104 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



Would it were possible to be more charitable; but not until the manhood 

 of the people is aroused, and they frown down a lobbyist as they would a 

 a traitor, can they be free from suspicion. By their acts have our public 

 lands been squandered, given away with a prodigal recklessness. 



Our present system of transportation is carried on by two methods, 

 rail and water. As the water routes will freeze up and remain out of use 

 five months of the year (in the northern or grain-growing States,) and as this 

 is from the time when the corn crop, the hog crop and the oat and wheat 

 crops are in greatest demand in our Eastern States, and as tlic largest 

 section of interior New England cannot be touched by navigable rivers, 

 neither can the Western States use their watercourses in the Winter; it 

 follows that the internal commerce of this country must rely upon rail- 

 roads for its prosperity. And those men who have given this subject the 

 greatest amount of thought are fast coming to the conclusion that I'ail- 

 roads (um carry cheaper, all things taken into consideration, than canals. 

 Facts talk the best : During this past season, the firm I am connected 

 with (who handle more grain than any other firm in the Eastern States 

 for our legitimate business), have not had a bushel of grain by canal ; and 

 we are at the junction of the Erie canal and the Hudson river with the 

 Champlain canal running by our door, as it were ; and why ? you ask. 

 Simply because we could get it. cheaper by the New York Central Rail- 

 road than we could by the Erie canal; and this year's freight on the 

 canal has been the lowest I ever knew. The same is true of the railroads. 

 I stated before the " National Board of Trade" in 1872, that a ton of 

 freight could be carried a thousand miles by rail (upon a properly con- 

 structed road) for two dollars and a half per ton ; upon the supposition 

 that the road could have all the freight it could carry; I did not mean 

 one or two trains per day, but all that could be run day and night. I now 

 think that it would be hard to tell how cheaply we might carry freight 

 upon a road over which there was a constantly moving stream of freight. 

 We would be astonished at the low figure it could be done for; just think 

 of a constantly moving stream of freight. I would liken it unto a belt 

 moving constantly East on one track and constantly West upon the other — 

 upon which was the products of one section going to those who needed 

 them in the other section and returning filled with the goods of another 

 land, all done by that untiring power of '■'■steam'''' guided by its sister 

 '■'electricity.''' It calls to mind a portion of Geo. W. Cutter's poem, 

 written in 1848, entitled, ''The Song of Steam." 



" I blow the bellows, I forge the steel, 



In all the shops of trade ; 

 I hammer the ore and turn the wheel 



Where my arm of strength is made. 

 I manage the furnace, — the mill, the mint — 



I carry, I spin, I weave; 

 And all my doings I put into print 



On every Saturday eve. 



