The weekly Mississippian., 1860-04-11
The Yazoo ley Rail Road.

synopsis oil my Feif 55ksssslt the capitol OH SAT
y :, urday night, upon subject of the Yazo
It Valley Railroad, IS ishere hmiliarly termed
$ Instead, however giving the outlines of
e speech, let me presshk the subject under til
II form of a letter % yourself.
y The day is palt when men subscribe t
d Rail Roads merelt so make an investmen
u of their money The aid giye.l is always t
# accomplish other q IS to secure the varou
II and constanslssA Is f't Soy
= from aa suen giss.s Improvements: If tsi$i
dends follow, in due course of time,-so wei
and so good. But dividends are not the lead
ing inducements. In oder however, to con
vince all who heard me, that this Road vii
, pay good dividend if any Road in the Souti
does, | went into some estimates of its proba
J bic cost and its probable earnings; and it is OF
this head l now write. There are two chic
elements constituting the success of Raj
Road. 1t must either connect great CONNER.
cial countries, by direct lines, so as to COM
mand the through trade, or it must run through
a country, fertile in its local resources and
thus capable of feeding Road for, like man,
Rail Roads must have sustenance.
The Roads between Washington and BaIti-
more, Baltimore and Phladelphi, Philadelphia
and New York, illustrate the first and many
of our southern as well as northern Roads,
the last If Road can be SO located as to
combine both ef these elements of prosperity,
it would be idle to question its.suceess as a
dividend paying enterprise.
Let US look into the claims which this VAL
ley Road has to these requisites Of success
The grand idea is to unite st. Louis, the
heart of the grain, coal and iron region of the
Miss, valley, with New Orleans, the great
outlet of the valley, by the shortest and most
direct line. A glance at any good map of the
Union will show you that st. Louis, Mem
phis, jackson and New Orleans are almost
Immediately under the same longitude and
that this same line traverses the far-Gmed
Talahatchie and Yazoo valleys.
| a Road built on that line, would forever de-
| fy competition; for it Would'be on the shortest
| and most direct line.
| What is St. Louis, and what is her destiny
| | may be deemed visionary when Iexpress the
| belief that in a century from this time (and
that is brief period in the life of great cities)
she will be the most prosperous, wealthy and
powerful city the world has ever known. In
our Country, and may say, in the whole
world, power and empire have ever moved
westward.
Babylon and Nineveh, Greece and Rome
London and Paris; these, in different eras,
exemplify the truth of the remark
The census Of 1850 placed the centre of our
population near Pittsburg. That of 1860 will
probably flow it near Columbus Ohio; and
that the year 1900 will most likely find it
ataSut iot. Loa4S, f-s--sa--ss..ss, Eyis.4. ...,
ley.
All the agencies which sustain popoulation,
and which will therefore allow of its rapid in
crease, mag be found, III vast abundance, in
the Ohio and Miss, valleys, north of the south
ern States. They are the hearts of the grain
region they have exhaustless supplies of coal
and iron and with food, fuel and mineral
wealth, they can feed an immense population.
But, they must also soon become the great
manufacturing heart of the Union In 1900,
Great Britain did not manufacture 100000
bales of cotton. Now she consumes millions
of bales annually.
In 1920, the New England States did not
En0D0 IoIo Noun tbnV
ally work up more than half million.
Twenty years ago, the amount manufac-
tured west of the Allegheny mountains, did
not reach 10000 bales. Now, upwards of
100000 bales are annually consumed in the
Ohio and Miss, valleys; the little place of
Canneltoa alone, with population of less than
2000 using 1000 last year.
In 1850, Memphis shipped less than 10000
bales mp stream. From July 1857 to July
1853 she sent 10000 bales up stream. From
July '58 to July '59, she sent $1,000 bales up
stream, and up 10 February 1st, 1860, she has
sent 100000 in that direction. She will ship
this year, 10000 bales making her the 9th
cotton port in the Union; and our merchants
say that one third of this will 90 up stream.
Much of it will go to Boston, New York,
&C., but the Ohio and Miss, valleys are rap
idly increasing this manufacturing power, as
these facts show.
If we look beyond that grand old murky
tide, the Miss, and recollect that, west oft,
lies an empire still larger than that east of 1t
an empire yet slumbering in its giant resour-
ces; an empire with longer and broader
streams and grander mountains, and even
greater mineral streams. l say, when you
look at these facts, and reeollect that the
steamers and railroad cars are populating that |
empire with much more rapidity than the !
common road wagon settled up the "west" OF
thirty years ago; the connection is irresistible,
that this vast valley of ours must soon give |
laws to the Union, if not to the commercial |
world.
With this rapidly swelling tide of humanity |
will come its equally increasing wealth, and
population and wealth combined, will control
the destiny of any people.
The heart of that population must be st. |
Louis 1t is on the great father of floods, with |
such surroundings as no city of ancient or |
modern times ever possessed. On the north, |
east and west, boundless supplies of all that
will sustain and prosper dense population
and the south, region producing all the
luxuries of life, besides the great staple of the
worlds commerce.
In the midst of the most fertile valley of
the worlo valley extending one thousand |
miles from north to south, and fifteen hundred |
miles from east to west; her lines of COM
merce make her especially the entrepot for
the production of the northern part of it.
At her wharves, and in her vast warehouses;
will be gathered the products Of the earth, the
loom and the forge and there will the north
and the south meet son change"
As she grows, so must, in some degree,
New Orleans, for all the Railroads in the |
world will never supercede the Mississippi |
river. The southerner finds his labor most
profitable in'raising cotton, and, unless all indi-
cations are at fault he viii find it so for years
to come. The production of cotton is greatly |
regulated by known causes. None but the
African slave can raise it; and its increase de-
pends mostly upon the increase of that popu-
lation, and upon the direction of labor for other
vocations. The known laws of population
limit this increase to about or 5 per cent. |
DER year; and this always causes a gradual
and regular increase of the production of cot
ton at paying price. Add to this, the OPEN
ing of new lands, and the bringing Of slaves to
the cotton States from the border slave States,
and you will find that the limit Of production
is obtained The ANNUAL increase, in the pro-
ductien of cotton, therefore, MAJ. be averaged
at about Z per cent.
But not so with the consumption. That
depends upon the laws of commerce. As