are ready and all on the track at the river. The rails and chairs are ready. The track laying will commence in a few days, and it is confidently believed that the road will be done in thirty days thereafter. One mile and a half of track is already laid."

From this authority, it may be infered that the cars will be running from the Mississippi to Belleville early in the Fail.

By a clause in their charter, the Belleville and Illinoistown R. R. Co. extend their road to Alton on the one side and Murpheysborough on the other. The Alton line is 22 miles in length, of which the graduation of 18 miles is complete, and the remainder will soon be done.

An experimental survey has been made of the line from Belleville to the Illinois Central R. R. through Murpheysborough, distance 76 miles. Cost of road in running order estimated on this survey, at within $2,000,000.

These two links with one on the Illinois Central R. R. of about 44 miles, connects St. Louis and Cairo, which chain of roads, being only 134 miles, will draw an immense amount of business between the north and south, and during the winter season, when the river is frozen or blocked up with ice between St. Louis and the mouth of the Ohio, will do not only the passenger and postoffice business, but also the heavy freight business of the river, towards and from New Orleans and the whole southern portion of the Mississippi. Cairo must necessarily be a point of great importance, and the shortest road connecting it with St. Louis, which is this one, must pay large dividends to its owners, at all seasons, and above all in the winter.

The extension of the Belleville and Murpheysboro' road, in nearly a direct line, strikes Paducah; the distance from its junction with the Illinois Central R. R. and Paducah being 50 miles, making the distance from St. Louis to Paducah 140 miles, which at reasonable railroad speed, is 6 hours. That the St. Louis and Paducah railroad connection may be fairly appreciated beyond even the valuable local advantages which are certain to be derived from the peculiarly rich soil and coal region through which the route runs, it is proper here to present a view of the enterprising spirit of the people of Paducah, and to consider the forces that are working within and around it, conspiring in raising it to an importance greater than even its good position might naturally have gained.

Situated at the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee rivers, Paducah might naturally have gained a large portion of the trade of those rich valleys; yet the artificial channels of trade-the railroad avenues of wealth around Paducah were originally directed elsewhere. The Mobile and Ohio R. R. and the Illinois Central were both directed to Cairo; the Nashville, Louisville and Cincinnati railroads were also directed to other places. The trade of

Paducah was in danger of being cut off on all sides, when, with watchful foresight, its people cast their eyes on the Mobile and Ohio railroad with a determination to turn this horn of plenty, that its fruits might fall at their own doors. They also cast their eyes across the Ohio, up the Wabash valley to Vincennes, with a determination to control a good share of the resources of those fertile fields. They laid their plans skillfully, and are now executing them with boldness, not only to defend but also to aggrandize their trade. Authentic reports show that they have built 15 miles of their road towards Mobile, and have a fair prospect of finishing it 25 miles to Mayfield this year, when 34 miles more will complete their connection with the main trunk in Tennessee. For more minute data on the subject of this enterprise we refer to the last report of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad Company published herewith.

We will now present a business sketch of Paducah itself, the materials being furnished at our request by the highest unofficial authority; and we are assured that the representation is within rather than beyond the reality. The sketch is just drawn, June, 1854. The business houses of Paducah number 67; 46 being dry goods and grocery stores, 3 clothing, 1 hardware and iron, 3 boot and shoe, 3 drug, 1 book and music, 1 China glass and Queensware, 1 horticultural and seed, 2 boat and ship chandlery, 2 watch and jewelry, 2 fancy and millinery, 1 variety, and 2 merchant Tailor stores.

The manufactories are as follows: 1 large stone flouring mill capable of turning out 300 bbls. per day, 3 large saw mills running three or more saws each, 2 tanneries, one extensive and run by steam, 1 steam chair factory, 1 large barrel factory, 1 porkhouse, 4 furniture manufactories, 2 saddle and harness, 1 small foundry, 4 blacksmith, 2 tinnery and sheet iron, 2 upholsteries, 1 carriage factcry, 2 gunsmith shops, 1 tobacco warehouse, sales tri-weekly, 1 tobacco stemmery, 1 tobacco factory, 1 boat yard,

1 set marine railway for docking boats capable of hauling out any steamer afloat.

Of other buildings there are 7 hotels, the St. Francis built this last fall equal to any in the West, 2 livery stables, 7 churches, Old Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Episcopalean, Cumberland Presbyterian, Christian and Catholic; 2 colleges, one male and one female, 3 primary schools, 2 banks, one the Commercial Bank of Ky. with two branches, Mother Bank at this place, also a branch of the Bank of Louisville. 6 newspapers, one daily, one semi-weekly, four weekly, and one monthly, are published in Paducah. Population of Paducah, which in 1850 by census report was only 2,428, is now estimated at 4,000.

From this business sketch, from these indications of the enterprising spirit manifested in and around this place, from the wellknown agricultural, mineral and commercial advantages it enjoys, Paducah must be considered a point of rising and great, if not commanding importance; and one with which St. Louis should be connected intimately by packet boats, and as speedily as possible by a direct railroad.

The argument in behalf of this railroad connection is strengthened by the consideration of its rapid extension to New Orleans, to Mobile, to Savannah and to Charleston. By the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern Railroad, and by the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, the connections with New Orleans and with Mobile will be established. From Savannah and from Charleston to Nashville continuous lines were opened and put in operation this year, therefore it is necessary to obtain only a connection with Nashville, in order to realize a complete one with the south-eastern Atlantic coast of the Union.

We have treated of this route from St. Louis via Paducah to Mayfield, Ky. We will now sketch the remainder of the same to Nashville.

From Mayfield, Ky., to Paris, Tenn., the distance is 36 miles. Here a connection may possibly be established with the Nashville and Northwestern Railroad, and if not at Paris, more surely at Reynoldsburg, on the bank of the Tennessee river, 24 miles further. From Reynoldsburg to Nashville the distance is 60 miles. This last link in the chain of railroad connection between St. Louis and Nashville is insured for its completion, as will be seen by reference to the law and the facts on this point published in the

Western Journal and Civilian, vol. 9, page 238, and vol. 10, page 365. By allowing 15 miles for deviations along the route from Mayfield to Nashville, 120 miles, and adding the distance from Paducah to Mayfield, 25 miles, we find the distance from Paducah to Nashville along this route 160 miles, and the distance from Pa. ducah to St. Louis being 140 miles, St. Louis and Nashville are thus brought to within 300 miles, and at the speed of 30 miles an hour, to within 10 hours of each other.

Hoping to treat more fully hereafter of the profits to be derived by means of this railroad connection in stock, in trade, in political, and above all, in moral force, we will conclude the present article with a quotation from a letter written last winter in Charleston, S. C., by a Missourian of close observation and liberal mind, who had been traveling along the Tennessee river and the Chattanooga Railroad. He says:

"The trade of all that country from Paducah to Tuscumbia is now possessed by Louisville, and amounts to several millions annually. We ought to have it, and I am satisfied that if St. Louis would make the right sort of effort, she might, in a few years obtain it. They want groceries, iron in all shapes, manufactures of wood, but still more flour and bacon, the very articles we can furnish cheaper than Louisville; and they will pay for them in cotton."

THE MIDLAND ROAD.

We are informed that the engineer, who had charge of the survey of this route, made his report to the Board of Directors, at a meeting at Helena on the 29th ult. The report is highly favorable to the practicability of the route. The Board located the road by Clarendon, and contracts for grading have already or will be let out in a short time. Ground will be broken at Helena on the 4th of July, where the people of the State are invited to attend and participate in the ceremonies.

LITERARY DEPARTMENT.

From the French of Madame De Stael.

Germany-Taste.

In every

Those who cultivate taste are prouder of it, than those who cultivate genius. Taste is in literature, as the bon ton in society; it is considered as a proof of fortune, of birth, or at least of the customs which pertain to both; while genius may spring forth from the brain of an artisan who never had any relations with fine company. In every land where vanity may be found, taste will be stationed in the first rank, because it separates classes, and is a sign of rallying among all the individuals of the first. land where the power of ridicule is employed, taste will be accounted as one of the first advantages, for it serves above all things in aiding one to distinguish that which it is necessary to avoid. The feeling of propriety is a part of taste, and it is an excellent weapon to ward off the blows aimed by self-conceited persons; in fine, the time may come when an entire nation will place itself in the aristocracy of good taste, by relation with others, and by culture become the only fine company of Europe; and this probable position may be realized by France, where the spirit of society rules so supremely, that it has some excuse for this pretension.

But taste, in its application to Fine Arts, is peculiarly different from taste in its application to social proprieties: while it forces men to bestow upon us a consideration transient as our life, that which one does not, is at least as necessary as that which he does; for the great world is so easily hostile, that it is necessary to make extraordinary concessions to gain the advantage of being free from annoyance: but taste in poesie belongs to nature, and ought to be creator like it; the principles o this taste are therefore altogether different from those which depend upon the relations of society.

The confusion of these two styles is the cause of such opposing judgments in literature; the French judge the Fine Arts as proprieties, and the Germans the proprie:ies as the Fine Arts: in the relations with society it is necessary to defend one's self, in the relations with poesie it is necessary to abandon one's self. If one considers every thing as a man of the world, he will not feel nature; if one considers every thing as an artist. he will want the tact which society alone can give. If it is necessary to transfer