Слике страница
PDF
ePub

Exports of Cotton from Mobile to Foreign Ports for Two Years.

[blocks in formation]

To Great Britain-In American Vessels 247436 128692188 $14939552 188120 97508805 $10789797 In British Vessels..105545 54634863 6876062 76823 38641015 4247635 In Swedish Vessels.

Total to Great Britain.....

To France--In American Vessels...

700 364018

40264 352981 183327051 $21816214 265643 36513838 15077696 105782 55861387 6393042 89689 46555080 5137902

[blocks in formation]

The receipts of cotton at this port, for the year, August 31st, 1858, to August 31st, 1859 amount to 691,724 bales, which is an excess of 168,666 bales on that of the preceding year.

Very shortly after the evacuation of the Spaniards, a newspaper was established in Mobile, even before the battle of New-Orleans. There are here now four daily newspapers, and as many weekly papers from the same offices.

The Register (democratic) is the oldest paper, and dates from December, 1821. It is now published by the Hon. John Forsyth.

The Advertiser (conservative) was established in 1833, and is now published by Messrs. W. G. Clark & Co. The Evening News, now an appendage of the first, dates from the 1st of November, 1852.

The Tribune (independent) was founded in 1842, and is now published by Messrs. H. Ballantyne & Co.

The Mercury (State rights democrat) was established on the 12th of August, 1857, and is now published by Messrs. Horn, Brantly & Co., the editors of which have shown us all courtesy in strengthening our friendly relations in Mobile, for which we tender our sincerest thanks.

Twenty-four places for the worship of God are now to be found here, among which nearly all the principal sects of Christians are represented, with able ministers, and the Jews also have two synagogues. Among the church edifices are several that would be creditable to any of our larger cities, while all of them, without exception, are neat, well built, well preserved, and well attended. There are three Roman Catholic, five Methodist, four Presbyterian, three

Protestant Episcopal, and three Baptist churches, one Protestant Methodist church, one Bethel (the latter for seamen), one church for colored Protestant Episcopalians, and two churches for colored Methodists, and a Floating Chapel anchored in the Mobile Bay, for the seamen of the large commercial fleet, while awaiting cargoes. The "Bethel" and the "Ship-Church" are beneficent charities.

The charitable institutions are numerous here. Among them are: The Protestant Orphan Asylum, and the Catholic Orphan Asylum, in which the young orphan children of this city, who are left penniless and friendless, are taken, nursed, clothed and trained for some useful calling.

The Female Benevolent Society has connected with it a most humane provision-a row of 12 brick houses ("the Widows' Row") and occupied by none but widows, in order to rescue "the lone ones" from the pangs of poverty and desolation.

The Samaritan Society, and the "Can't-get-Away Club," are specially devoted to the sick and suffering.

The City owns an Hospital, a large, commodious and well-ventilated edifice for the poor, where they are all well nursed and attended by highly competent and skilful physicians.

The United States have a Marine Hospital here, an excellent establishment, with an eminent professional gentleman at its head. The Providence Infirmary is a large, new, and well-arranged building, under the kindly superintendence of the Sisters of Charity. Besides these institutions, which are public, there are several private hospitals under the care of enterprising professional gentlemen. With a medical faculty sufficiently numerous, and of the best professional training, Mobile needs nothing that public spirit and private enterprise can do, to meet all the exigencies incident to the climate. No city in the Union has a better regulated Fire Department than Mobile. There are eight engine companies, and one hook-and-ladder company. They are all fully manned by a true and able body of men, with machines of the best workmanship, and all the late improvements.

The United States Bank had a branch here, which, on its failure to get a charter from Congress, was closed early in 1836. George Poe, Esq., was its Cashier, and had the satisfaction to report to the mother-bank that the Mobile branch, in its dealings of many millions, had never lost a dollar.

The Planters and Merchants' Bank was chartered in the year 1836. It ceased to exist in 1842. It began in bad times, when the great revulsion of 1837 shook the whole commercial world.

There are at present in successful operation here, two banks of issue; the Bank of Mobile was first chartered on the 20th of November, 1818, and this charter was renewed on the 9th of February, 1852, for twenty years; and the Southern Bank of Alabama was chartered on the 12th of February, 1850.

The capital of these banks is actually insufficient for the commercial purposes of the city of Mobile, the transmission simply of whose

staple to distant markets, requires about thirty-five millions of dollars.

The Mechanics Savings' Company is (though not a bank of issue) a bank of discount and deposit. It is a useful and well-managed bank, and was incorporated on the 7th February, 1852.

The education of the people, so wisely aided by the general government, has been, after many trials, well-seconded in this city.

There is here the Barton Academy, a school edifice, which may vie in cost of construction, extent and adaptation, with the best edifices of the kind in the Union. It is nearly 200 feet long, three stories high, and sixty feet wide. The rooms are large and airy, and the accommodations most ample for schools of both sexes, and of all the degrees of scholarship. The situation of the building, surrounded by a heavy and substantial iron railing, with live oaks on all sides, within the enclosure of an entire block of ground, presented to the city by Willoughby Barton, Esq, a young lawyer from Georgia, is, in all respects, admirable. Here young men may be fitted for college, or finish a course, in which all the ordinary collegiate studies are taught by able and efficient masters. And young ladies may, under accomplished teachers of their own sex, be fitted to adorn any sphere of life.

The United States have finished a magnificent building for a Custom-House, Court-House, and Post-Office, of granite and iron, at a cost of $400,000.

In our review, thus hastily sketched, of the city of Mobile, we should rise from our task unsatisfied, were we to omit to note the quiet and unostentatious dignity, order, and system, with which its commercial transactions are conducted.

Our intercourse with the mercantile society of the city, and our observation of the high-toned and honorable bearing with which the largest commercial transactions are daily carried on, have satisfied our mind, that the characteristics for which the Mobile merchants are distinguished, have not been undeserved.

Indeed, the remark has been proverbial for many years, that in no section of the Union has commercial honor, and the moral observance of the obligations of contracts, attained so high an elevation as in this emporium of the great State of Alabama.

And when we consider the importance, in a commerciel point of view, which the city occupies in the scale of exporting ports of the Union, being, at this period, the second exporting city of America, how incalculable must be the advantage it derives from a character so universally accorded to it for its "sound and fair dealing," its religious observance of contracts, and punctilious honor in performing them. Indeed, under a calm, and, we trust, not a hasty and undigested view of the present and prospective importance of Mobile, we have been surprised to find, from authority which commands our full respect and credence, that the present estimate of value placed upon real estate is so low as compared with its great commercial neighbor and rival New-Orleans.

We are informed that, with the exception of a few favorably situ

ated localities for business, real estate is not to-day marketable for as high a price as it is in the interior towns of Selma and Montgomery ; the latter of which has had its importance greatly enhanced, within a few years, by its selection as the capital of the State.

The depression in the value of real estate in Mobile, is, doubtless, attributable, in some degree, to the ample area adopted originally as the city limits, embracing, as it does, a beautiful plain of miles in extent, now lying without the city proper, or resting in a state of nature, wholly unimproved.

To the eye of a stranger, in an hour's ride over the environs of the city (no part of the Union can be more beautiful and picturesque), the impression is made, that, at no distant day, an immense impetus must be realized in the extent and expansion of its population.

When we consider, too, the peculiar facilities of this location for a great city, in other respects, and the public works now rapidly progressing to completion, in order to connect the city with the great West, by the Mobile and Ohio railroad, and with the East, by the Great Northern railroad, now a secured purpose, well and amply projected and provided for, thus penetrating the richest sections of four of the most productive States of the Union, agriculturally, the conviction on our mind is irresistible, that this city, great, comparatively, as it now is, is only in its infancy.

To crown all, its advantages in regard to cleanliness and health, and the easy access to the most healthful region on the continent, within one hour's ride, over fine roads, to a delightful pine woods country, and as secure from epidemic as the Andes, with the present free-stone water, and where land can be obtained in any quantity, at from two to five dollars per acre, completes a picture which we have attempted truthfully to draw of some of the many encouraging reflections produced on our mind, from a short sojourn in this polished and hospitable city.

Finally, if we may be permitted to penetrate the future, and "look into the seeds of time," we now venture the prediction that the city of Mobile will, in three years more of the toil, industry, public spirit and enterprise of its citizens, enter upon a new career of prosperity and development, and continue, for a half century to come, to approximate in commercial importance to the Queen City of the Gulf of Mexico, and, although she may never equal the latter, her march will be onward, in parallel lines, and, while satisfying the amplest aspirations of her friends, and being the pride of Alabama, command the admiration and respect of New-Orleans and the country.

ART. VI.-ENFRANCHISEMENT OF SOUTHERN COMMERCE.

ARGUMENT OF D. II. LONDON, PRESIDENT OF THE SOUTHERN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION OF VIRGINIA.

THE official records of the country assert that the representation from the States of Virginia and New-York, in the Congress of the United States, were as follows:

[blocks in formation]

And to-day the proportions are as they were in the year 1850 namely: Virginia has thirteen representatives in the House of Representatives in the Congress of the United States, while New-York has thirtythree. But the commerce of these two States presents a picture worthy of the profoundest attention.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

This table is in pounds, and the imports and exports of Maryland and Virginia are placed together for these years; but by reference to the memorial and accompanying documents of the Central Southern Rights Association of Virginia to the legislature of the State, in the year 1851, at page 9, it will be seen that it is stated as taken from Inut's Merchants' Magazine, and believed to be true, that, in the year 1791, the imports and exports of Virginia alone, as compared with New-York, were as follows:

Virginia imports..

Virginia exports

$2.486,000
3 131,000

New-York imports...
New-York exports....

.$3.022,000

2,505,000

At this period, 1791, these two States were nearly equal. Let us now see the appalling picture of the exports and imports of these two States in the years following:

[blocks in formation]

111 123.524 52,712,789

Who

By whose action has this condition of affairs been produced? has deprived Virginia of her once flourishing foreign commerce?— Who has neglected her interests? Who has plundered her husbandmen of their labor? Who has turned her seaports into neglected villages? Whose blighting hand has dwarfed her representation in the national legislature, till she is too feeble even to be respected where she was once powerful? In vain is it answered that the insti. tution of slavery has produced this result. Slavery existed in Vir

« ПретходнаНастави »