The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862

STOCK RAISING

In Central and Southern Illinois uncommon advantages are presented for the extension of Stock raising. All kinds of Cattle, Horses, Mules, Sheep, Hogs, &c., of the best breeds, yield handsome profits; large fortunes have already been made, and the field is open for others to enter with the fairest prospects of like results. Dairy Farming also presents its inducements to many.

CULTIVATION OF COTTON

The experiments in Cotton culture are of very great promise. Commencing in latitude 39 deg. 30 min. (see Mattoon on the Branch, and Assumption on the Main Line), the Company owns thousands of acres well adapted to the perfection of this fibre. A settler having a family of young children, can turn their youthful labor to a most profitable account in the growth and perfection of this plant.

THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD

Traverses the whole length of the State, from the banks of the Mississippi and Lake Michigan to the Ohio. As its name imports, the Railroad runs through the centre of the State, and on either side of the road along its whole length lie the lands offered for sale.

CITIES, TOWNS, MARKETS, DEPOTS

There are Ninety-eight Depots on the Company's Railway, giving about one every seven miles. Cities, Towns and Villages are situated at convenient distances throughout the whole route, where every desirable commodity may be found as readily as in the oldest cities of the Union, and where buyers are to be met for all kinds of farm produce.

EDUCATION

Mechanics and working-men will find the free school system encouraged by the State, and endowed with a large revenue for the support of the schools. Children can live in sight of the school, the college, the church, and grow up with the prosperity of the leading State in the Great Western Empire.

1

The whisky was kept in a back room, above ground, because the dwelling had no cellar. The fluid was kept safely under lock and key, and the farmer accounted for that by saying that his negroes would steal nothing but whisky. Few country houses at the South have a cellar—that apartment deemed so essential by Northern housekeepers. The intervening space between the ground and the floor is there left open, to allow of a free circulation of air.

2

No regular dinner-hour is allowed the blacks on most turpentine-plantations. Their food is usually either taken with them to the woods or carried there by house-servants, at stated times.

3

Quevedo has broadly satirized his faith in 'Childhood's happy hour'. In his Visions of Hell, where Satan, wearied by the continual grumbling of the condemned, requests them to leave, go back to life, be born again, and live it all over. On due reflection, they conclude that rather than suffer the whippings, schoolings, and scoldings incident to boy and girlhood, they—would prefer to stay where they were.—Note by Editor.

4

Undercurrents is not a romance, and although its author calls it a 'Romance of business,' it is a life-like presentation of the deep things of trade, a series of dramatic scenes, holding the mirror up to a terrible reality. The characters are no fictions; they exist, they labor, they suffer daily, and will continue to do so, go long as the present system obtains, Mr. Kimball boldly lays bare the secret disease, like a demonstrator of anatomy. He is the only author who has succeeded in this department of literature, and here he shows himself a master.

5

Since writing the above, we have heard of that masterpiece of munificence, the gift of fifty thousand dollars to the Theological Seminary of Princeton by the Messrs. Stuart.

6

Calling on Church lately, we found him finishing his Cotopaxi for Mr. Lenox. Price, six thousand dollars.