The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1851-07-29

wharf at Buffalo, where canal boats being loaded
with flour, at the rate or from $50 to $50 barrels 20
the boat. inquired what was the freight, per bar
rel. from there to the city Of New York distance
OF more than 500 miles, and received for answer
AS cents-less by twenty per cent than we
pay our wagoners from Hilsboro' to Raleigh.
and they make nothing at that. Yet this
piece of good fortune, the Erie canal, was net
rained down western New York by Provi-
dence which has denied his blessings to It cost
the State twenty odd millions of dollars Of bor-
rowed money but it was money well laid out.
For years it was clamored against in elections as
policy about TO ruin the State and pauperize the
people; but, by the intrepid craftsmanship of Gin
ton and his associates, il went steadily forward,
conquering all opposition, and his name is now
reverenced as that of public benefactor through
out the land. But the people of that great State
are not content with this. BY the time this letter
reaches you, if not now. law will have passed their
Legislature TO borrow and expend nine millions of
dollars more in enlarging the grand canal, SO
| TO carry twice as much is carried on its
waters at the cost, and consequently to
cheaper transportation probably one-half below
present rates.
| But, with the innumerable advantages OF the
canal, it affords too slow passage for our progress
sive age. A superb railroad has been laid down by
its side from Buffalo TO Albany, and ia being ex-
tended along the shores of that natural canal the
Hudson river, to the city of New York.
This is exclusive of the New York and Erie rail
road, the greatest work of the kind yet completed
in the world which shoots off from the Hudson
river thirty miles above the city, and crossing the
waters of the Delaware, the Susquehanna, of Lake
Ontario, the Mississippi, and Lake Erie, strikes the
latter lake at Dunkirk, forty-f miles only from
Buffalo, total distance of four hundred and sixty
odd miles.
A traveller W ho shall pass by one of those roads
from the city of New York TO the Lake, and fail to
get through in sixteen seventeen hours, and at
the rate of two cents or less per mile, will be
to take the other on his next journey. We set out
after six o'clock in the morning on the Erie road
and with all stoppages for the holiday occasion and
the desire at various points to offer respects to the
President of the United States we reached Elmira,
where we tarred for the night, distance of two
hundred and eighty three miles, hafa an hour be-
fore sunset.
OF the numerous railroads connecting these two
together at convenient points, or uniting as
branches to the one the other, and the plank
roads which everywhere greet the eye, have not
room for description. Nothing is more certain
than that in regard to the popular taste for works
of this kind,
'Increase of appetite doth grow by what it feeds
on"
And as soon you convince the people, by pub
lie demonstration, that they can be made without
ruin, they will demand them, as they do comfort
able houses TO live in, improved tools of trade
work with.
cannot here forbear to mention, for the conso-
laton OF those among us who take much to heart
the misfortunes and plumbers of the old Raleigh
and CASTOR railroad, that the New York and Erie
railroad, from inexperience and bad management
in its early history, proved dead failure at loss
of more than sx millions of dollars, one half of
which fell upon the State, and has never been re-
paid or rather, has been relinquished as bounty
to new company, who took it in hand under bet
ter auspices for carrying it through to completion;
but that it has been finished and equipped at
cost of seventeen millions more, and promises to
be paying stock at the whole sum of twenty
three millions.
We have not, il ia true, the wonderful resources
and advantages of New York. and it is with no
hope to rival her great works that recite these
outlines of her system of improvement, but to show
that our undertaking is not disproportioned to our
means or our necessities. When citizen of Neck
lenburgh Cabarrus shall be enabled to breakfast
at home, dine in Raleigh. and sup on the same day
at at no very unreasonable hour in Wilmington
Beaufort, Newbern, Norfolk, or Petersburg he will
accomplish no more in overcoming distance than
is now done daily by hundreds, not to say thou
sands, in New York well in other States of the
Union. And be will readily perceive what benefits
will accrue 10 him when he too can accomplish in
one day what now requires more than a week.
The time and circumstances are all propitious to
the commencement of our work. We are in the
first year of the latter half of the nineteenth GEN.
tury. We have just finished one of those decades
appointed by the Constitution, when the Federal
census exhibits to the population and sta
istics of the country. The progress of North Car
olina during this period ia less cheering than that
of several other States, but more SO than it has
been during any former one. Her population,
eight hundred and seventy thousand souls, will
easily attain to and exceed a million by the next
census at the same rate of increase as during the
last ten years. With the Heterogeneous to en-
igration, by of the greater distance of the
fresh lands at the South and West, the encourage
ments and rewards TO industry in the expenditure
of three millions of dollars in the construction of
the work alone, (not to speak of the improve
ments on the Cape Fear and beyond the Blue
Ridge;) in the grand result which ia to flow from
its completion, that internal resources of mine
raj and agricultural riches to be brought out as
permanent and increasing contributions TO the ma
tonal wealth. trust she is entering on this new
era with brighter destiny The second State OF
the South in geographical extent; the second in
population from the Revolution downward, until
she has been outstripped by her younger sisters,
Tennessee and Kentucky, she possesses elements
Of opulence and power which require but the gene
raj extension of system of improvement to
enable her to vie with the proudest members of the
Union, 10 which none is more devoted constant.
and faithful
remain, dear sir, very truly yours,
WILLIAM A. GRAHAM
Hon. J. NJ. MoREHEAD, Pres't N. C. r. r. Co.
Means of the Government.
The following is a statement of the financial