ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.



VOL. V.--JUNE, 1860. NO. XXXII.




THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN RAILWAYS.


The condition of our railways, and their financial prospects, should
interest all of us. It has become a common remark, that railways have
benefited everybody but their projectors. There is a strong doubt in the
minds of many intelligent persons, whether _any_ railways have actually
paid a return on the capital invested in them. It is believed that one of
two results inevitably takes place: in the one case, there is not business
enough to earn a dividend; in the other, although the apparent net earnings
are large enough to pay from six to eight per cent. on the cost, yet in a
few years it is discovered that the machine has been wearing itself out so
fast that the cost of renewal has absorbed more than the earnings, and the
deficiency has been made up by creating new capital or running in debt, to
supply the place of what has been worn out and destroyed. The Illinois
Central has been pointed out as an example of the first kind; the New-York
Central, of the second; while the New-York and Erie is a melancholy
instance of a railway which, never having enough legitimate business of its
own, has worn itself out in carrying at unremunerative rates whatever it