Nor Is It For Corn And Wheat Only That Its Waters Are
Needed.
Timber, lead, iron, coal, pork - all find, or should find,
their exit to the world at large by this road.
There are towns on
it, and on its tributaries, already holding more than one hundred
and fifty thousand inhabitants. The number of Cincinnati exceeds
that, as also does the number of St. Louis. Under these
circumstances it is not wonderful that the States should wish to
keep in their own hands the navigation of this river.
It is not wonderful. But it will not, I think, be admitted by the
politicians of the world that the navigation of the Mississippi
need be closed against the West, even though the Southern States
should succeed in raising themselves to the power and dignity of a
separate nationality. If the waters of the Danube be not open to
Austria, it is through the fault of Austria. That the subject will
be one of trouble, no man can doubt; and of course it would be well
for the North to avoid that, or any other trouble. In the mean
time the importance of this right of way must be admitted; and it
must be admitted, also, that whatever may be the ultimate resolve
of the North, it will be very difficult to reconcile the West to a
divided dominion of the Mississippi.
St. Paul contains about 14,000 inhabitants, and, like all other
American towns, is spread over a surface of ground adapted to the
accommodation of a very extended population. As it is belted on
one side by the river, and on the other by the bluffs which
accompany the course of the river, the site is pretty, and almost
romantic. Here also we found a great hotel, a huge, square
building, such as we in England might perhaps place near to a
railway terminus in such a city as Glasgow or Manchester, but on
which no living Englishman would expend his money in a town even
five times as big again as St. Paul. Everything was sufficiently
good, and much more than sufficiently plentiful. The whole thing
went on exactly as hotels do down in Massachusetts or the State of
New York. Look at the map and see where St. Paul is. Its distance
from all known civilization - all civilization that has succeeded in
obtaining acquaintance with the world at large - is very great.
Even American travelers do not go up there in great numbers,
excepting those who intend to settle there. A stray sportsman or
two, American or English, as the case may be, makes his way into
Minnesota for the sake of shooting, and pushes on up through St.
Paul to the Red River. Some few adventurous spirits visit the
Indian settlements, and pass over into the unsettled regions of
Dacotah and Washington Territory. But there is no throng of
traveling. Nevertheless, a hotel has been built there capable of
holding three hundred guests, and other hotels exist in the
neighborhood, one of which is even larger than that at St. Paul.
Who can come to them, and create even a hope that such an
enterprise may be remunerative?
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