26 A PEEP AT 



merchants resorted ; our city was shut out from the 

 advantages of the fertilizing tide that was flowing 

 between the Old World and the New, and we were 

 almost stationary while other cities progressed. But 

 the railroad has changed all this, and given us a new 

 facility for the transaction of our old business ; has 

 created and developed new and incalculable resources, 

 and given, perhaps, a greater impulse to our city 

 than to any other in the world. Five years ago, 

 Boston had comparatively no back country; now, 

 nine hundred miles of New England railroads centre 

 here, and as many more within New England are in 

 the process of construction. These render Boston 

 emphatically her capital. Considered in this light 

 alone, the position of Boston is one of present power, 

 with a certainty of rapid advancement. But her 

 connections already stretch far beyond New England. 

 She is on the high road between Europe and the 

 West ; and that vast country has become tributary to 

 her increase. The car that leaves our city this morn- 

 ing may deposit its merchandise in thirty-six hours on 

 the shores of Lake Erie, five hundred miles from thg, 

 place of its departure ; from thence, inland seas, 

 navigable by vessels of the largest class, stretch away 

 for hundreds of miles along shores fertile for agricul- 



