merican activity
and enterprise! I had visited it in the year 1826, and then it had only
three thousand inhabitants. The theatre, I remember, amused me
immensely, the stage and accommodation for spectators barely occupying
an area of twenty-five feet square. Mr. G.V. Brooke's boxes, at that
time, would have filled the whole house; and here they are in 1852,
drawing our metropolitan stars to their boards. Their population has
increased twenty-fold, and now exceeds sixty thousand; a splendid
harbour, a lighthouse, piers, breakwater, &c., have been constructed,
and the place is daily increasing. Churches rear their spiry steeples in
every direction. Banks and insurance offices are scattered broadcast.
Educational, literary, and benevolent establishments abound, and upwards
of a dozen newspapers are published. Land which, during my visit in
1826, you might almost have had for the asking, is now selling at two
hundred guineas the foot of frontage for building. Even during the last
ten years, the duties collected at the port have increased from L1000 to
nearly L14,000. In the year 1852 upwards of four thousand vessels,
representing a million and a half of tonnage, cleared at the harbour,
and goods to the value of nearly seven millions sterling arrived from
the lakes, the greater portion of the cargoes being grain. The value of
goods annually delivered by Erie Canal is eight millions. Never was a
more energetic hive of humanity than these "Buffalo lads;" and they are
going ahead every day, racing pace.

Now, John Bull, come with me to the cliff outside the town, and
overhanging the Niagara river. Look across the stream, to the Canada
shore, and you will see a few houses and a few people. There they have
been, for aught I know, since the creation. The town(!) is called
Waterloo, and the couple of dozen inhabitants, despite the rich fruits
of industry on which they may gaze daily, seem to regard industry as a
frightful scourge to be studiously avoided. Their soil is as rich as, if
not richer than, that on the opposite shore: the same lake is spread
before them, and the same river runs by their doors. It does, indeed,
look hopeless, where such an example, constantly under their eyes, fails
to stir them up to action. But, perhaps, you will say, you think you see
a movement among the "dry bones." True, my dear Bull, there is now a
movement; but, if you inquire, you will find it is a Buffalo movement.
It is their energy, activity, a