LOCOMOTION BY EIVEE AND RAILWAY. 



payment by the shareholders of a certain amount, constituting the 

 first call. In some States the non-payment of a call is followed 

 by the confiscation of the previous payments, in others a fine is 

 imposed on the shareholders, in others the share is sold, and if tlie 

 produce be less than the price at which it was delivered, the surplus 

 can be recovered from the shareholder by process of law. In all 

 cases the Acts creating the companies fix a time within which the 

 works must be completed, under pain of forfeiture. The trains in 

 shares before the definite constitution of the company is prohibited. 



Although the State itself has rarely undertaken the execution of 

 railways, it holds out, in most cases, inducements in different 

 forms to the enterprise of companies. In some cases the State 

 takes a great number of shares, which is generally accompanied by 

 a loan made to the company, consisting in State stock delivered at 

 par, which the company negotiate at its own risk. This loan is 

 often converted into a subvention. 



11. The great extent of internal communication, by railways 

 and canals, in America, in proportion to its population, has been 

 a general subject of admiration. The population of the United 

 States in 1840 amounted to 17 millions, and if its rate of increase 

 during the ten years commencing at that epoch be equal to the 

 rate during the preceding ten years, its present population must be 

 about 23 millions. There are, as I have stated, about 6500 miles 

 of railway in actual operation within the territory of the Union. 

 This, in round numbers, is at the rate of one mile of railroad for 

 every 3200 inhabitants. 



In the United Kingdom, there are in operation 5000 miles of 

 railway, with a population of 30 millions, which is at the rate of 

 one mile for every 6000 inhabitants. 



It would therefore appear that, in proportion to the population, 

 the length of railway communication in the United States is greater 

 than in the United Kingdom in the proportion of 6 to 3^. The re- 

 sult of this calculation, however, requires considerable modification. 



12 There is no country where easy and rapid means of com- 

 munication are likely to produce more beneficial results than in the 

 United States. Composed of twenty-six independent republics, 

 having various, and in some instances opposite interests, the 

 American confederacy would speedily be in danger of dissolution, if 

 its population, scattered over a territory so vast, were not united by 

 communications sufficiently rapid to produce a practical diminution 

 of distance. In this means of intercommunication, Nature has 

 greatly aided the efforts of art, for certainly no country in the world 

 presents such magnificent lines of natural water communication. 



To say nothing of the streams which intersect the Atlantic 

 States, and carry an amount of inland steam navigation wholly 

 56 



