EAILWAY CONNECTIONS. 13 



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There is no London or Paris in the United States, there is no 

 single nucleus, to which all who can resort for the enjoyment 

 of a three months' season ; but when I pass from one of these 

 American cities to another, when I find each with its opera- 

 house, and theatres, its parks and suburbs, its elaborate system 

 of railways radiating from it, its distinct society, acknow- 

 ledging no superior, I do not recognise a large country town, 

 but a young capital rapidly advancing to maturity. As years 

 go by, and the population is numbered, not by the thousand, 

 but by the hundred thousand — when we begin to talk of 

 the wholesale part of the city, the best street for shopping, 

 and the correct part to live in — for I fear even America is 

 not free from vanity and Mrs. Grundy ; — when, in fact, wo 

 commence to be aristocratic, and ask. Who is who ? we find, 

 to our astonishment, that the rich old gentleman we have 

 learned to look up to was once the happy owner of no more 

 than an acre of waste land on Main Street, and that all the 

 families at whose hospitable fireside we received a hearty 

 welcome, have an unlimited belief in the advance in value of 

 real estate. Such in short will suggest the history of the 

 cities I have named. 



The merchants and tradesmen of Kansas City and Leaven- 

 worth know all this perfectly well. They look around them 

 and see that 2,500 miles of navigable waters, leading far up 

 into the north-west, pass their doors. To the east lie the 

 rich agricultural lands of Missouri, extending to St. Louis, 

 300 miles distant ; to the west, one-half Kansas is not inferior 

 to Missouri in soil and climate ; while to the south, the fertile 

 Keosho valley, and the coal and marl-fields of South-Eastern 



complete the vision of future greatness. They 

 recognise fully the importance of the position, the natural 

 wealth of a locality which has out of its abundance produced 



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