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     Passengers for the Pacific Coast can have their choice of four great American "Trunk Lines," from the Atlantic seaboard, which connect with the Grand Trans-Continental Railroad at Council Bluffs and Omaha, They are the "N. Y. Central & Hudson River R. R.," "N. Y. & Erie R. R.," "Pennsylvania Central R. R.," and the "Baltimore & Ohio R. R."

     The railroad connections by these lines are almost innumerable, extending to almost every city, town and village in nearly every State and Territory in the United States; the regular through trains of either line make close and sure connections with the Pacific road, while the fares are the same.

     It is not our province to recommend any particular line east of the Missouri River, each has its own peculiar attractions, but we do recommend travellers to make choice of a route before purchasing tickets which will enable them to visit such of the cities, towns, and objects of interest which they desire, without annoyance or needless expense.

     Boston and Eastern passengers can go by "all rail" via Albany or New York, or by steamship on Long Island Sound, of which there are three first class lines, comprising some of the finest boats in the world.

     Passengers who wish to visit the great Falls of Niagara and Suspension Bridge can have choice of two trunk lines. The first (N.Y.C.) passes through Central New York, via Albany, Rochester and Buffalo, while the second (N.Y. & E.) traverses the southern portion, via Binghamton, Corning and Buffalo. The "Erie" affords the traveller a view, while crossing and recrossing the Delaware, of scenery and engineering skill at once grand, majestic and wonderful. The third—a very popular route—is via various lines through New Jersey to

     thence by the great "Pennsylvania Central" along the beautiful valley of the Susquehanna, the charming "blue Junietta" and "over the Alleghanys," which, for grand mountain scenery, fearful chasms and wonderful engineering skill, is second only to "Cape Horn" on the Sierra Nevada mountains. This route passes through Harrisburg and Pittsburg. The fourth line is via

     The "Baltimore and Ohio R.R." affords passengers an opportunity to visit the Capitol at Washington, and thence, via Harper's Ferry, "over the mountains" to Wheeling. It is said by travellers that the scenery by this route is unsurpassed by any on the Continent—but we cannot say from personal knowledge. From CINCINNATI Passengers have choice of several first class competing lines, via either Chicago or St. Louis or via Burlington direct. From CHICAGO there are three routes: the "Chicago & Northwestern R.R.," via Clinton & Cedar Rapids; the "Chicago Rock Island & Pacific R.R.," via Rock Island, Davenport and Des Moines: and the "Burlington Route," via C.B. & Q. and Burlington & Missouri R.R.R's. It's From ST. LOUIS, via the "North Missouri," the "St. Joseph and Council Bluffs" R.R.S.

     The Western direct through connections of the "trunk lines," such as the "Great Western and Michigan Central," "Lake Shore & Michigan Southern," "Pitts., Ft. Wayne & Chicago," "Pitts., Cincinnati & St. Louis," "C.C.C. & I.," "Toledo, W. & Western," "Hannibal & St. Joseph," "Ohio & Mississippi," as well as the lines from Chicago and St. Louis west, are all deservedly popular. Sleeping cars are run on all through trains—most luxuriant palaces. The charges are extra, or about $3 per day—24 hours. We now arrive at

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     county seat of Pottawattomie County, Iowa. It is situated about three miles east of the Mississippi river, at the foot of the bluffs. Population, 12,000 inhabitants. It is four miles distant from Omaha, Nebraska, to which city it is connected by railroad and ferry.

     Council Bluffs is one of the oldest towns in Western Iowa. As early as 1846 it was known as a Mormon settlement, by the name of Kanesville, which it retained until 1853, when the Legislature granted a charter designating the place as the City of Council Bluffs. The explorers, Lewis and Clark, held a council with the Indians here in 1804, and named it Council Bluffs.

     The railroad interests are almost identical with those of her "twin sister," Omaha—with which city she will shortly be connected by the railroad bridge now building by the U.P.R.R. Co. All freight and passengers are delivered on this side of the river to the "Union Pacific Transfer Co."

     Council Bluffs includes within her corporate limits 24 square miles, extending north and south four miles, east and west six. The buildings are good; the town presents a neat, tasty, and, withal, a lively appearance. A horse railroad is the latest improvement visible, which speaks well for the enterprise of the place. Newspapers and schools are well represented. The Bugle, within the last year, has been absorbed by the Times, a democratic morning journal, which gives CHANCE an opportunity hereafter to blow his own Bugle. The Nonpareil, morning journal, republican, and the Post, a German weekly, are published here.

     The educational department comprises one seminary for young ladies, one high school, eight private schools and fourteen district or free schools.

     The court house at this place is a very fine structure, erected at an expense of $75,000. There are several churches—good, substantial buildings. The hotel interest is well represented, the Ogden House being the principal one. The State Institute for the Deaf and Dumb has been permanently located here, and the buildings are nearly completed.

     There are over 200 business houses in the city, representing all branches. Their trade extends westward, up and down the river, and over a large portion of the country eastward.

     The surrounding country is rich in the chief wealth of a nation—agriculture. No better farming land is found than Western Iowa possesses, and when this vast area shall become closely settled Council Bluffs will be the central point of one of the richest farming sections of the Union.

     The citizens of this fair city are very sanguine of its future greatness. They claim that it must eventually be the point of the terminus of the U.P.R.R; and, in support of this assertion, they point you to the fact that the railroad company has purchased lands near the city on which to erect their depots and shops, when the time arrives for the change, which they expect will be when the bridge is completed across the Missouri. Take it all in all, Council Bluffs is a lively city, and possesses all the elements of future greatness.

     We can no longer speak of it as the "far West," as that land is generally conceded to lie somewhere near sundown, or at least beyond the Rocky Mountains, which lift their rugged heights between us and the land to which we are travelling. The State of Nebraska, so lately opened up to the world, and so lately considered one portion of that "wild West," forms now one of our central States. Properly speaking she is part and parcel of the "Northwest," a portion of the Union which is rich in all that constitutes a nation's greatness, far beyond any land dependent on mines for its resources. Nebraska possesses a genial climate, good water and a fair supply of timber. Broad prairies, dotted with well cultivated and well stocked farms, greet the eye of the traveller in every direction, and on all sides may be seen the evidence of thrift and comfort, found only in a farming region. The

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     winters are mild, considering the latitude; the summers not oppressively warm, and there is an absence of many diseases that render our lower lands so peculiarly unhealthy. The emigrant, who wishes a home where he can till the soil, where his labors will be rewarded with abundant harvest, need not go beyond this State to satisfy his aspirations. Wheat, oats and corn yield luxuriant returns to the husbandman, and all kinds of fruits and garden vegetables, incidental to this latitude, can be grown in profusion. Rarely will the traveler find a more magnificent scene, and more suggestive of real wealth and prosperity, than can be seen on these broad prairies, when the fields of yellow grain or waving corn are waiting for the harvesters. Miles and miles away stretch the undulating plains, far, aye, farther than the eye can see. In rapid succession we pass the better residence of the "old settler," with his immense fields of grain and herds of stock, on beyond the boundaries of earlier settlements; and now we reach the rude cabin or the hardy settler, who has located still "farther west," and here, within a few years will arise a home as attractive as those we have left behind, surrounded with orchards, gardens and flocks. Here, too, will the snug schoolhouse be found, and the white church, with its tapering spire, pointing the people to the abode of Him who hath so richly blessed His children. There is beauty on every hand. The wild prairie flowers, of a thousand different hues and varieties, greet the eye at every step; and the tiniest foot that ever trod Broadway could scarce reach the ground without crushing the life from out some of these emblems of purity. And when the cooling showers have moistened the thirsty earth, or when the morning dew is spangling flowers, vine and tree, there is more of quiet, graceful beauty—more of that spirit floating around us which renders man more human and woman nearer what we desire her to be—than can be found within the walls of any city, despite its beautiful gardens and public promenades. Long will the memory of these scenes remain impressed on the mind of the traveler who admires nature in all her phases. California may and does possess grand and magnificent mountain scenery, unsurpassed by any in the world, together with broad and fertile plains; Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Colorado are grand and beautiful in their rugged strength, but in none of these can be found scenes of quiet, graceful beauty, which, by any stretch of imagination, can be ranked as equal to those found almost any where on the prairies of Nebraska and the Northwest. Nowhere else have we seen vegetation clothed in such brilliant colors. And when the face of our warmer lands is bare, parched and brown, the transition from thence to these green plains unfolds to us almost a new phase of existence.

     For a long time, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio were supposed to contain the wheat-growing soil of the Union, and they became known as the "granaries of the States." But those "granaries" have pushed themselves a little "further west," if we may be allowed to use the expression. Nebraska has retained a portion of the name; California and Oregon took the remainder. Nebraska annually produces a large surplus of wheat and corn, which finds its way eastward. Properly speaking, it is a wheat country, and destined to wield a powerful influence in the grain market, when her lands shall have been settled and cultivated. It is less susceptible to the effects of droughts than any of her adjoining sisters. Neither have extremes of wet weather, as yet, ever caused any very serious loss. With the advantages possessed by this State; with a water front of several hundred miles on a stream navigable the greater portion of the year; with the grandest railroad on the continent traversing her entire breadth, and terminating with her border; with all the resources of commerce at her command; with unlimited water power for manufactures, it would be strange, indeed, if

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     she long retained a back seat in the great gathering of States.

     "Westward the star of empire takes its way." How often that sentence has been quoted, those who are familiar with the growth of our western possessions, can best remember. But so often has it been uttered, that it has passed into a household word, and rendered its innocent and unsuspecting author immortal, as far as earthly immortality extends. From the boyhood days of that reliable and highly respectable individual, the "Oldest Inhabitant" of any specified locality in the "Eastern States," it has formed the heading—in large or small caps—of nearly every local notice, which chronicled the fact that some family had packed their household goods and gods (mostly goods) and left their native land of woods, rocks, churches and schoolhouses to seek a home among the then mythical prairies of the "Far West." But oh, in later years how that quotation ran across double columns in all conceivable forms of type, when the fact was chronicled that one of our western corn-fed sisters was admitted to the Union of States and the fatherly embrace of smiling Uncle Sam.

     Well, but where was the "Far West" then, where people went, when they had "westward and ho" on the brain, asks one, who speaks of the west as that part of our country which lies between the summit of the Rocky Mountains and the waters of the Pacific Ocean? Well, the "Far West" of that time, that almost mythical region, was what is now those vast and fertile prairies which lie South and west of the great lakes, and east of and bordering on the Mississippi river. All west of that was a blank; the home of the savage, the wild beast and all unclean things—at least so said the old men referred to.

     But our hardy pioneers passed the Rubicon, and the West receded before their advance. Missouri was peopled and the Father of Waters became the great natural highway of a mighty commerce, sustained in equal parts by the populous and newly made States—lying on both its banks—which had been carved out of the "Far West" by the hands of the hardy pioneers.

     Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri and Iowa had joined the sisterhood, and yet the tide of immigration stayed not. It traversed the trackless desert, scaled the Rocky Mountains, and secured a foothold in Oregon. But it passed not by unheeding the rich valleys and broad prairies of Nebraska, which retained what became, with subsequent additions, a permanent and thriving population. Then the yellow gold, which had been found in California, drew the tide of emigration thitherward, and in a few years our golden-haired sister was added to the number comprising the States of the Union. Oregon and Nevada on the western slope, Kansas and Nebraska on the east followed, and still we have Dakota, Idaho, Montana, Washington, Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, Territories, to say nothing of Alaska, waiting the time when they, too, shall be competent to add their names to the roll of honor and enter the Union on an equality with the others. Thus we see that the "Far West" of to-day has become far removed from the West of thirty—or even ten—years ago, and what is now the central portion of our commonwealth was then that portion so designated.

     All is changed. The foam-crested waves of the Pacific bear on their bosoms a mighty and steadily increasing commerce. A rich, powerful and populous section, comprising three States, has arisen, where but a few years since, the Jesuit missions among the savages were the only marks of civilization. And all over the once unknown waste, amid the cozy valley and on the broad plains, are the scattered homes of the hardy and brave pioneer husbandmen. And the bleak mountains, once the home of the savage and wild beast, the deep gulches and gloomy canyons, are alive with the sounds of labor, the ring of

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     pick, shovel and drill, the clatter of stamps and booming of blasts, which tell of the presence of the miner and the future streams of wealth which will flow into our national coffers; for as the individual becomes enriched, so does his country partake of his fortune.

     To protect her citizens, spread over these wilds, from the Mississippi to the Pacific, from the boundaries of Mexico to the British possessions, the United States established a system of military forts and posts, extending north and south, east and west over this territory. Though productive of much good, they were not sufficient to meet the requirements of the times, and in many places settlers and miners were murdered with impunity by the Indians. Wise men regarded rapid emigration as the only safe plan of security, and this could not be accomplished without swifter, surer and cheaper means of transporting the poor, who would gladly avail themselves of the opportunity to possess a free farm or reach the gold fields of the West. The railroad and telegraph—twin sisters of civilization—were talked of; but old fogies shook their heads in the plenitude of their wisdom, and piously crossed themselves and clasped with a firmer grasp their money-bags when young America dared broach the subject. "No, sir, no; the thing is totally absurd, impracticable, sir; don't talk more of such nonsense to me," they would reply as they turned away to go to their church or to their faro games in Wall street—probably the latter place. But Young America did not give up to his theory or accept the dictum of money-bags. And as the counties of the West grew and expanded under the mighty tide of immigration they clamored for a safe and speedy transit between them, and their "fatherland." Government with its usual red tape delays and scientific way of how not to do it, heeded not the appeal until the red hand of war, of rebellion, pointed out to it the stern necessity of securing, by iron bands, the fair dominions of the West from foreign or domestic foe.

     Notwithstanding that Benton, Clark and others had long urged the necessity and practicability of the scheme, the wealth and power which would accrue to the country, from its realization, the idea found favor with but few of our wise legislators until they awoke to the knowledge that even the loyal State of California was in danger of being abandoned by those in command, and turned over to the insurgents; that a rebel force was forming in Texas with the Pacific coast as its objective point; that foreign and domestic machinations threatened the dismemberment of the Union into three divisions; not until all, all this stared them in the face could our national Solons see the practicability of the scheme so earnestly and ably advocated by Sargent, of California, and his able coadjutors in the noble work. To this threatened invasion of our western possessions, what had Government to offer for successful defense? Nothing but a few half finished and illy manned forts around the bay and the untaught militia of the Pacific coast. Under this pressure was the charter granted and it may truly be said that the road was inaugurated by the grandest carnival of blood the world has ever known; for without the pressure of the rebellion the road would probably be in embryo to-day. Although the American people have been keenly alive to the importance of a speedy transit between the two extremes of the continent ever since the discovery of gold on the Pacific slope, up to this time the old vague rumors of barren deserts, dark, deep and gloomy gorges, tremendous, rugged, snow-clad mountains and the wild savage made the idea seem preposterous. Even the reports of the emigrants could not convince them to the contrary; nor yet the reports of the Mormons, who, fleeing from the border States marked and mapped a feasible route to Salt Lake City. And it is worthy of remark that for over 700 miles the road follows very closely their survey.

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     Practical, earnest men disabused the minds of the people regarding the impracticability of the scheme, after the road had became a national necessity—a question of life and unity of the Republic. The great work has been accomplished, and to-day the locomotive whirls its long train, filled with emigrants or pleasure seekers, through that region, which, only a few years ago, was but a dim, undefined, mythical land, composed of chaos and the last faint efforts of nature to render that chaotic state still more inhospitable and uninviting. How great the change from the ideal to the real. For five hundred miles after leaving Omaha, that vague "Great American Desert" proves to be as beautiful and fertile a succession of valleys as can be found elsewhere, under like geographical positions. Great is the change indeed; still greater the changes through which our country has passed during the period from the commencement to the ending of our proudest national civil record, save one. We live in a fast age; the breeze of to-day was the tornado of 50 years ago. Nature has called upon her children to rise and prepare for the changes constantly occurring, and nobly have they responded to her summons. The dust of our ancestors has reposed for ages, in quiet, in their loved church yards, unmoved by the rush and whirl of the present age, which seems but a preparatory lesson to their children, teaching them to hasten their pace, that at the final gathering all may arrive at the same time.

     But we will cease speculating, and resume the consideration of the history of the continental railroad, and also the attempts in that direction which had been made by other parties, in another portion of our country. We find that Missouri, through her able and liberal Legislature, was the first State to move in the construction of a national or continental railroad. The Legislature of that State granted a charter, under which was incorporated the Missouri and Pacific Railroad Co., who were to build the road, diverging at Franklin, southwest, via Rollo, Springfield, Neosho (the Galena district), and along the line of the thirty sixth parallel to Santa Fe New Mexico. From Santa Fe to San Francisco, preliminary surveys were made, and had it not been for the rebellion this road would undoubtedly have been completed long ere this; good authorities placing the limit at 1864. The cause which compelled the construction of the Central road, destroyed the Southern. Passing as it did, Mostly through southern hostile territory, government could not aid or protect it in its construction, and consequently the work was suspended. With returning peace and a settled condition of society it is but reasonable to suppose that the work will ultimately be pushed to completion. It may be well to mention here, that the States of Arkansas and Tennessee by their Legislatures, proposed to assist the work, by constructing a railroad from Little Rock, to connect with the M.&P.R.R., somewhere between the ninety-eighth and one hundred and second degree of longitude, and for that purpose a charter was granted.

     The evident, and we might add, the imperative necessity of connecting the east and west, and the intervening territories, encouraged the corporators of the great trans-continental line to apply to the Government for aid. Many measures were devised and laid before the people, but the supposed impregnability of the Rocky Mountains, and other natural obstacles to be encountered, caused a hesitancy even then on the part of our energetic people to commence the great work. To attempt to lay the iron rail through vast tracts of unknown country, inhabited by wandering, hostile tribes of savage nomads; to scale the snow-clad peaks of the Rocky Mountains with the fiery locomotive, seemed an undertaking too vast for even the American people to accomplish. But the absolute IMPORTANCE, the urgent NECESSITY of such a work, overcame all objections to the scheme,

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     and in 1862 Congress passed an act, which was approved by President Lincoln on the first day of July of that year, by which the Government sanctioned the undertaking, and promised the use of its credit to aid in its speedy completion. The act was entitled: "An act to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri river to the Pacific ocean, and to secure to the Government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes."

     The Government grant of lands to the great national highway, as amended, was every alternate section of land for 20 miles on each side of the road, or 20 sections, equaling 12,800 acres for each mile of the road. By the Companies' table, the road, as completed, is 1,776 18/100 miles long from Omaha to Sacramento. This would be the Companies 22,735,104 acres, divided as follows: Union Pacific, 13,295,104; Central Pacific, 9,440,000.

     The "junction" of the Union and Central companies is known as "Union Junction"—about 6 miles west from where the present connection is made at Ogden, Utah.

     In addition to the grant of lands and right of way, Government agreed to issue its thirty year six per cent. bonds in aid of the work, graduated as follows: For the plains portion of the road, $16,000 per mile; for the next most difficult portion, $32,000 per mile; for the mountainous portion, $48,000 per mile.

     The Union Pacific Railroad Co. built 525 78/100 miles, for which they received $16,000 per mile; 363 602/1000 miles at $32,000 per mile; 150 miles at $48,000 per mile, making a total of $27,236,512.

     The Central Pacific Railroad Co. built 7 18/100 miles at $16,000 per mile; 580 32/100 miles at $32,000 per mile; 150 miles at $48,000 per mile, making a total of $25,885,120.

     The total subsidies for both roads amount to $53,121,632. Government also guaranteed the interest on the Companies' first mortgage bonds to an equal amount.

     In the construction of the whole line there were used about 300,000 tons of iron rails; 1,700,000 fish plates; 6,800,000 bolts; 6,126,375 cross-ties; 23,505,500 spikes.

     Besides this, there was used an incalculable amount of sawed lumber, boards for building, timber for trestles, bridges, &c. Estimating the cost of the road with equipments complete by that of other first-class roads ($105,000 per mile), and we have the sum of $186,498,900 as the approximate cost of the work.

     To operate this road, the two companies have now in use: Locomotives, 333; first-class passenger cars, 156; palace sleeping cars, 43; emigrant and second-class cars, 76; mail, express, baggage and caboose cars, 179; box and flat cars, 5,378; hand cars, 421; dump and section cars, 430; stock, coal and iron cars, 725; fruit cars, 32; bridge, derrick, wrecking, rubble, powder, water and cook cars, 89; president's, pay and officers' cars, 7; total, 7,769.

     We have not had much to say in the Guide heretofore in regard to the

     To the American people, the Government, or the world at large, simply from the fact that it seemed to us anything we might say would be entirely superfluous, as the incalculable advantages to all could admit of no possible doubt. We were content in calling attention to the vast extent of rich mineral, agricultural and grazing country opened up—a country which had heretofore been considered worthless. We pointed out, step by step, the most important features, productions, and advantages of each section traversed by the road; stated that the east and west were now connected by a short and quick route, over which the vast trade of China, Japan and the Orient could flow in its transit eastward; and, finally, that its importance to the miner, agriculturist, stock-raiser, the Government, and the world at large, few, if any, could estimate.

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     The efforts and "opinions" which have been directed of late to the injury of the credit of these companies and this GREAT NATIONAL ROAD is truly lamentable. We read there are none so blind as those who will not see.

     We think there are none so mean as those who "talk a great deal with their mouth," and ignore

     March 18, 1862.—Before the Pacific Railroad was chartered, while the country was in the midst of a civil war, at a time too when foreign war was most imminent—the Trent affair shows how imminent—and the country was straining every nerve for national existence, Mr. Campbell, of Penn., Chairman of the House Committee on the "Pacific Railroad" [See Congressional Globe, page 1712, session 2d, 37th Congress], said:

     "The road is a necessity to the government. It is the government that is asking individual capitalists to build the road. Gentlemen are under the impression that it is a very great benefit to these stockholders to aid them to an extent of about half the capital required. I beg leave to call the attention of gentlemen to the fact that it is the government which is under the necessity to construct the road. If the capitalists of the country are willing to come forward and advance half the amount necessary for this great enterprise, the government is doing little in aiding the Company to the extent of the other half by way of a loan." Again (page 1911)—"It is not supposed that in the first instance the Company will reimburse the interest to the government; it will reimburse it in transportation." Mr. White said: "I undertake to say that not a cent of these advances will ever be repaid, nor do I think it desirable that they should be, as this road is to be the highway of the nation."

     In the Senate [see Congressional Globe, page 2257, 3d vol., 2d session, 37th Congress], Hon. Henry Wilson, from Mass., said:

     "I give no grudging vote in giving away either money or land. I would sink $100,000,000 to build the road, and do it most cheerfully, and think I had done a great thing for my country. What are $75 or $100,000,000 in opening a railroad across the central regions of this continent, that shall connect the people of the Atlantic and Pacific, and bind us together? Nothing. As to the lands, I don't grudge them."

     The report of Senator Stewart, from the Committee on the Pacific Railroad to the Senate of the U. S., in February, 1871, will afford one illustration of the advantages of the road to the Government up to that time. He says:

     "The cost of the overland service for the whole period, from the acquisition of our Pacific coast possessions down to the completion of the Pacific Railroad, was over $8,000,000 per annum, and this cost was constantly increasing.

     "The cost since the completion of the road, is the annual interest" [which includes all the branches—ED.] "$3,897,129—to which must be added one-half the charges for services performed by the Company, about $1,163,138 per annum, making a total annual expenditure of about $5,000,000 and showing a saving of at least $3,000,000 per annum.

     "This calculation is upon the basis that none of the interest will ever be repaid to the United States except what is paid by the services, and that the excess of interest advanced over freights is a total loss.

     "In this statement no account is made of the constant destruction of life and private property by Indians, of the large amounts of money paid by the Secretary of the Treasury as indemnity for damages by Indians to property in the government service on the plains under the act of March 3, 1849, of the increased mail facilities, of the prevention of Indian wars, of the increased value of public lands, of the development of the coal and iron mines of Wyoming, and the gold and silver mines of Nevada and Utah, of the value of the road in a commercial point of view in utilizing the interior of the continent, and in facilitating trade and commerce with the Pacific coast and Asia; and, above all, in cementing the Union, and furnishing security in the event of foreign wars."

     Some of the advantages of the Pacific Railroad to the Government, and, consequently to the country at large, is made manifest in the above report.

     By charter, the Government exacted that the Company should complete the road by 1876; but by almost superhuman exertion it was completed May 10th, 1869,—and the Government will have the benefit of the road seven years before the Company were compelled to finish it. Now, taking no account of the millions the Government saved during the building of the road—at their own figures—and the saving during the 7 years previous to 1876 will net the Government $21,000,000, besides paying the interest on the whole amount of bonds.

     It cost the Government, before the completion of the Pacific Railroad, according to Mr. Stewart, "over $8,000,000 per annum, and this cost was constantly increasing." How fast was this increase? Could it be less than 6 per cent per

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HON. THOS. A. SCOTT
President of the Union Pacific Railroad Company.

     annum? We think not! Then, say the Government will have saved, previous to 1876, over and above all expense, $30,000,000.

     TAKE ANOTHER VIEW.—The building of the Pacific Road has been directly instrumental in the construction of over 5,000 miles of line which, but for the former, would not have been built. In the ten States and Territories directly benefitted, in 1864, there were only 2,405 miles of railroad, and 2,600,000 inhabitants; January 1st, 1871, there were 10,576 miles of road finished, and many more in progress, and 4,597,570 of inhabitants.

     Now, as to the great hue and cry about the "Public domain," "Giving away the lands," "What a shame," "Great outrage," etc., etc., as old General Jackson would say, "Now, by the Eternal," I would like to know what the lands would be worth without a railroad? Could the Government ever sell them? NEVER. It could not realize enough from a million of acres as it would cost their surveyors and land agents for cigars while looking after them. When the Pacific Road commenced there was not a land office in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, or Nevada, and only one or two in each of the other States or Territories. On the other hand, by the building of the road many millions of dollars has already found its way into the Government coffers, and at just double the usual price per acre. The Government to-day stands in the position of the boy who EAT his apple, sold it, put the money in his pocket, and then got credit for GIVING IT AWAY. O Generosity! There can be no doubt but what the interest and bonds will be paid. But if the Government never received one dollar of either interest or principal—except in transportation as above—it would be largely the debtor to the Pacific Railroad Co.'s.