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30,945 rail-road from Milwaukee to Prairie La 44,478 Crosse, on the Mississippi River; another 155,277 .210,546 from Milwaukee to Fond du Lac, on Lake .305,538 Winnebago; and still another from Mil

An increase at the rate of 890 per cent. Waukee to Chicago, in the state of Illiduring the past ten years! At the present nois. The city has, by a vote recently time, Wisconsin may safely claim a popu- taken, loaned her credit for a term of lation of four hundred thousand. The years, for the purpose of aiding in the number of deaths in the state, for the construction of the last named road, year 1849, was 3,039, or one to every (called the "Lake Shore Rail-road.") In hundred inhabitants. This is a high de- two years' time, it is anticipated this road gree of health, and facts gathered from will be completed, when Milwaukee will the census returns show that Wisconsin be in direct communication with Newis one of the healthiest states in the York, by rail-road. Union.

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Milwaukee is the principal city in the state, situated on the shore of Lake Michigan, ninety miles north of Chicago. This city has increased more rapidly than city in the world. In 1836, there was but one frame building on the site of Milwaukee, and only one white family residing in this section of the country.

In 1838, the population was..

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800

.1,751

At the head of navigation of the Milwaukee River, (which runs through the centre of the city, north and south.) a dam has been built, which raises the water about twelve feet, thereby causing a slack water navigation, extending to the village of Humboldt, some A canal of one and three miles north.

a quarter miles long brings this water into town, on the west side of the river, and creates a water-power equal to about one hundred runs of stone. The mills 2,700 9,655 and factories on this canal have the ad14,061 vantage of being located on the immediate bank of the river, and may be approached by the largest class steamers

18,000

.20,061

And at the present time the population navigating the lakes. is at least 25,000.

Liberal charters for various rail-roads, terminating at Milwaukee, have been granted by the legislature of Wisconsin. The Milwaukee and Mississippi Rail-road Company have already completed their road to Whitewater, (50 miles,) and expect, by the first of January, 1853, to have it completed as far as Madison, the capital of the state, (80 miles.) The western terminus has not yet been determined, but it is generally supposed that Prairie du Chien will be selected as the most eligible point.

That this road will find business enough to keep it fully employed cannot be doubted, when the capabilities of Wisconsin, for its agricultural as well as its mineral productions, are considered, together with Iowa, Minnesota, and Nebraska, as tributaries. In looking back for ten or fifteen years at the advance made in the facilities for travel and transportation, it requires no great stretch of the imagination to foresee the time when a chain of railway will extend to the shores of the Pacific, and that this road will be one of the connecting links in that thoroughfare of the world.

Wisconsin is a grain-producing state, notwithstanding the much-talked-of failure of the wheat crop in the years '49, '50 and '51. The partial failure of this crop during the years just mentioned, has proved a benefit rather than a detriment to the state, causing farmers to turn their attention to a variety of crops, and not to rely entirely on wheat, as they had been in the habit of doing. Considerable attention has been attracted to flax, and large quantities have been raised during the last two years. A farmer at Mukwonago, Waukesha county, has, for a number of years, devoted his time to the cultivation of this article, and with gratifying success. Tobacco is also grown in this state, but whether Wisconsin farmers will be able to compete with their brethren of Maryland and Virginia, is a matter of experiment.

The statistics of four of the counties in eastern Wisconsin, for the year 1850, are as follows:

Population

No. Acres
cleared

Bushels

No. Farms Wheat

Milwaukee....39,077 32,623...
Waukesha ..19,174....104.439....1,703 .331,156
Racine....... 14,973.. 64,338...
50,938...

A charter has also been granted for a Kenosha... 10,732..

985.... 60,096

971....281,149 914....318,051

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Corn, bushels

Wool, lbs

8,330

.12,430.

Hides, lbs.

26,042

Ashes, tons.

10,093.

.20,223

Lard, lbs..

.12,767.

.33,439

Broom Corn, tons

Merchandise, tons.

During the year 1851, a large number of sheep was brought into Wisconsin from Ohio and Michigan. The amount of wool therefore produced in the abovementioned counties during the present year will no doubt reach 175,000 lbs. Within four years, the united products of these four counties will not be less than 600,000 lbs. of wool, and will doubtless bring an amount equal to the sum which will then be received for their now greatest staple. These united in the year 1855 will yield not less than half a million of dollars, and nearly double this sum would be realized if the domestic interests were only fostered by the government.

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The products of these counties may taken as a fair basis, in order to form an estimate for the balance of the state. Taking only the 20,000 farms-as reported by the census returns of 1850-as under cultivation, the amount realized by farmers on wool and wheat would be $2,300,000 at present prices.

Sundries, bbls. bulk
Lead, lbs.
Lime, bbls
Brick

Merchandise, tons...
Sundries, bbls. bulk

Salt, bags
Salt, bbls..
Fruit, bbls..
Fish, bbls.
Lumber, sawed.
Shingles

22,233

226,256

.385,840

262

..29,120

843

741

.22,996

.987,840

2,500 .353,000

RACINE.
Imports.

1,916

5,857

4,000

6,734

4,004

300

.10,500,000

.3,600,000

733

463

117

500

100

.21,000

100

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1,112

1.712

.272,678

80,893

.40.908

..18,941

.106,471

112,000

55

.22,400

448 7,277

250

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Ashes, tons
Lard, lbs.

Merchandise, tons.
Sundries, bbls. bulk

For the following statement of the imports and exports of the eastern district of Wisconsin-comprising the ports of Hay, on Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, Sheboygan, Port Washington and Manitouwoc-we

Ship Knees

are indebted to ALLEN W. HATCH, Esq., Merchandise, tons. the efficient collector of the port:

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The following statistics of the exports from the state bordering on the Mississippi, we extract from the speech of Hon. Otis Hoyt, in the Assembly of 1852:

There are on the Mississippi River, above the mouth of the St. Croix River, engaged in cutting logs, eleven saws-cutting 15,000,000 feet of sawed lumber annually, at $10 per thousand 50,000

feet..

10,000,000 feet of logs..

.$150.000

On the St. Croix River, there are seventeen saws-cutting 26,000,000 feet, at $10.

22,000,000 logs, at $5

Square timber, lath. &c.

The Chippewa River yields 20,000,000 feet of lumber, at $10..

1,000,000 feet of logs, at $5.

Square timber, lath, shingles, &c

The Black River yields 15,000,000 feet of
lumber, at $10..

Logs, square timber, lath, shingles, &c..
Furs and peltries from the whole region...
The whole amount of exports from this part
of the state, is estimated at....

110,000

200,000

20,000

ties for easy access to the east and south, affording promise of great agricultural and commercial prosperity. Perhaps no state can enjoy so many advantages at so little expense.

The towns in the interior are destined to a rapid growth, for the rail-road system will give to them nearly all the advantages heretofore enjoyed by the river and lake towns, and the farmers in every part 260,000 of the state will have, at their own doors, 10,000 a ready market for their surplus products. It only remains an open question whether manufactures may be successfully intro5,000 duced, so as to augment the resources and quicken into greater activity other 15.000 industrial pursuits. It has been said that 200,000 Wisconsin cannot become a manufactur1,170,000 ing state, because there are no extensive coal beds to furnish motive power; but whether manufactures are dependent upon the supply and cost of coal, and whether wood and water may not afford a sufficient and economical substitute, are questions yet to be solved.

150,000

In concluding this article, we would say, that the undeveloped resources of Wisconsin have attracted the attention of capitalists and scientific men. The extent of her territory, and the fertility of the soil, ready, by the alternations of prairie and timber, for the labor of the husbandman, bid fair to make this one of the first agricultural states in the Union.

Internal improvements are needed to bring into communication with the markets the interior counties; but all the lake shore on the east, and the river counties on the west, enjoy the best natural facili

The construction of canals in the older states a few years ago increased the manufacturing facilities by furnishing a large water-power; and why may not Wisconsin, which abounds in natural water-falls and rapid streams, turn them to advantage to increase her resources and benefit her sons?

ART. III-FREE BANKING.

PART III.

THE use of state or government stocks as securities for a paper currency, involyes the most important considerations. It opens up all the questions touching a public debt, to which we must in due course direct our attention.

Our first proposition is, that the credit of a state is no fit foundation for a paper currency. The stocks of a state are only its promissory notes.

Upon these, as securities, free banking bases a lower order or stratum of promissory notes, viz. the notes or paper promises of banks, and again, for these are exchanged the notes or promises of private persons-thus giving us a descending series of credits, from the peo

ple as a government, to the people as individuals. The result of such a scheme is obvious and irresistible.

The whole fabric of the currency being built on credit accumulated on credit, the edifice gradually expands and enlarges, and finally becomes so large and overtowering, that it is borne down almost by its own superincumbent weight, crushing the whole community beneath its ruins. No prudent merchant would knowingly extend his confidence to the country dealer whose whole resources were built on similar frail foundations. He would feel that he was recklessly careless to sell out his property to individuals whose credit was built on t

Free Banking.

credit of a class of other individuals, who in turn obtained their credit from some other and still more distant individuals, whose own wealth, in fine, was but á mere credit itself.

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now found themselves in the vortex of an excitement well nigh as maddening. We need not detail the result of that excitement. The recoil is yet fresh in our minds. He who was the millionaire and capitalist of the spring-tide had hardly wherewith to get a breakfast in the succeeding winter, even though his pockets were crammed with thousands in bank paper. But it was not the millionaire alone or mostly who suffered by that panic. The laborer was the man upon whom that blighting bank revulsion fell most terribly. Well might it be said of all such paper manias, "that they are the most effectual of all the inventions to fertilize the rich man's field with the sweat of the poor man's brow. Ordinary tyranny, oppression and taxation-these bear lightly on the happiness of the community, compared with fraudulent currencies and the robberies committed by depreciated paper."

To say nothing of the frailty of such a foundation for a currency, what must be the effect of the scheme on the whole system of values? Is it not plain that such a multiplication and overriding of credit on credit gives the whole paper money system an accelerated and accumulated energy, which grows with its every impulse. It is the elastic ball, whose velocity increases with every rebound, until the rapidity of its speed baffles the skill of those who set it in motion. Once started, the expansive system can never stop, but must go on increasing in power. Bear with us a moment, while we recall a few incidents in the history of our currency. During our Revolutionary struggle the Continental Congress issued about three hun- And now, if our state government do dred millions of paper money, in the not adopt prompt measures to arrest the shape of bills of credit, and such was the further increase of our paper currency, untoward result of that action, that in the scenes of 1837 will again be repeated. 1787 every precaution was taken to Then the currency rose to the enormous guard against the occurrence of such amount of one hundred and forty-nine evils. Now," said Oliver Ellsworth, millions. From this excessive expansion "is the favorable moment to shut and it sank in 1843 to fifty-eight millions, and bar the door against paper money." The in 1847 rose to one hundred and five milstates were positively prohibited by the lions, and now, in 1852, it has attained constitution from making anything but the height of one hundred and sixty milgold and silver a legal tender, and the lions. And this, too, at a time when a federal government was denied the power of emitting bills of credit or establishing a national bank. To make their opinions still more explicit, the hard money men of 1789, in the very first revenue act of Congress, prohibited the payment of revenue dues and duties with anything but gold and silver. It was not long, however, before the ingenuity of interest overleaped all such restrictions. The convulsions of 1819, 1825 and 1837, each and singular, attest the rapid growth of our banking system. The most memorable of those revulsions was that of 1837. During the three preceding years our banking capital had increased ninety-one millions, and our banking circulation fifty-four millions. The loans rose from three hundred and twenty-five to five hundred and twenty-five millions, being an average annual expansion of about fifty millions of dollars. The effect of this inflation of credit was instantaneous and tremendous. Men who had laughed at the insane bubbles of the Mississippi and South Sea speculations,

tide of gold is setting in from every shore, and when the receipts of coin from California have in the aggregate reached two hundred millions.

What stability can there be in the value of property or contracts? What steady employment can labor expect, when the artificial standard by which property contracts and labor are measured, is thus constantly and violently fluctuating? In other words, when your currency is periodically depreciated by an over-issue of paper.

We deride and contemn the mean artifice of those monarchs who debased their coin and unsettled the standard of value in use among their own people. And yet this very thing we contemnthis monstrous power to violate all contracts and prostrate labor, has been bestowed by the legislatures of republican government on moneyed corporations.

Government dare not debase its coin, but banks are invested with the sovereign power to depreciate the currency at will. And as if to encourage them to perpetu

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