The Mississippi, With Its
Tributaries, Carried To Market, Before The War, The Produce Of
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio,
Kentucky,
Tennessee, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
This country is larger than England, Ireland, Scotland, Holland,
Belgium, France, Germany,
And Spain together, and is undoubtedly
composed of much more fertile land. The States named comprise the
great center valley of the continent, and are the farming lands and
garden grounds of the Western World. He who has not seen corn on
the ground in Illinois or Minnesota, does not know to what extent
the fertility of land may go, or how great may be the weight of
cereal crops. And for all this the Mississippi was the high-road
to market. When the crop of 1861 was garnered, this high-road was
stopped by the war. What suffering this entailed on the South I
will not here stop to say, but on the West the effect was terrible.
Corn was in such plenty - Indian-corn, that is, or maize - that it
was not worth the farmer's while to prepare it for market. When I
was in Illinois, the second quality of Indian-corn, when shelled,
was not worth more than from eight to ten cents a bushel. But the
shelling and preparation is laborious, and in some instances it was
found better to burn it for fuel than to sell it. Respecting the
export of corn from the West, I must say a further word or two in
the next chapter; but it seemed to be indispensable that I should
point out here how great to the United States is the need of the
Mississippi. 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? In America it is seldom more than
hope, for one always hears that such enterprises fail.
When I was there the war was in hand, and it was hardly to be
expected that any hotel should succeed. The landlord told me that
he held it at the present time for a very low rent, and that he
could just manage to keep it open without loss. The war which
hindered people from traveling, and in that way injured the
innkeepers, also hindered people from housekeeping, and reduced
them to the necessity of boarding out, by which the innkeepers were
of course benefited. At St. Paul I found that the majority of the
guests were inhabitants of the town, boarding at the hotel, and
thus dispensing with the cares of a separate establishment. I do
not know what was charged for such accommodation at St. Paul, but I
have come across large houses at which a single man could get all
that he required for a dollar a day. Now Americans are great
consumers, especially at hotels, and all that a man requires
includes three hot meals, with a choice from about two dozen dishes
at each.
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