CONTENTS OF NO. IV., VOL. XXXI. ARTICLES. ART. PAGE. 403 414 I. OUR AMERICAN LAKE CITIES. By J. W. SCOTT, Esq., of Ohio... 11. A MERCANTILE AUTOBIOGRAPHY. VINCENT NOLTE, OF EUROPE AND AMERICA ....... Maine-Massachusetts-New 420 III, FINANCES OF STATES OF THE UNION IN 1853-54. V. TRADE AND COMMERCE OF NEW ORLEANS IN 1853-54. Introductory Remarks on fra le during the Year-Cotton Market and Crop-Prices of Cotton-Consumption of Cotton-Sugar Market, &c. -Tobacco-Western Produce-Prices of Flour, Corù, &c.— Pork Market-Prices of Lard-Coffee Sales, Prices, &c.-Exchanges at New Orleaus on England and New York-Freights, &c. 440 JOURNAL OF MERCANTILE LAW. Dispute as to quality of goods delivered The Law of Lost Bills of Exchange.-Liabilities of Railways Legal decision in regard to falsely packed Cotton.-Shipping Merchants-Freight.. Ejectment-Non-payment of Rent.-Insolvency.-Bank Liabilities Broker selling shares procuring Registry..... 454 455 456 457 458 459 COMMERCIAL CHRONICLE AND REVIEW: EMBRACING A FINANCIAL AND COMMERCIAL REVIEW OF THE united stateS, ETC., ILLUSTRA TED WITH TABLES, ETC., AS FOLLOWS: Gradual return of Public Confidence-Review of the Market throughout the Country, and further details of the causes of the recent pressure - Prospects for the future at home and abroad -Effect of abundant Harvests in Europe upon the demand for Cotton-Notice of the Trade in Dry Goods-The late Bank Panic and the impolicy of illegitimate Banking— Bank averages of the New York, Boston, and Massachusetts Country Banks-The Railroad Interest-Deposits and Coinage at the Philadelphia and New Orleans Mints-Foreign Imports at New York for August and from January first-Imports of Dry Goods-Cash Duties received at New York, Boston, and Philadelphia-Exports from New York and Foreign Ports for August and from January first-Exports of certain lending Articles of Produce from New York to For eign Ports-Trade in Breadstuffs and Provisons, &c.......... New York Cotton Market.... VOL. XXXI.—NO. IV. 26 ...... 459-467 COMMERCIAL REGULATIONS. PAGE Of Goods for Lading and Re-exportation...... 469 Of Returns of Statistics of Foreign Commerce..... 470 Supervision and Inspection of Steamboats.-Duties of Officers in Bonded Warehouses.. 471 472 Of Uniformity in Gauging Imports.... ..... 473 Of the Transportation of Merchandise between the Atlantic and Pacific Ports.. 473 474 COMMERCIAL STATISTICS. Statistics of the Trade and Commerce of New Orleans in 1853-54 Tonnage of each District of the United States in 1853.. JOURNAL OF INSURANCE. Rates of Insurance on Marine Risks at Boston..... State Mutual Life Insurance Company of Massachusetts.. JOURNAL OF BANKING, CURRENCY, AND FINANCE. Condition of Banks in South Carolina.... 475 480 480 483 487 488 Condition of Free Bauks of Indiana. Relative Value of the Real and Personal Estate in the city and county of New York, as assessed in 1853 and 1854.. 489 490 Condition of the New Orleans Banks.-The National Debt of England.. 492 493 Condition of the Banks in Boston.-Taxation in England.. 494 Rates of Exchange in New Orleans.-Receipts and Expenditures of the United States 495 The New Canadian Currency.-Imports of Specie into New Orleans RAILROAD, CANAL, AND STEAMBOAT STATISTICS. The Canals and Other Public Works of New York, No. IV., the Cost and Charges of Transport. 496 Boston and Worcester Railroad..... The Victoria Railway Bridge at Montreal. Increase of British Steam and Sail Marine.. ......... ............ Galena and Chicago Union Railroad.-Receipts of French Railroads.. 500 501 502 503 503 STATISTICS OF AGRICULTURE, &c. The Value of Lands in each County of the State of Ohio in 1853 .. Is Farming Profitable?-Asparagus Seed a Substitute for Coffee. The Dioscorea Japonica a Substitute for Potatoes.... NAUTICAL INTELLIGENCE. Wheat Production and Exportation of the United States.-The Culture of Cotton in India.. 504 500 507 508 509 509 Discovery of a Shoal off New Point Comfort, and Description of York Spit, Chesapeake Bay... 510 Fixed Light at Plumb Point, Port Royal, Jamaica...... North Carolina Gold Mines.-The Gold Mines of California not giving out.. 517 MERCANTILE MISCELLANIES. Literature of Commerce.-Letter of Ed. Merchants' Magazine to Ed. Boston Transcript, &c.... 518 The Wall Street Journal.-Mercantile Honesty of a Turk............ The Law of Compensation. England's Commerce with Russia in Peace and War... The Energetic Merchant.--The Wives and Daughters of Merchants. 520 520 521 392 THE BOOK TRADE. Notices of new Books or new Editions 523-598 HUNT'S MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE AND COMMERCIAL REVIEW. OCTOBER, 1854. Art. 1.-OUR AMERICAN LAKE CITIES. THE rapid growth of the cities on the central plain of our continent, is attracting much attention. This is especially true of our lake cities. To many persons this seems unaccountable. The reason of such rapid development is, however, easily found. On the borders of the lakes and west of the mountains, in our central plain-including the Canadas and the southwestern states, there live some fifteen millions of people, among the different communities of whom a great Commerce is springing up. Of this number, a less proportion than one-eighth live in cities and towns. The other seven-eighths, over thirteen millions, are chiefly engaged in cultivating the earth. The product of their industry so far exceeds the consumption of the interior cities, that the whole world scarcely affords a sufficient market. The increase of their number, yearly, is some eight hundred thousand, soon to become a million. This increase should be absorbed in the towns, because, the thirteen million of farmers are more than sufficient for the production of food and raw material for both home supply and foreign demand. In England and Scotland, but one-third of the population is engaged in agriculture. In our central plain, one-half will be an ample proportion for feeling the other half, for furnishing supplies to the less fertile states, east, and for export abroad. At this time there are, in our cities and towns, on the borders of the great lakes and the St. Lawrence river, about six hundred thousand. These cities and towns are the natural concentrating points of commerce for more than six millions of people. They are rapidly forming railroad connections with the cities and towns having an aggregate population of 800,000, situated on the navigable waters of the Mississippi and Mobile basins; and, what is of more immediate benefit to their growth, they are being, by the same means, intimately connected with each other and with the great region around them whose indigenous products and imports they receive and distribute. Here, then, are the elements for computing the future growth of our lake and St. Lawrence cities: six million of industrious and commercial people having but one-tenth of their number living in cities and towns which are used for their commerce. This disproportion is being corrected by the very rapid growth of the centers of trade which nature has most strongly marked for great cities. By means of railroads over the level surface, the best harbors are easily reached. The six millions using the lakes and St. Lawrence, as their chief channel of Commerce, will, in fifteen years, swell to twelve millions. The chief cities of these millions, to overcome the present disproportion of the rural population, should have a growth much more rapid than the average aggregate increase. If these cities should absorb the whole increase of the fifteen years, to wit, six millions, the rural population would still be equal to that of the cities and capable of feeding, besides themselves, nearly twice the numbers which their cities would then contain. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to expect a growth of these cities, during the coming fifteen years, adding some six millions to their present numbers. This will give them a growth more rapid than heretofore and much beyond that which has been witnessed in the cities of any other country. If we allow to the three largest one-half of this increase, being three millions, it would, equally divided, give a million to each. If, instead of one-half, we allow one-third only for the cities, in the year 1869; and if, of this third, being four millions, we concede two millions to the three largest cities with their dependent suburbs, it will give to each of the three twothirds of a million. It will be natural to inquire whether, up to this time, the lake cities have given indication of such extraordinary future increase. Let us see. Chicago, from 1840 to 1850 increased from 4,479 to 29,963. This is nearly equal to a duplication each three-and-a-half years. The same rate of increase continued from this time (July 1854) fifteen years, would give to that city over a million. Since 1850, it has increased (in round numbers) from thirty to sixty-six thousand, showing about the same rate of increase as before. Toledo increased from June 1850 to January 1854 from 3,870 to 8,700, being very nearly equal to a duplication once in three years. This rate, carried forward fifteen years from this time, would give it a population of over three hundred thousand. If the rate of increase of the last year (34 per cent) should be continued, fifteen years would give it over seven hundred thousand. Cleveland with Ohio city, which has been united to her, will have, at the rate of increase since 1850, some 900,000 in 1869. Detroit, from 1840 to 1850 increased from 9,102 to 21,019, or 120 per cent. If seven years be adopted as the period of duplication, Detroit will have, in fifteen years, one hundred and fifty thousand. Buffalo, from 1840 to 1850, increased 132 per cent, which will give a duplication in about seven years. This rate continued to 1869 would swell her population to about 270,000. These would be great results and incredible to those who have not looked well into the elements from which they are to be produced. If it be asked, how are we to know beforehand with reasonable certainty which are to be the favored cities destined to show forth such wonderful augmentation, the answer will, on investigation, be found less difficult than, at first, would seem probable. Our interior plain presents so few obstacles to the construction of railroads that its land Commerce, by their means, might be concentrated at almost any point with equal facility. If Com merce could be carried on by railroads as economically as by lakes, rivers and canals-these water channels, so far from drawing it to their borders, would be but obstructions to turn it aside, and the largest interior cities would grow up at points intermediate between the lakes and rivers. But the cost of transportation by water is but a fraction of that by the best railroad. For long distances, on the lakes, it scarcely exceeds one-eighth, on the rivers one-fifth, and on good canals one-third. In the race of improvement between the water and the land channels of trade, it is impossible to foresee which will advance on its rival, but it does not seem probable that during the next fifteen years railroads will be operated so as to bring the proportionate cost of transport, by their means, nearer than three to one of that by the average water channels. The chief cities of the lakes must, therefore, be built where the Commerce of water channels is greatest, and where railroads are invited to concentrate, by the conformation of the surrounding country, as well as by the advantages offered at the best points of concentration of water channels. Chicago, Toledo, Cleveland, Buffalo and Oswego possess these advantages, in different degrees. They all unite lake and canal Commerce and possess more or less advantages for the concentration of railroads. These advantages, in extent, may be attributed to them in the order they are named. Chicago seems to have the advantage of the others in position, being nearer the center of fertile territory and having an easier connection with the Mississippi river. Toledo, in these respects, stands next and possesses some advantages over Chicago, in easier and better means of intercourse with Cincinnati and the Ohio river generally, as also with the Canadas. The Illinois canal, one hundred miles long, gives Chicago a cheap water connection with the Illinois navigation and, by that channel, with the Mississippi. The Miami and Erie canal, two hundred and forty-seven miles long, connects Toledo and Cincinnati; and the Wabash and Erie canal, four hundred and sixty miles in length, traverses the Maumee and the best portion of the Wabash valley, connecting Toledo with the lower Ohio at Evansville. The tonnage of these canals, to and from Toledo, has doubled once in three years, since they were opened. Chicago and Toledo, it will be perceived, have no rivals on the lakes, in the great advantage of holding the shortest and cheapest channels of trade connecting them with the great rivers of the plain and the great cities, St. Louis and Cincinnati, &c., bordering these rivers. By means of these channels, and railroads parallel to them, they hold the keys of the Commerce, soon to become immense, between the great rivers and the great lakes of the continent. Chicago and Toledo not only possess this advantage, by means of their water channels, but they are the natural points of convergence for the railroads that, from the gulf cities and the chief cities of the great river borders, seek exchanges with the cities of the lakes. Cleveland, in a less, though in a large degree, participates with Chicago and Toledo in the advantages of an exchange commerce with the river cities. She is the lake port of Pittsburg and the river towns on the Ohio below to Maysville; and she will contest with Toledo the railroad passenger traffic to and from the lake, of Cincinnati, Louisville and some other western cities to and from New York and New England. Her control, by means of canals and railroads of the lake trade of Pittsburg, and the upper waters of the Ohio, with that portion of southwestern travel and trade which her position and commercial strength will enable her to command, will, with other advan |