CANALS VERSUS RAILROADS-FREIGHTS. The following table, says the Buffalo Courier, shows the amount of toll paid on a barrel of flour, bushel of wheat, and 100 lbs. of other produce and merchandise, passing through the entire length of the canal, under the tariff of tolls in 1857 and 1858, together with the reduction of tolls in 1858 :BUFFALO TO TIDE WATER, 352 MILES. In 1857 the average of cargoes of boats going to tide-water was about 125 tons, and the up cargo from 35 to 45 tons. The average cost of running a boat round was in 1857 about $400. The cargoes this spring will range, each, from 160 to 175 tons down, and the up from 80 to 95 tons. The only additional cost this season in transporting to tide-water the increased tonnage, is in handling the property at either end of the route; for it requires no more hands to manage, or horses to tow, a 175-ton boat than it does a 125-ton boat. The increased capacity of the canal this year is, therefore, fully equal to $100 over toll, on a 228 round trip, in the cost of running a boat, as compared with last year. The Western Transportation Company are now consigning goods and merchandise from New York to Chicago for 40 cents per 100 lbs., or $8 a ton; whie the railroads from New York to Buffalo, and by steam on the Lakes, charge on the same description of goods, which they divide into three classes, 55 cents, 70 cents, and 80 cents per 100 lbs. The canal is now bringing goods to this city in nine days, and delivering them into Chicago in thirteen and fourteen days from New York. The result is, that while the railroads have formerly carried two-thirds of this description of goods, the canal has now over two-thirds, and the railroads scarcely one-third. RAILROAD RECEIPTS FOR THE MONTH OF APRIL, AND FROM JANUARY 1ST TO MAY 5TH. Balt. & Ohio & Parkersburg Branch.. Chicago, St. Paul, and Fond du Lac. Galena and Chicago... 415,888 296,461 412,846 Illinois Central.. The returns show an aggregate slight diminution in general business for the month. MASSACHUSETTS RAILROADS. The American Railway Times contains some comparative details of the operation of the Massachusetts railroads that are of interest. The railway system is in its infancy, and if it cannot be called a financial failure, is evidently not a success. The collateral benefits of railways are immense. If they had all been built by the community at large for the general benefit, the success would undoubtedly have outweighed many times the cost, but while the public have been thus benefited the individual enterprises are not successful. Their re ceipts do not cover wear and tear and expenses. It is only by the application of the largest experience to the management that remedies can be applied, and this experience can be generalized only by the collection of all the details of management hitherto. These details have been best furnished by Massachusetts, and some of the results are as follows: There have been eight years of connected reports in Massachusetts, from 1849 to 1857, inclusive. The results are remarkably uniform, and we give those of the first and last year, as showing all the changes which have occurred : This table affords room for some deductions of interest. The increase of gross receipts is 56 per cent. The increase of gross expenses is 90 per cent, but the increase of net income for the benefit of shareholders is about 31 per cent, or $930,000. The railroads of Massachusetts are probably managed with more scrutiny into expenses than elsewhere. It appears that the total expenses are 58 per cent of the whole receipts. In 1849 they were but 50 per cent. This is a confirmation of the opinion that the economy of the roads is for some reason less. At least, such is the obvious bearing of the figures. Another general fact of interest is the relation of the roads and their business to the surface and population of the State. These relations may be thus expressed : Comparing this with the railroads of Ohio, we find that, in proportion to surface, the roads of Massachusetts are to those of Ohio, as 14 to 6; and in proportion to population, just about the same. The deduction from these facts is just what we should infer naturally would be the case, viz., that the capacity of a State or country to sustain railroads, is in proportion to its people and not its surface. It is the people who furnish the freight as well as the passengers; and, hence, it may be stated as a general truth, that if one million of people would afford sufficient income to a given number of miles of railroads, two millions will support double as many. Nor do we see any definite limit to this principle. Another general deduction from these facts is, that at the ratio of 800 persons to a mile of railroad, the roads will pay over six per cent per annum, and be perfectly secure. Although this is not a speculative interest, yet it may be regarded as enough for safe stocks. The distribution of net income is, of course, by no means even. One short road pays 13 per cent,; three pay 8 per cent,; six pay 7 per cent, and three pay six. The residue pay smaller rates, and several only two or three per cent. These differences will always occur, according to the more or less favorable localities, and good or bad management. JOURNAL OF MINING, MANUFACTURES, AND ART. INCIDENTS OF MANUFACTURING. The Philadelphia United States Gazette, in connection with the progress of manufacturing in that neighborhood generally, remarks, in relation to Ameican manufactures, that its establishment has been no holiday task. From the very beginning they have had not only to contend against the inherent difficulties of the case the creation of skill in workmen, and the building up of new establishments-but they have also had a far more difficult contest to carry on against the disciplined and powerful rivalry of foreign manufactures. More than one branch of the now successful classes of textile fabrics in this city has grown up in defiance of sharp and recent difficulty of this sort. That designated as hosiery manufactures, located in Germantown and the northern part of the city, is a conspicuous case. A very few years since the Nottingham weavers had exclusive control of the market for what is now by far the largest part of this business-the making of those graceful articles of woolen knit-work worn for ornament and for comfort equally, as operas," ," "comforters," head-dresses for children, and a great number of uses not easily named. Within ten years this manufacture at Germantown and other parts of this city, has attained a success which completely fills the American market, including the Canadas, to the exclusion of the Nottingham article entirely. The total product we have made up of this class exceeds one million five hundred thousand dollars of value annually, and in this statement we have placed the production of small establishments, working five to ten looms, at only two-thirds the value given by proprietors for each loom in the larger establishments. These articles are particularly adapted to the general prosperity of a district, from the fact that half the number of persons employed can work at their own choice of hours at their own houses. Though requiring large buildings and steam-power in part of the processes, an equal part of the labor may be given out to be done, and the compulsory attendance on mills, which is sometimes a painful feature of cotton and woolen manufactures, is unnecessary. The value of this resource as an element of prosperity in any community may be judged by a visit to the extending streets of Germantown, and by observing the ease with which the population so employed have borne the recent suspension of business. The principal reason for the success of American fabrics of this sort is the superior grade of wool which can be used here. In England, the high price of all good qualities of wool compels the use of harsh grades, and such as compare at great disadvantage, when made up, with qualities costing the same price here. The skill applied has attained an equality with the best in Nottingham now, and but little more is requisite to change the current of supply, existing a few years since, to one directed towards even England itself. The great point is already gained of liberating the American market from foreign dependence, and this point has cost more of effort and of sacrifice, than the further step of sending goods abroad would now cost. Great credit is due to the energetic proprietors of these factories in this city, since it is by their determined energy that these points have been already gained. If any doubt the difficulties which have actually surrounded even the least efforts at erecting the making of textile fabrics of every class into independence, let them converse, as we have done, with those who have conducted establishments for ten or fifteen years past. The most incredulous and indifferent will then concede that the establishment of a branch of production, making up a million-and-a-half of dollars' worth of goods annually, is a real service. In silk thread, and many narrow fabrics of silk, silk and wool, silk and cotton, etc., a rapid advancement is now taking place. New and original machinery is applied in one factory, with great success. to the manufacture or completion of laces, ruches, and the like goods. In fringes and ornamental silk work there is a large production, which is expanding rapidly, under the favorable operation of the reduction of duties on raw silk. Much of the American market is supplied by Philadelphia goods of this class, which are, perhaps, supposed by the purchasers to be English or French. They deserve already to give the city a name which would carry as strong a recommendation with it as to name them Parisian, and a principal purpose we have in these articles, is to give Philadelphia the reputation it deserves in this respect, and to prevent the continuance of the humiliating usage of deferring to foreign cities in this respect. In this class of silk and mixed ornamental goods, there is now a production of two millions of dollars annually in this city, and we challenge a comparison of the fabrics produced with those from any foreign source whatever. It is unquestionable that Philadelphia is to continue to lead all other American cities in the production of delicate textile fabrics, as well as of the heavy classes, so well known as " Philadelphia goods" now. Climate, cheap residence, present skill, and a favorable locality for distribution, all combine to aid this result. The energy of manufacturers is sufficient, also, and we trust the press will do its duty of controlling that general public opinion which does far more in the case than manufacturers are accustomed to think. A perverse taste, which catches at the foreign and remote, simply because they are foreign, will always exist to some extent, but this can be effectively beaten down, even in commercial matters, by a determined course on the part of the press. WOOLEN FACTORY IN OREGON. A late Oregon paper says:-We have received from Mr. L. E. Lyon of Independence, Oregon, a sample of woolen fabric made by the "Willamette Wool Manufacturing Co." in Salem. In point of texture and quality it compares favorably with any manufactured in the mills of the Eastern States. The experiment of a woolen factory in a newly-settled country like Oregon, speaks well of the enterprise of those engaged in it, and is deserving the utmost success. We find the following description of the factory, at which the sample before us was manufactured, in a correspondence to the Siskiyou Chronicle :— "The woolen factory at this place (Salem) is composed of handsome and substantial edifices. The machinery consists of sixteen looms-eight broad ones, for the manufacture of blankets and broadcloths; two spinning jacks of one hundred and fifty spindles each; six set of carding machines; fulling mill, not one of the great pounding kind, but of singular contrivance, and fulls by squaring the cloth between rollers; a very angry-acting little wool-picker, that has teeth resembling those of threshing machines, and makes one thousand revolutions per minute, creating a perfect wool storm. There are also several ingenious contrivances for reeling, spooling, and washing the wool, and dyeing the cloth when made. The entire cost of the concern was about seventy-five thousand dollars, including the digging of the ditch which supplies the machinery with water. The factory employs at present thirty persons; thirteen of whom are girls. The advantages which must necessarily result to Oregon from this manufacturing enterprise are incalculable. I consider that in this, we, of Oregon, have much to be proud of; and the projectors will not only reap rich and merited rewards for their public spirit, but universal admiration everywhere." NEW GOLD REGIONS ON THE PACIFIC. Recent accounts from Vancouver's Island represent that extensive gold mines have been discovered to the northward, in the British Possessions, between Fort Hope and Thompson's River, and that a regular stampede from the settlements to the diggings has taken place; the gold fever raging with as much violence as it did in California after the first discovery there in 1848. These accounts are cumulative testimony towards establishing the fact that the gold re |
