Cairo evening times. [volume] (Cairo, Ill.) 1865-1866, 1865-09-20
POPULATION OF KASKASKIA.
CAHOKIA AND SHAW
NEETOWN IN
l772.
r A IL R O A ID = j..
THE ANGLO-SAXON THE
CONTROLLING
RACE. 5....
ELOQUENT PERORATION.
DIR. M'DOwELL,s SPEECH.

Yesterday morning DR.. Mcdowell being So
lcted to address the ''Cairo Chamber of Com
merce,'1 responded as follows
thank you, gentlemen of the Chamber of
Commerce, most heartily thank you, for the
cordial reception l have received at your
hands and from the citizens of Cairo. A few
weeks since 1 approached your landing with
feelings of apprehension, having been recorded
among your enemies; but now feel assured I
am in the bosom of friends.
The legitimate duties of your Chamber of
Commerce, as 1 understand them, are to look
to the great interests of trade, and in doing so
you must of necessity also look to every depart
ment of human industry and human intelligence
as collateral to your great work, and as a foun.
dation on which to build great and flourish
ing city. The building up of your now infant,
but soon to be giant city-the monarch in swad-
ding clothes is in your care-and your every
effort should be put forth to expand the intellect
of your people, and by every means to aid the
diffusion of useful knowledge, of every kind,
among them.
While you facilitate and should encourage
in every way the mechanic arts, and build the
vessels and the cars of commerce, you should
SO educate the rising generation as to have them
fully appreciate the future destiny and import
ance of Cairo Lead them to the map of the
world, and point out to them the names of pla.
ces situated like your own, but where the en-
ergy and enterprise of the inhabitants have
overcome obstacles apparently insurmountable,
aud cities have been built up which have COM
manded the oommeroe of the world.
Teach them what genius, energy and enter
prise can accomplish. Point them to Holland
and ten them that Amsterdam was built on
piles in the sea, and surrounded by dykes and
canals, the work alone of man, while he con-
tecded with the diseases incident to so harsh q
great deep, even in a wintry cline. Go with
them tG Venice, the city of the sea, and bid
them listen to the music of the Gondolier
amidst the hum of commerce, and walk with
them to the far famed Ralto the meeting place of
her princely merchants Tell them that where
once lashed the surges of the ocean, the beau
tiful, stately structures dedicated to science
and commerce, have been reared by the per-
severance Of man. But above all point them to
the mouth of the ancient river Nile Discourse
to him of her history. Survey the place, the
conquerer of the world selected for the city OF
his name.
Tell him that where the great crocodile
basked in the mud and rushes now stands AL.
exandria, for two thousand years the mart of
the civilized world. The success of the stu.
peudous project was even doubted by his pre-.
ceptor, Aristotle, but his master intellect lifted
the veil OF the future, aud with prophetic ken
marked the spot where now stands the won.
der of the world, the commercial glory ol
Egypt. The pyramids of the Nile will not out
live the name of its founder, or the commerce
that cncircles it the immortal son of Philip o.
Macedon.
But of Cairo, its topography and history
Three hundred years since and our Cairo was
the bottom of a great lake that received til,
waters of the Ohio, the Wabash, the Cumber
land and the Tennessee and from it emerged
stream, which, after running ten miles, cnteret
the Mississippi river. A man whose name wa
Finley, aScOtchman, explored this country il
the sixteenth century, and gave a map of it L
DR.. Cox, then Governor of North Carolina
who, in an able appeal to the British Parlia
ment claimed the whole valley of the Msss