The daily gazette., 1880-03-16
FIRST EDITION.
For the Gazette. geo
Letter from SAINT Townsend.


Mr.. @. p. JOHNSON Having lit
tie leisure, to-day, and seeing so much
said in the interested Baltimore pa
pers, about that humbng project of
ship canal across the Peninsula, from
the Chesapeake to the Delaware bays,
i thought would write o few lines of
warning to the people living on said
Peninsula. Any person who takes the
trouble to read some of the articles in
the papers from Baltimore, will find
Baltimore City, and the Baltimore and
Ohio Rail Road Company, are very
anxious for the experiment. Not,
however, with the funds of the State
Of Maryland or the City Of Baltimore,
or the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
Company's funds. No, they are too
cunning for that, but their whole pow
er is brought to bear on the general
government, to force her TO try the
experiment, when it now has war
debt Of two thousand millions of dol
lars. | recollect when this mere ditch,
the Chesapeake and Delaware canal,
was begun, and the great promises,
for it was to be a ship canal. Drag
on and st. Georges meadows or
marshes were TO be made corn land,
but, instead, people living near say it
is much worse than before the canal,
and has been deluged two Or three
times by canal breaks. All the cross
ings confined in our State to 8, one
near Delaware City, one at st.
Georges, and one at the Buck, The
land near the Buck or Summit
Bridge, Immediately adjoining the ca
nal was laid waste for 5 or 8 years or
more. Hundreds of outlaws held
possession of this marsh. Murder and
robbery was almost an every day oc-
curence, and, now, to visit ON us Del
awareans another and twenty times
worse curse, destroy our roads and lay
waste our country, neither life or
property would be safe. The curse of
peach tramps that some persons was
so fearful OF, that our Legislature was
urged and did pass a law against,
would not be drop in the bucket
for this ship canal project if
Congress suffers the Trea-
sury Of the Nation to make this
canal, all but solely for Baltlmore's in
terest, would open the prison doors of
nearly every country in Europe and
China, aud dump thirty or forty thou
sand outlaws on this Peninsula, that the
Sioux and Ute Indians are lambs in COM
parison; nearly all useful county roads
ON the Peninsula rendered of no use to
the citizens, and the politics of both
Delaware and the Eastern Shore of
Maryland probably seriously interfered
with; and this cur Sc Of ship canal to
get 25 feet depth, fivers would have
10 be dug out, the mud washing back,
and as is proposed all this canal making
and digging out from new canal high
water level, ,and, the deepening ofrivers 70
be done by dredgers aud sc0ws would
take not less, probably, than fifty years,
and then an ehdless, eternal expense
with large force TO keep 1t open. The
Sassafras route comes within Two miles
OF this place; If attempted on that
route IL will ruin us, and our country
near this portable hell, TO please Bait
more and the Bdlt0. d Ohio II. r. Co.
| Therefore, before our Senators and
Rep pleseDtatives vote one cent out of the
National Treasury for such scheme,
consider the curse you will entail on the
peaceable citizens OF our little State OF
DeiaWAel W Sratif tho prlue Vi LUG
city of Baltimore, and the far-reaching
ambition of great railroad corporation,
when every person knows that the
Chesapeake Bay is one of the finest
bays of the world, and free highway,
then let Baltimore and Baltimore Il
Ohio r. II. Co, continue 10 use it, II
they want rapid transit across the Pen
insula let them make railroads which
can soon be made and the builders re-
moved, etc.
SAMUEL TOWNSEND.
Townsend, March 10, 1880.