. The railway carried also 577,330 passengers, or equal to 211,568 through, during 1857-8, with 4,069,956 tons, (of 2,000 lbs.,) or above two millions of tons per annum. The canal, during the same period, did not transport half that quantity, and during its seven to eight months of navigation is not competent to transport half the quantity the railway has proved itself competent to transport, say four millions of tons per annum. The canal, on an average, is closed one year in three, and in New York a longer period.

The Delaware and Hudson Canal, supplied by a railway from the mines in Pennsylvania, has sustained itself in name as a canal, and has paid regular and good dividends to its stockholders. This arises, however, from its owners mining and transporting their own coal to the New York market, and then dividing the profits. This is also the principle on which the Lehigh Canal is managed.

The five Middle States had open and in operation to January 1, 1858, 6,894 miles of railroad, costing $309,376,488. We have not at hand the average net earnings on this capital.

From the experience of Pennsylvania with her canals, owned and man

aged by the State-a complete failure-we pass to the State of Delaware. She has a large or "ship canal," to pass coasters between the Delaware and Chesapeake, excavated through a deep cut, at a great expense. The last we heard of this canal, after its completion, was that it passed into the hands of a receiver, to pay Mr. J. Randall, the engineer, and the contractors, for building it. It has disappointed, we believe, its projectors, in passing the coasting trade from Philadelphia through this channel to Baltimore, the railway between these places transporting the valuable

tonnage.

The Governor of Maryland, in his message two years ago, informed the Legislature that the State had once been offered one million of dollars for what had cost her above eight millions, invested mainly in the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and if the State could again get a like sum offered, it would be best to take it. Further, that the interest on the bonds granted to the Baltimore and Ohio and other railroads had been punetually paid, and was no burden on the State treasury.

Virginia called to her assistance a distinguished French engineer to scale her Alleghany ridge. She has not been successful with her "James River Improvement," nor in her expenditures on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, although aided largely by the General Government with funds invested in this work-lost entirely-which in part justifies her in not aiding, or mixing herself with or in, the internal improvements of the several States. Breakwaters, the improvement of harbors, and lighthouses on our sea and lake coasts, are legitimate objects of expenditure from the revenue derived from imposts, not the internal improvement of States. An appropriation of funds to construct a Northern and Southern Pacific Railway to the port of San Francisco, and to the Straits of Fucca and the mouth of the Columbia River, derived from the sale of the public domain, or this source of revenue to be used to pay the interest on the cost, and finally the cost itself, of these two works, calling their cost to be at from one to two hundred millions, and to be managed by private enterprise and directors-a part, say one-third to one half, to be appointed by Congress, and also to be under the supervision of the President and his cabinet-we think a legitimate enterprise for the General Government, under the peculiar circumstances of the case. We are opposed, from past experience, to the General or State governments constructing or managing public works of internal improvements and intercourse between the States.

From Virginia we pass to North Carolina. Between these States we have the Dismal Swamp Canal, constructed originally with the desire and hope of avoiding the risk of Cape Hatteras to the coasting trade of the Chesapeake and the Delaware. In the time of war, if we had not railways, it would be an admirable internal improvement. It has not paid 2 per cent per annum on its cost since its completion.

The other Southern States have but few and short canals. South Carolina has eight river improvements, numbering 52 miles; Georgia two, of 28 miles; Alabama two, of 51 miles; Louisiana, 28 miles; Kentucky five river improvements, of 486 miles, of which we have no account.

The five Southern States have completed and opened, up to January 1, 1858, 4,058 miles of rai way, costing $94,885,632. The seven Southwestern States, to the same period, have 2,438 miles opened and in operation, at a cost of $67,128,946; the whole of which is a paying invest

ment, managed by private enterprise, and of incalculable value to bind the interests of these States together, and to connect them with the Western and Northern States. The $900,000,000 invested in 26,000 miles of railway, up to January 1, 1858, is next in amount to the investment in agriculture. It is of the first importance to bind the States and their interests together in iron bands; to distribute intelligence and literature by the mails; and railways make the country invulnerable to foreign attacks. We now pass to the State of Illinois, where the first emigrants, mainly from the State of New York in the first instance, and settled in and south of Chicago, projected and completed the Michigan and Illinois Ship Canal. Although this work started and turned public attention to Chicago as a distributing point to the West, it has been nearly superseded by the numerous railways constructed nearly parallel to it, some thirteen of which have their termini at Chicago, making it the greatest receiving and distributing point of grain in the world, numbering twenty-one millions of bushels.

If the whole

Statistical reports present the fact that the State of Illinois has doubled her population every five years for the last fifteen years. amount expended in this State for railways was obliterated, the people and taxable property in it would still be benefited. It is true the new Western States have been constructing railways, for speculative purposes, and in advance of population, to sell lands on grants made to them by the General Government, that has brought the system into discredit as paying works. Eastern capitalists have been tempted by the high rates of interest with mortgages on farms situated on the line of these enterprises, particularly in Wisconsin, to invest their money. We trust, with a little more time, the borrower and the lender will secure the benefit of these investments, as the motto of railways over the whole world is “upward and onward.”

The State of Indiana must, forsooth, follow the example of the great State of New York, to her cost and shame, by repudiation. She projected and completed the Wabash and Erie Canal, 469 miles in length, costing, we believe, about $22,000,000-" the longest canal in the United States;" but was obliged to intermit paying the interest on her debt for its construction. At this stage, the unpaid contractors and bondholders took the canal off the hands of the State at half cost-at the time thought a great bargain. The sequel is-and the lesson should teach the State of New York, (the only one that thinks of canals, except as a bad speculation, and for the management of a State,)-that the purchasers of the canal have been before the Legislature of Indiana with petitions complaining of their unfortunate purchase, and claim that, as the State had granted charters to railways parallel to this "magnificent canal," the construction of which had carried off the business of the canal, although the State engineers of Indiana, at the time of sale of the canal, had, like those of New York, stated to the public in their official reports, and in their hot zeal for canals—or in their ignorance-that railways could not, under any circumstances, compete with canals, they should be remunerated for their loss. One engineer in the State of New York palmed off his official opinion "that it would take six double-track railways by the side of the Erie Canal to do its through business," when he should have known that, at the time, the people were humbugged with this opinion, being about the time the nine millions of dollars was to be borrowed for

the more "speedy enlargement"-a work, to the disgrace of the State or the engineering talents she has employed, has been twenty-four years in the course of prosecution, and as yet the Canal Board for the season of 1859 have ordered, by resolution, that "no boat be permitted to draw over five feet," yet with this depth of water the new and improved canalboat has carried 213 tons from Rochester, and about the same through the Oswego Canal. They have also touched bottom on the long level at Rome, during the summer, drawing only four-and-a-half feet—pro pudor. As our remarks on the history of canals in the United States, although as brief as possible, have extended beyond the space we had intended to confine ourselves, we will therefore merely say of Ohio, (a State that has been bit with the canal fever to the extent of 796 miles of canals,) that her Governor has told the last two Legislatures in his messages, that railways were yearly reducing the receipts on the State canals-like in the State of New York-and the question must be met-whether, from past experience, it would not be better for the State to sell out her public works, and let them be managed by private enterprise.

We will not now touch on the errors and the past experience of New York, in her log-rolling system of latteral, pauper canals. If time and health permits, we will give the readers of the Merchants' Magazine “our experience" on this subject, and their political management, for more than one third of a century, and endeavor to show that it is high time to pause in our mad career of further spending money on our canals, beyond perfecting a uniform depth on all our canals to six feet of water, and to foster and protect railways and private enterprise, and not tax it.

J. E. B.

Art. IV.-COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES.

NUMBER LXXL

CINCINNATI, OHIO.

CINCINNATI THE PIONEER-LAYING OFF-VALUE OF THE SITE-TRIBUTARY TERRITORY-ADVANTAGES OF A CENTRAL SITUATION-POPULATION-COMPARATIVE POPULATION-WEALTH OF CINCINNATIHAMILTON COUNTY - CONCENTRATION OF CAPITAL-ITS ACCUMULATION-MANUFACTURES-VALUE OF -LEADING ITEMS-STEAM TONNAGE-RAILROADS-COST-MINERAL REGION-ITS EXTENT AND CONNECTION-COAL-IRON-IMPORTS AND EXPORTS-IMPROVED CONDITION OF THE CITY-CROPS-RECEIPTS OF LEADING CROPS-PROGRESS OF PRODUCTION-HAY CROPS-COMPARISON WITH 1854-EFFECTS OF GOOD HARVESTS.

CINCINNATI has been the pioneer of Western cities, and the model for emulation among all the cities which have sprung up with such rank growth, "west of the mountains," during the first half of the present century. In that period it has witnessed the greatest vicissitudes, as successive waves of speculation have rolled over it, each one, like the rising tide, carrying the line of population further to the westward, and subsiding into a season of depression, but leaving signs of greater wealth and abundant elements of more enduring prosperity. In 1788, September 6, there appeared in the Kentucky Gazette, printed at Lexington, an advertisement, signed by three persons, who, being owners of land at

the mouth of the Licking River, proposed to "lay off a town" there. The meeting took place. The town was laid off by marking the streets on the trees, and it was called Losantiville, subsequently Cincinnati. That city has now swollen to a great magnitude, but has apparently just begun to grow.

The natural site of any place has much to do with its prosperity; indeed, more than any one thing. In this respect, Cincinnati has been peculiarly fortunate. It is central to the Ohio Valley in situation, and in its actual locality could not be better placed for convenience and comfort. The Ohio Valley comprehends full 220,000 square miles of area, and in the very center of this immense space, containing greater natural resources than any other equal area on the earth, lies Cincinnati, which is, and must forever be, its natural metropolis, controlling the great body of its trade and production.

The commerce of the Miami, of the Wabash, of the Scioto, the Muskingum, and the Kenhawa, almost exclusively belong to Cincinnati; while, on the other hand, the trade, at particular points, extends far beyond the natural boundary of the Ohio Valley. Thus iron is brought to Cincinnati from Northwestern Georgia, while the stoves, which are manufactured from iron, are carried to Missouri, Iowa, and Kansas. Sugar is sold from Cincinnati on the shores of the lakes, and immense amounts of provisions and general produce are carried to the Gulf of Mexico. These facts, geographical and commercial, prove that Cincinnati, by its central position, is naturally the metropolis of the Ohio Valley. The territory, which is thus exclusively within the control of Cincinnati trade, extending from the sources of the Kenhawa to those of the Wabash, and comprising 220,000 square miles, is equal to the extent of France, and is double that of Great Britain and Ireland. Its capacities for feeding a population, and of furnishing materials for manufactories, are greater than that of either of those great empires. It is safe to say that it will contain a population of not less than fifty millions, and that it will attain that within a century. Within the circle of population, defined by the trade of a city, experience has proved that the population of the central mart may, and generally does, reach one-tenth that of its commercial district. At present, the population of Cincinnati, Pittsburg, and Louisville, taken together, make about one-tenth of the population of the Ohio Valley proper.

A central city enjoys the great advantage of collecting products from every quarter. It is not a coast city, accessible to the interior only on one side. This advantage enables it to centralize industry and production; but, as one city cannot consume all products, it must have equal means of diffusion, and an ability to choose between foreign and domestic markets. Interior cities are now furnished with this ability, united with the utmost speed and greatest facility of transit by railway locomotion. The moment this is accomplished, the comparative commercial power of interior cities is measured by the extent of the radial lines to the places of supply, and to the ports of foreign commerce; and in this view, no place is more entirely central than Cincinnati, since it is nearer the Atlantic and the Gulf, at every point, than Chicago, and nearer than St. Louis and Louisville to every point except Mobile and New Orleans.

The country which contributes its agricultural wealth to this central city, is of unsurpassed fertility, and abounds with every element of suc