The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1871-01-20
The Progress and Prosperity Of Mich
igan. r't.


{. The Governors message this year
which tells the work of the last two years
for Michigan wisely, is content with
biennial sessions of her assembled wis
dom"--is a very comfortable document
notwithstanding its length. How happy
are the people who live in the State
where taxes are Decreasing, where nc
Hoosac Tunnel bores them, and nc
swindling railway corporation bleed
them of their millions In two years
more than one-third of the whole State
debt has been paid, and it is now only
about one-tenth of the debt Of the single
city of Boston, if the last financial re-
port of that city is to be trusted is
hardly more, indeed, than the debt OF
some of the small cities of Massachu
sets. The trust funds, in fact of Mich.
igan, are about as large as the whole
State debt. The rate of taxation is
about one u,ile and quarter on dol
lar; that is, citizen OF Michigan who
has $4,000 of property pays as his
State tax the price of box of ordinary
cigars and this on a valuation hardly
more than half of the real value. No
one in this State-certainy no one who
has come from New York or Massachu-
setts-can complain of the burden of
taxation or of lavish waste of money in
legislative appropriations. The sessions
of the lawmaker5 are short, their pay is
not large, and they d. rot add TO it by
any stealings The Legislative work of
of State almost as large in population
and six times as large in territory as
Massachusetts, is done in about two
months of the "a, and done more effec.
tually than it could be in 10 months of
the time. There is no need here to
suggest dispatch in business at the Cap.
itol
THE PROGRESS OF MICHIGAN.
in population, in wealth, in improve
ments of all kinds, in business, and in
education, has been steady for the last
century, from the time when it was a
bowling wilderness to the present time,
when it contains nearly 100000 peo-
pie in its limits. 1t is in the best sense
of the word a prosperous State, with
less of contrast in the condition and
fortunes of its people than in almost
any State. There are not half dozen
millonaires in the State, perhaps not
three, and comparatively few who would
be called rich in the Eastern cities but
there are almost none who suffer from
poverty. The poor.houses have few
tenants, and belong to the counties, and
not once year does a beggar knock at
the doors IN most of the cities. Mich
san has % cities, with mayors and
aldermen, and all the civic dignitaries.
One large town, Kalamazoo, the fifth
10 size in the State, obstinatsly refuses
to become a city, and is classcd in the
almanac with the villages.
MICHIGAN RAILWAYS.
A large share of the prosperity of
Michigan in the last 10 years has come
from the impulse given to settlement by
the railways o. the State, and especially
the oldest aud strongest of the corpor.
ations, the Michigan Central. The
great highway is not only able to pay
ample dividends to its shareholders, and
all the interest on its bonds, without
asking from State or city dollar of aid,
but IL constantly aiding feeble enter
prses, aud is building lts own branches
in every direction. One branch goes
southwark now into Indiana, another
poes northward more than hundred
miles, into the region of the pines. An
'air h,nc," hundred miles long, which
$ near,.v completed, will shorten the
ime of th ough passage to Chicago by
IN hour, aud relieve the freight trains
If their bar toiling around sharp
curves. The Ce. ''ral Road is to Mich
gan what the New York Central is to
hat State. with the exception that its
PRESIDENT is not d eta, 'or IN matters
nut of bis province. and doe,'not attempt
o control the legislation Of tie State
THE pERE MARQUETTE RAnLWAS'
n the present winter has b, cen pus 70