In consequence of it, the cotton of Peru meets that of Carolina in the West Mexican markets with the advantage of more than a half a cent the pound-which is ample protection. The southern planter therefore who opposes the opening of a communication across the Isthmus is unwittingly fostering and giving protection to a foreign and a rival interest. There are eight millions of people inhabiting the Pacific coast-all of them want things that we have to sell. They are four or five months removed from us; this road would bring them within 30 days. For those of them who travel, the route to California and to China, would be across the Isthmus this way, to New Orleans, thence up the Costa Rica, on the Pacific, produces sugar Mississippi to the California rail-road. This and the finest of coffee. They are exported to when opened, will be their shortest and best traChili and Peru. The voyage around Cape velling route to California, China and India. Horn and other conditions of commerce exclude And unless both the California and Panama routes them from our markets. A rail-road across the be established, the line of travel between the PaIsthmus would bring New Orleans within two cific shores of North and South America, never weeks of these coffee and sugar plantations. can be brought through the United States. These Thus it would carry the principles of free trade two roads are links in the same line and when there, encouraging competition with the coffee once completed, the world cannot prevent all the of Brazil and the sugar of the West Indies. South American travel from coming this way. Such are the results which the protectionist of We see Cities and States pushing forward rival home industry seeks to accomplish, and such are schemes of internal improvements, and setting the results which the free trader advocates, and up opposition after opposition to bring travel their therefore, as before remarked, each in advoca- way. They consider themselves rewarded when ting a great highway over the Isthmus, stands they secure the business between places containon his own grounds. ing a few thousand people engaged in traffic. We have investigated the subject of freights This Panama improvement would bring us the around Cape Horn, and have collected statistics travel from countries inhabited by millions and that we might form an opinion as to the proba- send it through the length and breadth of the ble cost of the transportation of merchandise land, dispensing national, sectional and particuvia Panama rail-way and via the "The Horn" lar benefits all the way. The advantages that to the ports of the Pacific, say to Lima in Peru. business and travel scatter on the way side of We have supposed the freight over the Panama their great thoroughfares, are and ever have been road will be at least double the usual rates in this objects of desire with the greatest nations as well country, and have taken it as at 10 cents per ton as with the smallest corporations. Here they are per mile. The conclusion is, that a cargo of offered to us on a scale grand in proportion to the merchandise can be sent from New York via water courses, mountain ranges, lakes and river Panama to Lima in one fourth the time and for less basins of the new world, and sublime in proporthan half the money that it now takes to send tion to its free institutions. The rail-road will it around Cape Horn. build a ship canal across the Isthmus of Panama, Here are the facts, the statistics and estimates upon the same principle that one internal imfrom which this conclusion is drawn. The sail-provement in our own country begets another. ing distance from New York to Lima, via Cape How many rail-roads has the Erie Canal caused Horn, is 13,000 sea miles-the time four months, to be built, that but for that improvement would the freight $15, or one mill and fifteen hundredths not now be in existence? of a mill per ton per mile. The distance, via Panama, exclusive of the 45 miles of rail-road, is 3,700* and the time 30 days. The average value of a ton of merchandize is supposed to be $250, on which three month's interest is charged for the excess of the Cape Horn passage. New York to Lima. In the same way the Panama rail-road will stimulate commerce with the Pacific, and by showing the amount of business to be done, men of business will see and be satisfied that the road is insufficient and a ship canal is necessary. In our poor judgment it is wise, prudent, constitutional and right that the federal government Comparative statement as to the cost of freight per ton from should encourage this undertaking, so far at least as encouragement may be necessary to secure its early completion. Panama Via Cape Horn. 13.000 miles at 1.15 mill, $1500-3,700 miles $4.25 Interest on $250 for 3 mo. 6 pr. ct. 3,75 45 m. R.R. 10 cts. 4.50 $18.75 ifference in favor of R. R. $10.00 $8.75 Magnets and electrical batteries have their positive and negative poles, some questions have negative and positive sides; and this is one of them. Suppose this rail-road to Panama were already * 3.700, which is less than the distance by canvass from built, it is immaterial by what agency, and that Charleston to Liverpool. this country were in the actual enjoyment of all the great advantages that are to flow from it.'ency of argument, can it be maintained, that alSuppose now that some power were to attempt though there be in this government the power to to snatch these advantages out of our hands and treat for a road to market through foreign territo deprive us of them; the nation would rise up tory, the power to guarantee the neutrality of the in arms; the vile coffers for keeping filthy lucre Isthmus of Panama and the free right of way in, and the precious caskets in which the jewels across it to all nations, yet there is no power of the land are concealed, would be broken open under the Constitution to encourage the conand their contents scattered, as though both life struction of a commercial highway there-no and money had lost their value. There is nothing that the country would not do to preserve these advantages after once having tasted them, and, according to some, there is nothing she ought to do to get them before she has tried them. Such are the negative and positive sides of this question. We give nothing to get, that's unconstitutional; but having got, we give every thing to keep-and that is constitutional. principle of action or rule of conduct known to the federal government by which it can render that guaranteed right of way, a right practicable to its own citizens and available for its own great and manifold purposes? The principle of "the greatest good to the greatest number” is one of the pillars of the Constitution. "Of all inventions," says Macaulay, “the alphabet and the printing press alone excepted, those inventions which abridge distance have We find the Constitution in the general wel-done most for the civilization of our species." fare of the people, in the common defence of the Every improvement, by which time or distance country and in the elements of domestic tranquillity. from place to place is lessened, benefits mankind morally and intellectually, as well as physically; not only facilitates the interchange of the va rious productions of nature and art, but tends to remove national and provincial antipathies, and to bind together all the branches of the great human family. Dragon's teeth would not be sown The humblest freeholder in the land has the harvests of steel-clad warriors; those seeds are in this our day, that nations might reap therefrom right of way from his homestead to the common now most esteemed that bring forth the engines of highway. The law secures to him a way through peace and civilization. No nation has scatterthe estates, if need be, of his neighbor to mar-ed them with a more liberal hand than this. The ket. It is a fundamental principle of civilized society, and one upon which the peace and harmony of all communities and neighborhoods essentially depend, that no man has a right to hem his neighbor in and shut him out from free communication with the common highways and the markets of the world. Books and wise men teach and tell us that "law is the perfection of reason." We know that the Constitution is founded on the everlasting principles of right, tempered by the spirit of compromise. people of the United States are the only people who have expended more of their treasure for works of improvement than on the engines of blood and destruction. The consequences that are to result from the breaking down of the barrier between the two oceans, are vast and inportant. It is an achievement the effects of Have not the people of the United States in which upon the industry of this country our chiltheir national character, a like privilege? Else dren will class with the effects of the steam-etwhy did their government treat with a neighbor-gine and the cotton-gin. ing nation for the right of way across the Isth- It is an achievement easy of accomplishment; mus? Their possessions are far remote from and it is an achievement from which vast conseone point to another; the way to them is circui-quences to civilization are to follow; and it is an tous and remote, passing through latitudes where achievement so fraught with increased prosper. the seasons are reversed, the skies are changed, ty and greatness for our country, that we earnand where both day and night are lengthened out estly desire to see it undertaken speedily, that into the dreary alternation of the polar seasons. we may have the privilege of witnessing in our Shall they continue to pass through the cheer-day some of its glorious results. less latitudes, to brave the dangers of the stormy Other times will call for other and additional cape, and to sail twenty thousand miles and more channels of communication. No one can dou't to reach a part of their own country, when by it, for there is wealth for the world on the mar the construction of a road a few miles in length. gin of our sea, and treasures, inexhaustible the journey may be confined to our own hemis- treasures scattered over its magnificent system: phere, the distance may be reduced from 20,000 of river basins, that will induce other nations t to 5,000 miles and the time may be brought down break through Panama, Nicaragua and Tebuartepec, were each "twenty times" an Isthmus. At With what show of reason, with what consist-present, we want to get to other people across i from months to weeks. The time will come, when they will want to come to us. But that time is not yet. There is a classic and a sacred duty which makes it incumbent upon this nation above all others to cause a commercial highway to be opened across the continent between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. An unknown voice told Columbus in a dream, on that Isthmus, that God had made his name great in the earth, and had sent bim to "unbar the gates of ocean."* He was not permitted to realize the idea closest to his heart and to show that the nearest way to India lies through the Carribean Sea; nevertheless he executed his high commission and "unbarred the gates of ocean," but the gate across the land has never been unlatched; the office and the honor of throwing it wide open that the commerce of the world may pass through—we claim for the people of this nation. The task commends itself to their feelings, to their spirit and their enterprise, and in this our day-dream, a voice whispers us— it must be done. The voice said-"Maravillosamente Dios hizo sonar to nombre en la tierra; de los atamientos de la mar Oceana, que estaban cerradas con cadenas tan fuertes le dió las Haves. THE PEARL. BY GRETTA. PART FIRST. Come, maiden with the glowing cheek, And leave awhile the festive dance. For the still cold moon, the calm pale stars, Where their mortal bodies had their birth- Το strange, mysterious influences open the spirit and shut the senses. My partial eye, oh maiden bright, That thou wouldst be his bride. Thou call'st this lover eold and stern Glows ever in the inmost shrine, Pray where its faint beams shine. Then, lady, listen, while I sing About a maiden fair, Who was, like thee, in life's young spring, Like thee as strange to care. Come rest awhile, and lend thy smile A moment to my strain, Ere in yon room, like soft perfume, In the olden time, the olden time, In floods of radiance rained from heaven; A virgin roved adown the vale Her dark eyes beained with hope and glee, Her step was light along the glade, Her song as woodland warbler's free; And when Aurora's rosy ray Poured o'er the scene the flush of day, She seemed like Hebe, young and bright, Of Greece's old Olympian heaven. He loved, and was not loved again, A sigh would scarce have chid the mirth. But, like the star whose constant ray Beams ever o'er the Norseman's plains, Nor heeds the host that far away Watch o'er the flowery South's domains, So he, for weary days and years, Had hovered near this cold one's side, His bosom torn with hopes and fears, The rivalry of Love and Pride. And when at last his struggling heart, No more could act this silent part; And pent up Love refused to dwell A prisoner in his secret cell; And words broke forth, tho' all too cold, To tell what had been never toldOh how the jerring laugh he heard The deep founts of his being stirred,' Though she who scorned that love to share Knew nothing of the conflict there. And why was this? The youth was brave, Of noble race, but cold and grave In midst of jollity;— He could not, like the conrtly throng, Nor, like the roving bee, From each bright flower-lip snatch a kiss, He would have deemed such roving crime, To her, as to a saint divine, Though scarcely marked amid the crowd That pressed around the shrine. Yet sometimes in a darkened hour, By the secret sorrows known In yon heaven's starry cope, Look beneath the surface fair If true gold be hidden there! Now turn we again to the maiden fair Of that soft summer clime, Though, had he listened to his pride, All bright with morning's gleam, By a dark and sullen stream. Without one sunny gleam But deep it is, and cold, they say, With light and song and laughter gay "See'st thou this stream? E'en such art thou And every thing that feels its kiss Rejoices in its radiant beams, To me thy spirit seems. The listening youth no answer gave, There broke a pensive smile. And hear my heart's reply! I'll meet thee when the heavens gleam PART SECOND. Twas eve, and the cheek of the West was pale; And the moon's light boat was launched to sail An island of the blest. And again the maiden lonely roved By the banks of the distant stream, And again the voice that was not beloved Dispelled her spirit's dream. Queen of my soul, have you come ?" it said, Have you come in your beauty's pride, A glance from your bright, glad eyes to shed Then listen, ere the last adieu From the heart that has loved so long and true Falls softly on thine ear; For never lady, never more May I tread again this pebbly shore, Then hear I pray thee, hear! I have been to the depths of this cold, deep stream, And lo! in its caverns I caught the gleam I struggled, I fought with the swelling waves, Might'st wear a sign that this lonely stream, Deep in in its breast has treasures rare, Though not for the worldly eye they gleam Which never may know they slumber there. "Lady I've proved, and I know its worth, But well I know where its treasures rest, For its depths are revealed to me. And the Pearl that I won from its inmost breast, I kneel to offer thee!" And he laid in her palm, on his bended knee, A gem, like a gleam of light; It glowed in its beauty tremblingly And the maiden fair, with the ebon hair, But her throbbing breast the truth confessed Now as he softly rose unhid, And turned him to depart, She saw that he was like the rolling streamRich, rich in gems of worth, Though hidden deep they might never gleam For the careless eyes of earth. And these she felt she had flung away Though in their living shrine, Lit by her smile, they would stand revealed, As in a gloomy mine The treasures that were all concealed Gleam where the torches shine. She spoke, and her glowing cheek was wet 'Neath the veil of its floating curls, "Ah! go not now!—can I forget That the lonely stream has Pearls ?" And she silent gave, and he trembling pressed Her hand as the lily fair, While she laid the Pearl on her throbbing breast And let it linger there! Ho! maiden with the ruddy cheek, Bright maiden with the merry glance, To join the festive dance. Oh come, I only craved a smile, Come, loiterer, come away. But if thou wilt retain a part, Remember, maiden fair, There's many a Pearl in the still deep heart, If we would but seek them THERE! Baltimore, June, 1849. RICHARD SAVAGE. BY H. T. TUCKERMAN. The distinction of civilized society is that human life is systematic, and the natural effect of those circumstances which, in any degree, except an individual from its usual routine and responsibilities, is to induce the impulsive action and precarious expedients that belong to wild races. In the world of opinion and habit we occasionally see those who, goaded by misfortune or inspired by an adventurous temper, break away from the restraint which custom ordains and by hardihood in action or extravagance of sentiment, practically isolate themselves from nearly all the social obligations acknowledged by mankind. Indeed every human pursuit may be said to have its respectable and its vagabond followers. In trade these extremes are obvious in the merchant and the pedlar; -in the church, we have the bishop and the field-preacher; and in literature, the author who devotes the leisure that intervenes between the care of his estates and |