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ANNUAL REPORT—COMMERCE. 71 
content ourselves with the important data supplied by the 
Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce, to whose able and indefat¬ 
igable secretary, Mr. W. J. Langson, we are indebted for the 
courtesy of advance sheets of .the report for 1870. 
On scanning this document, and making careful comparison 
of it with the annual report of the Board of Trade of Chicago 
for the same period, we have been highly gratified to see how 
bravely our own lesser metropolis has maintained its high 
rank as being the leading primary wheat market of the world. 
It is. also gratifying to note a steady growth in other 
branches of business; all indicating a new departure for our 
chief commercial metropolis, under the extraordinary devel¬ 
opment of its railroad system, of which a full account was 
given in our last report. Had the same practical wisdom, 
comprehensiveness of grasp, and vigorous action which now 
mark the course of Milwaukee in these regards been brought 
into effective use many years ago, much of the extraordinary 
effort now necessary to restore the traffic of the northwest to 
its natural and proper channels would have been saved. 
The wheat movement, in which Milwaukee is more interest¬ 
ed than in any other-class of commercial transactions, is illus¬ 
trated by the following table, in which comparison is also 
made between the receipts and shipments of Milwaukee and 
Chicago, which cities in this particular, however great the dif¬ 
ference in other respects, are rival cities: 
Table showing the Receipts and Shipments of Wheat at Milwaukee and 
Chicago during the past eleven years. 
Years. 
RECEIPTS. 
SHIPMENTS. 
Chicago. 
Milwaukee. 
Chicago. 
Milwaukee. 
1800. 
14,927,083 
9,108,081 
12,402,197 
7,508,608 
1801. 
17,385,002 
15,930,700 
15,835,953 
13,300,495 
1802. 
13,978,110 
15,G30,995 
13.808,898 
14,915,080 
1803. 
11,408,101 
13,485,419 
10,793,295 
12,837,620 
1804. 
12,184,977 
9,147,274 
10,250,020 
8,992,479 
1805. 
9,200,410 
12,043,059 
7,014,887 
10,479,777 
1800 . 
11,978,753 
12,777,557 
10,118,907 
11,634,749 
1807. 
13,095,244 
12,523,404 
10,557,123 
9,598,452 
1808. 
14,772,094 
12,750,578 
10,374,083 
9,878,090 
1809. 
10,870,700 
17,745,258 
13,244,249 
14,272,799 
1870. 
17,394,409 
18,883,837 
10,432,585 
16,127,838 
