Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1871-03-06
COTTON.
The Area Of Memphis Trade Narrowed
Agencies that Bsgat the Calamity.

A bale Of cotton was shipped Janu-
srv 25th, by Smith g. Salkett, from
Goodman, on the Mississippi Central
road. to Risk d. johnson, of this city.
IT had not reached its destination yes.
terdav morning. The shippers are
somewhat anxious about it, and mer-
chants of this city r so accustomed
to incidents of this character that they
forget incalculable losses to which
they are subjected by the managers OF
the Mississippi Central and Mobile
and Ohio roads. Railways are
as potent for evil as for
GOOD results. Not many years
ago, before the Mobile and Ohio
road was built by the Legislature and
people OF Tennessee and of Memphis,
the whole trade of TishOmingO, Mar
shall, Itawamba, POntOtOc and ada
cent counties of Mississippi was con-
Quoted through Memphis. This was
naturally the best point for the con-
version of cotton into bacon, flour
and plantation supplies. The Mobile
and Ohio and Mississippi Central
roads have inverted the natural order
of things, and the people Of eastern
Mississippi are forced south, away
from fields of production and Ofprime
cost. TO distant markets on the Gulf.
They are more deeply wrOnged
than Memphis trsdesmen. They are
robbed not only Of money, but of the
right to select for themselves a place
of trade. POntOtOc county used to
send Us annually from five to ten
thousand cotton bales, and not a bale
is now suffered to leave the Mobile
and Ohio road at COrinth. We have
a letter from a planter of that county,
who tells US that I" the people Of
Memphis must be insane if they
fail to secure the cOnstTuC-
ton Of the Selma road. We,
people Of POntOtOc, have measured
the losses to which we are subjected
by the Mobile and Ohio road. We
know the difference of cost between a
barrel of Hour or cask of bacon
brought by water to Memphis, and of
one brought to New Orleans and then
to Mobile, and thence over the Mobile
and Ohio road to this place. We have
not forgotten the excellence of Mem
phis as a cotton market and as cheap
grocery market; but we are as COM
pleteIy shut out from your city as if a
Chinese wall and Himilayan
nights interviewed. We can get
nothing from COrinth, the Mobile
and Ohio road is so n~ervOusly afraid
of a collision that it does not run,
1 am told, a train to COrinth on the
same day that one comes along from
Chattanooga. We are robbed and
wrOnged and plundered like your
selves, that the present managers of
this road may pocket the proceeds Of
our toll.
Guild the road to Selma. Relieve
us of the hOrrid nightmare that de-
stroys the value Of u property by
depriving the products of our indus
try of value, and in relieving US, you
enrich yourselves"
A preacher of this city pronounced
a practical and wise discourse n be-
half Of an Industrial Home for Wild
oWs and Orphans. Build the Selma
road that we may have access, not
only to the rich cotton and grain
fields Ofeastern Mississippi but to the
richer iron and pine and coal fields of
Alabama, and then not only will our
commercial prosperity be bOundless
but Memphis must become the seat
of the richest, most productive man.
~UfactUring industry in the valley Of
the Mississippi.