The Portsmouth Inquirer

Cincinnati and Portsmouth Railroad.

We learn from various sources that the citizens along the proposed route are anxious for its construction. The spirit is up, and we have no doubt that residents all along the line will subscribe liberally.

The advantages consequent upon the construction of this road must be apparent to all. It would run a greater part of the way through as good an agricultural country as any in the State. An easy mode of transportation to the best markets of the United States would be opened up. This alone would greatly increase the production of all the counties through which the road would pass. Besides, the country would become more thickly settled; thousands of acres now an unbroken forest, would be cleared up and brought into cultivation. The way trade on this road, we have no doubt, would be greater than on any other road of the same length in the State.

Another thing should not be forgotten; the rise in value of the real estate along the road would be equal in amount to the cost of its construction. The road once built to Portsmouth, there is no doubt that it would be continued to a point further up the Ohio, and opposite the terminus of the Virginia Central railroad. The road would then possess advantages at least equal to any other road between Cincinnati and the East. From Portsmouth East, it would pass through a portion of the great coal and iron fields of Ohio, which we believe is not made accessible either by the Hillsborough or Chillicothe road, and which is, if we are not misinformed, the best part of the coal and iron region.

We hope that all interested will thoroughly examine the advantages offered by the construction of this road. Let the subject be agitated, and the project will constantly gain friends. If we of the South-Western Section of Ohio do not wish to be let far behind by our brethren in other sections. we must enter earnestly and at once into some system of improvements which will enable us to compete successfully with them. If this road be not now built, other roads may be made which will effectually prevent us from ever having a railroad in this section of country. Then we may expect to fall continually further behind in the great march of progress and improvement. Business will be cramped, and the development of our natural resources be greatly retarded or indefinitely postponed. Our energetic and active men will continue to leave us and go where a more inviting field is offered for their enterprise and capital.

These are a few of the baneful results which must inevitably follow if we sit idly by with folded hands and make no rigorous effort to obtain those facilities of communication and business, which have placed inferior portions of the State so far in our advance.-Georgetown Union,