St. Cloud Democrat

Correspondence.
Superior, Lake Superior, Nov. 16th, 1861.
ED. DEM. After fourteen months absence in Philadelphia I again have the pleasure of addressing you a few lines upon matters of importance to your citizens. The inquiry has often been addressed to me while on the steamboat to Lake Superior, what of your railroad matters? Has anything been done between Superior and the Upper Mississippi? My answer was, I will make inquiries on arrival, and for this reason I now address you.
It puzzles me why something cannot be done. I pledged the principal that if only fifty miles were equipped from Superior Stearns County would ship any quantity of freight. Only fifty miles is all I ask at present. I added the Mississippi farmers would donate a large quantity produce, help the contract $13,800 or $7000. Will not some one interested open a Subscription Book in your County and see how much produce will be subscribed, and inform me by mail. I can speak feelingly on the subject having paid some thirty dollars freight on the steamboat from Cleveland, Ohio. Are we to join you year after year paying one dollar and a half per barrel for flour? Every steamer for Lake Superior loaded down with flour, corn meal, butter, feed, cattle, fresh meat, vegetables, hay, corn, oats, apples, poultry, salt pork, beef, etc! When will this unnatural state of affairs cease? There is an immense amount of idle capital in the East seeking investment. And no reason why if a determined effort were made, these fifty miles of road should not be completed in 1862. Therefore I say, citizens of Stearns and other counties interested, let us hear from you in regard to produce subscriptions to aid the railroad.
The schooners Neptune and Ford await a favorable wind to sail for Ontonagon, both heavily laden with lumber, beef, etc.
J. S. RITCHIE.