The daily Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1878-1???, 1880-09-28
MR.. CONKLING'S STATISTICIAN.
SOME MERE MILLIONS THAT HE LEFT OUT OF
HIS ARITHMETICAL RAWLINGS ON
SOUTHERN COMMERCE.

SOUTHERN COMMERCE.
New York World.
81 have been astenished,n said Mr.. w,
II. Osborne, President Of the Chicago, st.
Louis & New Orleans Railroad, yesterday,
"by the statements in Mr.. Conklingsspeech
as to the superiority of the interests of the
great lines of railroad at the North over the
water communications of the South. He
presented a formidable array of figures,
which had evidently been prepared for him
by some one-they were not the Senator's
production-an and the whole speech had cyl
IDENTIFY been prepared for campaign docu-
ment; but whoever got up Its statistics evil
IDENTIFY misunderstood, either wlllfully or
through ignorance, the real position OF the
carrying trade of the South at the present
time and its changes from former times.
The deepening of the channel at the mouth
of the Mississippi has made an immense in
crease in the volume of business
at New Orleans. Senator Conkling
was entirely ignorant, or choose
to appear so, of the establishment
and growth of what may be called the barge
system" of the Mississippi river at the pres
ent time: that tows Of five barges each are
constantly leaving st. Louis and intermedi-
ate ports for New Orleans. Each Of these
barges carries $4,000 bushels of grain, and
the freight from st. Louis to the seaboard
is but cents a bushel. Let Senator Conk-
ling ask his statistical assistant if any of
the six trunk lines of railroad will carry a
bushel of grain from st. Louis to the sea-
board as low as that. To give you some
idea of the volume of this business con-
tinued Mr. Osborne, consulting memo
randum. 'let me tell you the amount of the
shipments of grain from New Orleans dur
ing the month of August. Here are the
figures: To Liverpool, 202,950 bushels of
wheat and 81 ,013 bushels of corn; to Rot
terdam, 429, 562 bushels Of wheat and 3d.
| SOL bushels of corn; to Antwerp, 376,710
bushels of wheat and 84,S14 bushels Of
corn; to Havre, $4,000 bushels of wheat
and 13,345 bushels ofcorn; to Rouen, 55,-
295 bushels of wheat and 60,7S7 bushels of
corn; to Nazaire, 4s,110 bushels of wheat;
to Bordeaux, 29,370 bushels Of wheat, and
to Antwerp 64,S00 bushels of wheat--in all
for that month, 1,2S9,S45 bushels OF
wheat and 1853 $40 bushels of corn. And
the increase this year to the LIST of Septem-
Der has been 3,352,776 bushels of wheat
and 3,50S,S3 bushels of corn. Great as
this increase is it will be greatly added to
during the year to come if the receipts OF
the first ten days of the present month are
any criterion, for in that time there have
been received at the port of New Orleans
| for shipment thirty bargeloads of grain,
containing 7G4,000 bushels of wheat and
1000 bushels of corn, while the export
to foreign ports in those ten days have been
361 ,704 bushels of wheat and l4G,2SO
bushels of corn, and there was in the ele-
vators and on shipboard, not cleared, 4O2,
296 bushels of wheat and 135,720 bushels
of corn. Now, these figures are from Of
fetal data, and are absolutely correct. AS
to those read off by Senator Conkling the
other night doubt if they would stand an
accurate scanning, and at any rate the sta
tistician who prepared them for HIM forgot
| or did not know about the immensely OF
this southern trade or the senator would
never have attempted to belitte it and as
sert, as he did, that the carrying trade OF
the continent was mainly over six great
lines of railroads. The figures for the
month of July, which / could give
you, are but little below those
that ] have given you for August
And you should understand that
the most of this grain isshipped in steamers
and is delivered to the milers at Rotterdam
and elsewhere in Europe before the farmer
in Iowa or Minnesota has cut single sheat
of wheat. I have only called your atten.
ton to the shipments of grain from one
single seaport Of the South, but could
give YOU statistics OF the volume Of other
produce from this port Of New Orleans, and
of the shipments of all sorts of merchandise
from Mobile and other southern ports that
would show figures quite as astonishing
but it is enough to show that the senator
has been msled and should never have al.
lowed himself to be the vehicle for the trans.
mission Of such mass Of wholly untrustful
assertion. am not much of a politician
and have hardly preference for one party
more than for another, but when see a
man in Senator Conklings position made
the mouthpiece for the dissemination of
statistics VIGOROUSLY false and misleading
feel it but an act Of justice to him to cor
rect him and set him right. When he says
that emigration flows along parallels of
latitude rather than meridians Of longitude
he is right but he is wrong when he tries
TO prove that the rivers which flow down to
the sea will not bear upon their bosoms the
products of the countries through which