Lynchburg daily Virginian. [volume] (Lynchburg [Va.]) 1852-1861, 1854-07-21
NORFOLK and Petersbulg Railroad.

FhIDA1 MlaNIAlf. - Ill -fs ICo4.
Norfolk and PetersbuIs Railroad
We take the following extract from the lette
of gentleman in Norfolk to his friend in this
city:
I'VE are progressing finely with the Norfolk
ssand Petersburg road. Every section of tbs
s.work is under contract, and all save two being
worked with good force and these two are
every light and can be graded in ORB months
.0ur Depot lot in Petersburg has been purchas-
led. and in few weeks we shall commence our
bridge. We shall be in time for you; and in
..1s TO 20 months we hope to have car starting
"for Lynchburg."
What a glorious day IL will be when Western
Vireinians, South. Western yirginians and Pied
mont Virginians can go together in the same car
to their Great Southern Sea Port. Then, by well
directed energies. the days of our commercial
vassalage will be numbered-And then. when
the magnificent lines of improvement con
Meeting through that road with Norfolk,
and radiatng from the Valley of James
River and piercing the mountain barrier of the
interior, shall unite midway with the 'inland seas
of the Mississippi valley, aud with the great arcs
of railways sweeping aroun from tho Lakes md
the North Atlantic coast to the South Atlantic
and the cities of the COLLABORATING the shortest
and only direct Eastern line of communication
with Atlantic shipping-then, indeed, must open
a and brighter era than has ever before
dawned upon Virginia. Ii will be an err
not of abstract theories and patriotic re-
solutions, but of ass ,cated energy and
material action, stimulated by daily intercourse
with thousands II the people,and Interchange
of the vast and varied products, of the teeming
empires Of the South and West.
Such are the means by which shipping,
commercial and manufacturing interest will
be most certainly promoted. buckingham
resolutions" demonstrating the advantag of
commerce, well enough in their way
They prove truism which a Rp-Yan
Wrinkle would acknowledge, bull still, we re-
peat, they are well enough in their way. Such
documents are characteristic of the good old
days when eur peeple,in meeting assemb ed
with grng and ginger cakes, would shed the last
drop of their ink in behalf of their privileges and
''sacred rights"-and we should be unwilling to
see the light of the spirit of that day extnguished
We like mcmentocs Of the past,aud we therefore
ike the Er-Congressman from Buckingham, who
has so freshly revived the memories Of 9s 4 90.
that period. it altogether proper,n the report
which he presented to the Buckingham meeting,
that he should persuade of 1.-THE enrching
tendency Of Commerce, aud then resoye--what
has been done thousand times before-in favor
of non commercial intercourse with the Northern
States, the largest consumers of our products
But whilst we admire the Ex Congressman as
memento, it is very evident that he viii not an
swer an adviser in building up a commerce for
Virginia. We do not believe in the policy rec
commended by him OF killing the hen to increase
the stock Of eggs. Let Virginia prosecute, with
the yigor which now charaoteri1es her, the deve-
opment of her mineral and agricultural products
by facilities for delivering them TO the best mar
kets and let her open lines of communication
through her borders to the East aud West and
North and South, aud thus concentrate at her
great en- report OF trade at Norfolk the tonnage
which they will surely bear, and we shall then
have commerce, foreign as we'll as domes-
tic. Ships can never develop tonnage but fur
nish the tonnage and the ships will always ap.
pear to bear il To whatever port we may desire
10 send il to across the oceans bosom. aud TO
bring back, too,a foreign cargo in exchange
Such is now the policy of Virginia and we
regard the road, in allusion to which this article
was commenced as one OF the most important
elements of that policy