Lynchburg Virginian

We show our respect for the liberty of the Press when we allow "Lynchburg" to make a dare upon us, which is neither courteous nor well founded. Editors of a Press are so accustomed to have the dereliction of others charged upon them, that it rarely elicits a protest or even induces a sense of injustice. We have no disposable room to review the course of the Virginia during the past session. Its imputed passiveness—and with that only is it charged—we venture to say was less injurious to the interests of Lynchburg, than the jeremiads of our correspondent will tend to. Had an earthquake swallowed up, or a conflagration destroyed three fourths of the town, no more doleful strains of despair could have been poured forth. It would seem to be his object to excite a panic at home and to inspire distrust or commiseration abroad. Now, for ourselves, we do not believe Lynchburg is going to be ruined. Though preferring the extension of the improvement from this place by a Rail Road, we were never of the number of those who thought a Canal to Buchanan was to be fatal to our interests. Since the passage of the Bill, we find few who will admit that they ever thought it would be. The Danville Road, if made, will very probably divert trade which now comes here. But we have a breathing time of some three, four or five years to look about us, for the best counteracting or compensating improvements, and, whether it be from temperament or a calmer view of the prospect before us, we certainly do not coincide with the alarmists whose distempered fancies have already converted a town of seven or eight thousand inhabitants—possessing many advantages of position, abounding in capital and business talent and instinct with industry and enterprise—into a miniature Nineveh or Tadmor of the Desert. Prophets of doom sometimes do work out their own accomplishment, but these croakers will, before a year elapses, laugh at their own fears and gloomy vaticinations. Lynchburg will not be ruined by the Canal, by the Rail Road, not even by our prophets of evil.