The true Democrat., 1854-11-15
Facts and Figures.-No. 3.

l called your attention, you will rccollect to the general opposition of that road to the Cairo and Fulton Railroad, but propose now in going into it in this place, to treat it as a speciality The burden of the advocacy of the Memphis road consists in the poetcal license taken hY the newspapers as to her connectons'-connection by way Of Brownsville, Lagrange, Somervile and Grenada with St. Louis, Cairo, Louisville Cincinnati, Baltimore. Philadelphia New York, Boston and Halifax. I will accept all the claims under this head with child-hke faith, and here admit that the Memphis and St. Louis road, the Memphis and Cairo or Kentucky City road, the Memphis and Louisville road, the Memphis and Charleston road, the Memphis and Grenada road-although amounting in all to an aggregate equal to twice that work of many years-the New York and Erie Railroad twill be in even 1858 sober practical realities
 1he charges levaaJle on the duough-business ofa Raatroad vary anversely a0aUa the amount of tue a0ay business as the acay business as greater or less tue terms on aoAach the road can aford to transact the through business are loUer or haqher This re- qulres no proof here further than such as may be conveyed in the familiar illustration that a coach owner cannot carry through h-passengers between A and as cheaply by route having no way y-passengers as he can between the same points by route furnishing that additional business: the cost of running the wear and tear Ot the stock and the interest on invest ment, are Tn the one borne altogether by the through business, whereas this same amount distributed III the other case over greater base, bears less heavily on this through business This illustration defines the meaning of my premise l do not go into the unnecessary length of demonstrating its truth for the reason that 1t Is in the mind of every rehecting man an axiom.
 The rivalry between the Memphis road and the Cairo and Fulton road begins at Little Rock. The construction of the Memphis and Little Rock railroad completes accorHirao to the connections clainaed tor Memphis through line from Little Rock to Memphis; Memphis to Trenton, Trenton to Cairo Cairo to St. Louis. and from Little Rock to Memphis Memphis to Trenton, Trenton to Louisville, and Louisville to Cincinnati Baltimore and New York the construction of the Fulton and Cairo road con- pletes ID tact the connection of Little Rock with Cairo and St. Louis and Little Rock with Cairo or Kentucky City, Louisville, Cincinnati, Baltimore, New York and these too through routes dlverglng at Little Rock to meet again at Caro and Louisville, both predicated in the shipment of the various supplies furnished the State from Missouri Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana and the East, come therefore into direct hostility at Little Rock on the one hand and at Louis vlile and Calro on the other. One of the largest Items Tn the through recei pts of the Cairo road EYlll arise from travel let me therefore in order to illustrate the rivalry between the two, SUD- fPose the case ot a passenger to Louisiana, Texas or Panama, arriving at Cairo from the Lakes, or at Louisville from the Eastern cities Here two routes present themselves, one by way of Memphis, the other by way of Cairo and Jacksonport and the question, which of the two shall bear off the through traffic, resolves itself in this passengers mind into which, in their equality of distance, is the cheaper? On the Cairo and Fulton route the grades are light CT, the curves easier, the distance somewhat shorter and the cost of construction consdera- ply less under the influence of all these ele- ments of cheap working the Cairo route would an sanaatar circumstances transact business on lower terms than the Memphis route; but in consideration of the very partial development Of the country from Little Rock to Cairo and Cairo to the St. Louis and Cincinnati road at Vncennes as compared with the fuller develop ment from Memphis to Trenton, Trenton to Clarksvllle, Clarksville by Bowling Green to Louisville, the way business on the Memphis route Will be much larger than that on the Calro route. The circumstances of the two routes are therefore not at all similar; and such evidently IS the amount ofthe dissimilaritv that u''t" Jea0 gears of successful operation should have deues0pet way business of dts oaon, the Calro road could not compete for the through business with the Memphis road. Under these circumstances the traveller at Cairo or Louis vile. like the freight destined for his section. will adopt the cheap route-the Memphis route. The way business of the Cairo and Fulton Railroad will not pay at the beginning even a considerable fraction of the expense of running the trans on It and consequently the loss oI It's through business, as must clearly result from the simultaneous construction of the Memphis road, wlll inasmuch as no road can continue to run trains unless the receipts pay at least the ex penses of the running, fall into immediate dis use and decay. Ihe construction otthe Memphis road, seen thus to abstract aU the troasoh trafic a0U he'etore bleed tue Cairo and Fulton road tc death. Is this conclusion debatable? It is clearly made up of few undoubted facts, the simple association of which results like cluster of crystals, the same in fracture and form.
 But this conclusion rests it must be recolect. ed on the assumption that the connections claimed by Memphis will become realities by the date of the completion of the Cairo and Fulton road-1858. That these connections are and will be mere ideas for at the least many a long year to come is too evident to require argument; but the broad, positive and repeated assertions on the subject in the press and on the rostrum has almost raised these ideas as their organs doubtless intended them, to the level of those other ideas which are said to yuIe tue aoo'5d A Memphis and Little Rock Rail- road and a Memphis and Louisville Railroad undertaking to transact the business of the Northeastern States and Northwestern States with Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, the Pacific Ocean, has got into the organs of railroad in- telligence throughout the North, side by side with that less noisy but more worthy candi date for the same business-the Cairo and Fnl ton Railroad. They are known in the none, market as rlvals-rivals for the through busi ness as it exists in the present state of things and for the through business as it will ex pap( itself under the accession of the business of tn, Pacific Railroad. The dangers to the Fultor and Cairo road of the Little Rock and Memphi road on the question of the rival claims of thes two for the location of the railroad to the Pa NtnNN~