Daily Davenport Gazette

Destiny of New Orleans.—The New Orleans papers—the Picayune and the Crescent especially—take us very seriously to task for the prediction, made some weeks ago, that "twenty-five years hence, grass will be growing in the streets of New Orleans, and the completed railway system of the South will have transferred the mouths of the Mississippi to Savannah and Charleston."

Those journals profess to laugh at the idea, and yet go on in a column or two of unsound logic to show that we are without any grounds for making such a prediction. But we see no reason to change our opinion.

The railways of the South now in process of construction, when completed must, as any one may see, by reference to the map, take away from New Orleans much of the trade now thrown into her lap by the Mississippi and transfer it to Savannah, Charleston, Norfolk and Baltimore, for the following reasons.

1. On account of the dangerous navigation of the Gulf and the consequent enormous rates of insurance.

2. On account of the fearful prevalence of epidemics at New Orleans during several months of the year—an evil which seems to be growing in magnitude with each revolving decade.

3. On account of the enormous commissions charged by her merchants for receiving and forwarding, and for selling the farmers' produce—commissions which will not, nay, cannot be abated so long as a single boat-load of freight is landed at that city—so long as that city remains, as it is, a Golgotha, where human life seems scarcely more safe than in the Allied camp before Sebastopol.—Memphis Eagle.