4 NEW TRACKS IN NOETH AMEEICA. 



Anglo-Saxon intruders set to work at that early day to Phila- 

 del^iliianise tlie ^' city/' or ratlicr to reproduce PHladelphia, 

 then their model of perfection^ on the banks of the Mississippi. 



Piye years after the era of steamboat navigation, the ques- 

 tion of slavery came before the people of St, Louis, and they, 

 after prolonged deliberation, voted in favour of it j by which 

 act they saddled upon the whole of Missouri an institution 

 which was thoroughly unsuited to the State, situated as it is 

 in so northern a latitude, and containing within itself sucli 

 varied sources of wealth. 



From 1820 to 1830 the tide of emigration gradually crept 

 westward, until at last, between 1830 and '35, the discovery 

 of the enormous agricultural value of the prairie regionSj 

 Avhich occupy so large a portion of the eastern part of the 

 Mississippi basin, caused the wave of emigration to pass like 

 a flood over all that countiy. Chicago was unborn, and the 

 great north-west was almost unknown when St. Louis became 

 the outlet for the produce of the western prairie farmer. 

 From this epoch her population has rapidly increased, her 

 wooden shanties have been replaced by large buildings oi 

 brick and stone, her narrow French streets have become 

 broad avenues, and the merchants of St. Louis have 

 gradually amassed an amount of wealth far greater than 

 those of any other city west of the Alleghany Moun- 

 tains. [N'othing has more forcibly sho^\Ti how solid the com- 

 mercial prosperity of St. Louis really is than the wonderfol 

 manner in which her inhabitants have withstood the pro- 

 longed depression caused by the rebellion. By f^ the 

 majority of the influential men in the city were Secessionists; 

 still the Eepublican minority, with the aid of the Germans, 

 who represent a population of 30,000 souls, and assisted 

 occasionally by tho central government, defeated all attempts 



