GROWTH OF BUFFALO AND THE NEW STATES. 245 



put by writers on the rise and growth of American 

 towns. 



Situated at the end of the Erie Canal, with a large 

 American population and the highway to Europe behind, 

 and with boundless tracts of new land before it beyond the 

 lakes, Buffalo, like New York, has risen from the mere 

 force of circumstances. Every emigrant, and every 

 package of goods, that passes through New York, 

 Albany, and Buffalo, imparts some gain to each place in 

 the transit. And as the city of New York increased 

 with the western population of the state, so Buffalo has 

 increased, and will increase, with the number of persons in 

 the new north-western States, whose way to and from 

 the principal markets is by the Erie Canal. 



So also the new States rise in numbers and wealth. 

 The poorest of the Irish immigrants who land at New 

 York, Boston, Philadelphia, or New Orleans, bring with 

 them some money — the greater number enough to pay 

 the traveUing expenses of their families, to buy a piece of 

 land, and to maintain them for a year. The fare alone 

 from New York to Chicago, in Wisconsin, is fifteen 

 dollars a-head, which is about £10 for a man and his 

 wife and two children. The English and Scotch and 

 German emigrants appear to be better and more thought- 

 fully provided for than the Irish ; but Pat's ragged coat, 

 as the captains of steamers know well, often conceals 

 more gold than the decenter garments of the emigrants 

 from other countries. 



Taking rich and poor together, it is a very moderate 

 assumption that the emigrants, on an average, carry out 

 iiJlO a-head, which, for the 200,000 who land at New 

 York alone, makes the sum of £2,000,000 sterling added 

 at once to the money capital of the districts through which 

 they pass, and in which they settle. Then a single 

 year's labour of this 200,000, in agricultural operations 

 upon new land, must add at least £5 a-head, or another 



