Year: 1871




scribed, and that the new enterprise may
be shortly expected to organize and under
take the work for which it was originated
There has been some delay in placing the
bonds of the company, but we think when
all things are considered that it has been
for the best. They are not monopolized by
a half-dozen great banking firms or capital
lists, but are distributed through the entire
community. and, ike that other great crea
ton of Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Rail-
road, It's prosperity will be that of the whole
people.


The company starts under the best of aus
pices. 1t will have the advantage Of the
great corporation which inspired it and
which, stretching out over the whole area
OF the country, will roll its immense traffic
to It's wharves. The network of railroads
west and south of us, the one already sub
ordinate to our city and the other soon to
be, will be its feeders, and will furnish a
treightage for which It's tonnage will be for
years inadequate. Then we have our lines
of Southern steamships. These now carry
cargo only one way-hence southward;
but when transportation across the ocean
for the cotton and other products of the
South is afforded at this port a great trade
will spring up on them, and they will in turn
be SO many feeders cf the American Steam
ship Company The obvious result of the
enterprise must be the commercial ascen-
dancy OF Philadelphia. Those best acquain-
ted with our decline in this respect, and the
causes that led to it, have always believed
: that the first well-directed and systematic
effort made for its revviticatlon would be
successtul; and this experiment bears them
out. 1t has shown the people what they
can DO, and, as they have the wall, they will
not halt now. Philadelphia is conserva-
tive no longer, and her merchants and peo-
pie are to-day fully aroused from the stup or
OF the past Let them continue as they
have begun. A more daring and venture
some spirit was needed in every channel OF
her life, and we believe we see the indica-
tions of It's presence already.


And now that the steamship company
has been placed on its feet we can hardly |
refrain from exutation. Where others have
failed we have succeeded. There were al
least four cities on the Atlantic seaboard
whose resources and position gave them an
immense advantage over us, but not one of
them has made the effort"


We copy the above from the Philadel-
phia Press of March 25 Who can blame |
Philadelphia for exuting in the cunplet1on
Of this final link in her great schemes of
trade? With all the railroads in America
rapidly becoming tributary to her enterpris-
ing capitalists, she can afford such steam
ship connection with Europe as she has Just
established. The continental and interna-
tional traffic knocking already at her ample
gates will demand a vast increase in ner
shipping facilities year by year, and the
formation of the steamship company of
which the Press speaks above, is but the
beginning of ocean enterprises which may
well startle the fnanciers of New York city
from their present stupor. If Philadelphia
advances for the next three years as she
has for the last three, the crown of CONNER
cal supremacy will inevitably rest on her
brows, and New York must surrender the
title and trade of the Metropolis Of the
New World


Far seeing minds in the Empire State
have acknowledged the present tendency
Of things for months. The New York
Times as long ago as last September gave
4 very frank and spoken warning on
this subject to the State in general, and the
Erie & New York Central r. r. companies
in particular.


This was copied in our issue of Sept. goth
with additional remarks of our own.


Again, at the close of the year, the Comp
troller Of the State of New York called pub
lie attention to the diversion of trade from
that State to Philadel phia via the Erie con-
nection. This even aroused attention at
the West, and was commentated on at
length by the st. Paul papers, one of which,
the Pioneer, called the attention of the
ance of railway connection with the head
of Lake Superior at this point in order to
counterbalance the Philadelphia projects
which thus far centre at Duluth, Mimi, on
the north shore of the lake.


Copying from the Pioneer as above, and
again commenting upon the question at
issue, in our paper Of Jan. 2lst, we were
successful in attracting the notice of the
that the n. Y. Times, and the Comptroller
of the State of New York, together with
western and impartial journals had been
advancing the same facts, arguments, and
appeals, patronlzngly treated the whole
affair as matter of rivalry between two
country villages.


The n Y. 4dUertiser followed in the
same strain, winding up grandiloquenty