Smyrna Times

The Future of Delaware.

Morton McMichael, Esq.,
editor of the
Philadelphia North American and U. S. Ga-
zette, in an article on the Junction and Break-
water Railroad, says:

Any one accustomed to deal only with popu-
lous and flourishing sections of country, cov-
ered with large cities and towns, would be apt
to wonder why money should be spent in build-
ing railroads in such out of the way nooks as
the lower section of the Delaware peninsula.—
It does not occur to such persons that some of
the most thriving portions of our country owe
all their prosperity to the early construction of
routes of travel and trade through their remote
and unimproved wastes. This process, termed,
by many writers in the English press, "open-
ing up" a region to commerce and progress, is
the grandest work of the age in which we live.
It is the peculiar vocation of the universal
Yankee nation. We are in our own magnifi-
cent domain the pioneers of civilization and
enlightenment. We bear in the van of our march
the railway and the electric telegraph, and if
these be needed in the difficult and rugged re-
gions of the far west, how much more are they
demanded in those portions of the eastern
States which the prodigious waves of emigra-
tion have avoided, as in the wild, sequestered
forests of interior Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
Delaware and Maryland?

Of these States perhaps Delaware has less
wild land than the rest, in proportion to her
extent, but still there is abundance of uncul-
tivated soil, and the area of the State is suffi-
cient to support a population of a million souls
much better than it now does a hundred thou-
sand. To this it has hitherto been denied the
benefits of the great American civilizing agents,
steam and electricity. The Delaware Railroad
is built, and operates like a charm. The Mil-
ford branch is in use, will ere long, we hope,
be extended to Lewes town, while the Maryland
and Delaware road, and other tributaries, are
being pushed forward with steady zeal. When
all these shall be finished and in use, the
wealth of the whole peninsula will flow along
the Delaware Railroad, as on some river which
receives the currents of numerous creeks.