Year: 1859

DkU WILLIAMS HHltp VB1ESIKlll.


WEDNESDAY MORNING. JUNEsl5, 1859.


GRAND PRoJEr.


One OF the most general and perhaps not uncom.
Portable of the popular deusons of the day. and one
that adds to the potency Of the sempatrotc spread
eagleism which has given the country go enyiable
reputation abroad as region which quite eclipses
the fame Of Gascony for the boasting, braggadocio
spirit of its people, is the fancy that this country is
the headquarters of about all the chvalrous financial
enterprise and dashing, regardless ofexpense public
spirit Of the planet and that in Continental Europe
all business capital is in the hands OF usurious old
customers who will never let it touch anything but
the best of sterling securities and would no more ven
ture dollar out of sight without an absolute guaranty
that it was to greet their longing vision at stipu-
lated time, than they would part with their eyes
that speculative Investments backed only by
able probability, or sacrifices In great public causes
which might promise returns at some distant day,
were seldom made by the men of money Of Continen.
tai Europe, though it has been customary to allow
some little credit to the capitalists OF England for
throwing their money away in schemes almost as
utopian as those which run off with fortunes on this
side Of the Atlantic which we take certain pride in
considering the chosen and particular arena of specu.
lative hallucination.


On the other hand they Of Continental Europe
conceiving the impression from the Yankee portion Of
our notoriey-doubtless fancy that most character.
istic Amercansm is to hold fast to the circulating
medium while our tongues run fast in Wanting our
open-handed generosity daring enterprise and "inan.
cial magnanimity" generally. They are strength
ened in the conviction that we are thus braggarts
because numbers OF enterprises of the most vital in
terest to the public veal are not carried out-because
for example, we suffer the two great portions of the
country to be separated by journey of thousands of
miles FOR lack of Pacific Railroad, the stock of
which not one in hundred Of our patriotic capital
lists would touch with ten foot pole, though the cor
poratlon is endowed almost to the absolute security
OF all investments and because, for example, we
suffer one of the arest portions of our country to be
desolated by the capricous uprising Of river which
can easily be confined to its banks; because we dis
regard thousand openings where well-drected ad-
venture would reap rich returns, and suffer men from
abroad to step in and take their places in originating
and prohtng by all sorts of industrial enterprises and
financial schemes-a statistically demonstrabe fact.


With all the lights before them the idea cannot be
got the heads many Of exceedingly valiant
and adventurous capitalists that the Southern Pacific
Railroad is exceedingly suspicious but let US contrast
it, with all its assured promise and magnificent fran.
chses, with scheme to which the monied men and
men OF moderate means OF continental Europe haveust
subscribed no less than sIXTYFIvE MILLIONS OF DOL.
LARS - S65 600, 600 to commence the work on the
Suez Canal" to connect the waters of the Red Sea
with those OF the Mediterranean. This sum will not
nearly complete it, and even if it did suffice the tolls
at the ezhorbitant rate of onethird of the freight
money OF all ships which now pass round the Cape
OF Good Hope, would not pay the interest on it, ac-
cordng to calculations apparently entirely sound and
reliable. Two of the first engineers of Europe re
ported that the canal was impractcabe, and in the
lace of these reports 100000 were subscribed up
on the encouragement afforded by the representations
OF third engineer. The engineering surveys of the
English Government, the power most interested re-
ported the canal impracticable, but the community
of the continent takes up the projet and private
capitalists, not stimulated by desire to further ma
tonal ends, but in the hope of gain, subscribe
S65 100000. No wonder that war loans of rotten
governments are so readily taken up over there with
such speculative spirit abroad among the tight
listed people. .,"#


The work has just been commenced on this canal
of ninetytwo miles long, three hundred and thirty
feet wide and wentyone feet Deep through country
which does not afford drop of fresh water for the
whole route. Dug in moving sands, it will have to be
walled with solid masonry, lofty parapets must be
erected to keep the sand from being blown in and
filing it, and the stone must be brought hundreds Of
miles, There are no harbors at the termini of the
canal, and these will have to be provided by building
out piers of stone six miles into the Mediterranean
and two miles out into the Red Sea. The bre kwaters
of the Mediterranean harbor will have to be laid in
foundation of almost bottomless mud, and be of a
strength sufficient to resist the full force of the long
sea waves. $65,000,000 have been raised in Europe
to be buried in far-otf Arabian sands, with but the
fantest prospect of the practcabity of the scheme
and yet, here in America, the Southern Pacific Rail.
road enterprise, exhibiting palpable, common sense
securities, appealing to every sentiment of enlight.
ened public spirit, to every consideration of private
advantage, has langushed for lack even of the en-.
couragement of wishing it well.


VALUABLE DIscovERY.-W learn from Rome that
Padre Vercellone has discovered in a volume in the