Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1872-06-01
ST LOUIS.
The Hetels-The Wonderful Growth in.
Trade, Manufacture and POpu-
latiOu.
The NarrOW-Guage Railroad System Of
the West-What Practical Men
SAY about II.
ST.. 1orrs. Nav %, fs7z

SAY about II.
ST. LOUIS, May q, 1917
EDITORS APPEAL-Leaving Memphis
on the Louisville road at half past one
o'clock on Monday, / arrived here at
| half Bast seven Tuesday morning, found
quite a number OF delegates from South
ef1 and western States attending the
agricultural bodies III Session here. Our
agriculture needs change ahd improve
ment, but whether this can be br0tght
about by Agricultural Congresses is a
matter of doubt. State, county and
neighborhood societies are of more util-
ity. Some Of the hotels Ia this city are
very liberal to the delegates, reducing
their charges to two d0llafs and fifty
cents per aaA; WILTSHIRE so-caIled S1J9h-
eTR Hotel, which L Southern in nothing
but refuses to reduce, Era charges
four dollars and fifty cents per day for
fare inferior to that furnished by hotels
in Louisville, Nashville and Memphis
shat charge less. All the Southern del
egates left here indignant at the South
ern Hotel. When men 60 to cities on
their own private business they should
willingly pay what is charged, but when
they 60 without compensation on public
business, the hotels, as well as the rail-
roads, should reduce their charges. BY
this liberality they would make money,
because more would then go.
This city is growing with great rapid
ity, it now numbers three hundred and
fifty thousand inhabitants. 1t owes its
rapid growth to manufactures and Vest
ern trade. Much of this Western trade
will go to Memphis when the roads
through Arkansas and Missouri to Kan
sas City, Fort Scott and Leavenworth
from Memphis are in operation. Much
of the trade now done at st. Louis viii
be directed to Memphis when her rail-
road connections are completed and
when Memphis becomes, as she will,
a great grain and provision as well as
cotton market. Manufacturing estab-
lishments will spring up in Memphis
when she gets cheap fuel and cheap pro-
visions. When a change takes place in
u agriculture, which it will do in time,
West Tennessee will produce an abund-
ance of cheap provisions. In the u
try around st. Louis the owners of the
soil are the c~ultivators Of the soil, and
this makes a prosperous country. So it
will be sooner or later in the South, and
then we viii be on the road to prosperi-
ty, for when a man has to cultivate his
own land he takes care to make it pro-
duce as much as possible, and to this end
improves and feterlizes it until it will
produce three times as much as u land
noWEdoes. Whenever the land owners
become laborers then a country i'm
proves, because every man is a creator
of wealth. This is the AUS why north
ernc countries andcities improve more rap
idly than those.farther South. The time
viii come when Memphis can and will
sell and manufacture everythin cheaper
than st. Louis on account Of her many
superior advantages. Liberality and
public spirit make a city grow and in
that way men are made rich by giving.
The political feeling seems to be very
strong for Greeley and Brown, who will
carry the State by animmense majority.
To form a correct idea Of the magnif-
eence of this city, a man should remain
here more than a week. Shaw's garden
and the Fair grounds are objects of pecu-
liar attraction. Why can we not have
attractive grounds? We will have in a
few years.
Ihave met with some intelligent and
~ NIlALAA A4CAl lOl1l AAC 4NOlb W CDNg hAO I
gave me a great deal of valuable infor-
nation upon the subject of naTrow-gauge
railroads. H. r. Payson, Of Chicago, |
who has recently spent nine months in
Europe, and who is now building the
Northern Pacific railroad four eight and
a half guage, is also building the Cairo
and st. Louis railroad three feet gauge,
and has a large interest in it. He seems
RI ha fhOrCTTnhIu onCFra fnfad with fhal
whole subject in its practical bearings, |
and his opinion is worth more than the
opinions of q thousand men who
even if they do happen to be rail-
and st. Louis road will be much more
costly than the ordinary narrow-gauge
roads because the work is SO heavy,
being through a very rugged country,
with an immense quantity of rock
cutting. The iron rails will weigh forty
pounds to the yard, which is much heav-
Ter than usual. The equipments are very
expensive also, being twenty-siX engines
and a corresponding amount of rolling
The road is built in this eXpen-
sive manner on account of the immense
business of a heavy character that it viii
do from the commencement, running,
as it does, through coal-feids for sixty
miles, and its whole distance being only
one hundred and fifty miles.
Notwithstanding the costly nature of
the work and its extensive equipments,
the whole cost Of constructing, ironing
and equipping the road will be only
twenty thousand dollars per mile-not
more than half what it would have been
Oh a road of the standard gauge through
the same country. This road is but the
commencement of a system of narrow
gauge roads that will extend from st.
through Memphis and Vieksburg, /
to the Gulf. If it al succeed between
st. Louis and Cairo, its profits will in
every mile it goes south.
| also met with Hon. George I. An
of LeavenwoFeh, Kansas, who is
enthusiastic in praise of the narrow
gauge system. He says they are caTTy-1
ing cattle aud other live stock on the1
narrow gauge roads in Kansas and Col
oradO with perfect ease and convent
snce, A car weighing only one-third
much as a car on a broad gauge road,
eight head of cattle, whilst only
seventeen head are carried on a car
weighing three times as much. He also
says they run much more smoothly,
being little or no oscillation, and
On account of their nearneSs to the
ground, are much more difficult to be
off the track. The passenger
coaches, though smaller, are said to be
as comfortable, if not more so,
han on u ordinary roads. They an
'wer all the purposes of roads costing
.wice as much.
These are either facts, or they are not,
and their truth can be ascertained by ae-
.ual experiment. If they r true,
he value of these cheap railways
,annot be deprecated by mere
attempts at Tidicule, unsustained by
acts, science, reason or argument. The
hope of the country is in cheap trans
lortation, and every effort should be
made to obtain it. 1t is understood that
IDLE representatives from all the roads
in operation will be at the st. Louis
Convention on the nineteenth of June,
give the country the benefits of their
knowledge on this subject.
They are contemplating the extension of
heir Kansas roads three feet gauge to
Memphis, in order to reach the Missis-
at a point where there is uninter-
upted navigation during the whole
year. Many interesting events are TAX
ng place he-e, of which Colonel DuPTe
will give you full accounts. W. J. s. /,