public, and at the same time be sufficiently remote from the city. This plan was at once acted upon, and all the railroad companies agreed to enter into the project. A company was organized with a capital of $1,000,000, and in a short time all the stock was taken the greater portion by the railroad companies, and the remainder by the leading cattle dealers and packers of Chicago, Immediately after being organized, the company purchased 345 acres of land, several miles from the city, and the work of building the yard was commenced about the first of June. Large drains six feet deep were dug, running north and south through the grounds, 150 feet from each other, and running into these from the east and west sides were numerous small drains two feet deep and 30 feet apart. After completing the draining, the whole yard was planked. This was done by placing large sills on the ground, putting joists over them, and nailing on these joists heavy pine plank. After the planking, which extends throughout the whole yard, the place was surveyed out into blocks, and then divided into pens. These pens vary in size from 20 feet by 35 feet to 85 feet by 112, and in capacity from one to 13 car loads. They are so arranged, however, that at any time two, three or four of the pens can be thrown into one. There are in all 500 pens, and they are all numbered so that they can be easily found. The pens for cattle are open on top, while those for hogs are covered with shed-roofing. The place is divided into streets and alleys cutting each other at right angles. Each of these streets is designated by some particular number or letter, and vary in width from 33 to 75 feet. The alleys are from 16 to 24 feet wide. At the entrance to every pen there are two gates, which when open swing right across the street, and thus stop up the thoroughfare, so that when the cattle come to it they cannot go further on, and being unable to turn back must pass into the pen. The gate is then closed and they are safe. Around the whole 345 acres there will be a high board fence.

Through every stall runs a two-inch iron pipe connecting with a four-inch pipe running through the ground at the depth of over two feet. These pipes will conduct water for the use of the stock into every part of the yard, all the drovers need do is to turn on the water, and it flows into troughs in any required quantity. When finished, there will be more than six miles of the water pipes running through the yards. It is estimated that there will be over 500,000 gallons of water used around the place daily, and where the supply is to come from has not yet been determined. A well has been dug, and, at the depth of seventy feet, a fine spring was struck, which flowed so rapidly that the workmen experienced some difficulty in escaping with safety. A very large quantity is now used from this well, and yet the supply continues as great as ever. The company are in hopes of being able to obtain a sufficiency of water for all pur poses from several of these wells, and they are now having two made.

On two sides, the east and west, numerous railway tracks are laid down for the accommodation of all railroads centering in Chicago. There are nine railroads interested in the undertaking, each of which has 1,000 feet of track for its own particular use.

In connection with this immense cattle yard, there will be erected a very large hotel, sufficient to accommodate several hundred persons; a bank and ex

change building, at which all the financial business of the yards will be transac ted. Other buildings, consisting of stables, stores, workshops, and dwellings are also being erected by the company in the vicinity of the yard. The work at present in hand will cost about $500,000, but what the ultimate cost will be the company themselves cannot estimate.

NON-OCCUPATION VITIATES INSURANCE.

THE Supreme Court of Massachusetts has just made a decision of much importance to the insured. It is, that when a policy of insurance contains a clause to the effect that if the building insured is unoccupied for any time, without notice to the office, the policy is void; the building must actually be in use dur. ing that time; it is not sufficient that everything remains in readiness for use and occupancy, and it is visited every day. The case that brought out this decision was the suit of one Keith vs. the Quincy Mutual Insurance Company, to recover the insuranee on a trip-hammer-shop, destroyed by fire.

The building, which was connected with other shops, was unused, sometimes for months, though it was always kept ready for service and was visited every day to see that everything was straight. But the Judge ruled that this was not enough to constitute occupancy, and if the building bad remained without any practical use for thirty days-the time specified in the policy-it was really an unoccupied building for that time, and the policy became void; and the full bench have sustained that ruling. In this case it was the renewal of an old policy that had no such clause in the original, and the plaintiff testified that he did not know that the clause was in the new policy; but his ignorance made no difference in the decision.

In this view of the case, there are a great many unoccupied buildings, and a large number of insurance policies are voided, if they have a clause compelling the occupancy of buildings all the time, without notice is given to the contrary. People who leave their houses for a month or two in the Summer, though they may, perhaps, be visited every day, are liable, under this ruling, to lose their in surance if the house should be destroyed by fire; and the same is true of an unoccupied office or shop. It is important, at all events, that people who have their buildings insured should know exactly what their policies require, or they may become liable at any time to lose their insurance in case of fire, through some trifling, perhaps merely technical, violation of the terms imposed by the insurance companies.

THE

MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE

AND

COMMERCIAL REVIEW.

MARCH, 1866.

THE REHABILITATION OF THE SOUTH.

The question of the admission of the Southern delegations to Congress appers to be still the only subject discussed in our Legislative Halls at Washington. President Johnson also has, d'ring the month, beer visited by numerous delegations, and his opinions, with regard to the reorganization of the South, have been fully made known. Among others a Committee from the Senate and House of Delegates of Virginia, presented to the President a series of resolutions adopted by the General Assembly of that State on this subject. In reply, Mr. Jonnson reiterated the principles which have actuated his course, and gave further reasons for the policy adopted. After setting forth the position which he had taken during the recent civil war, he said:

"I am gratified to meet you to-day, expressing the principles and enunciating the sentiments to which you have given utterance. I have to doubt that your intention is to carry out and comply with every principle laid down in the resolutions which you have submitted. I know that some of you are distrustful; but I am of those who have confidence in the judgment, in the integrity, in the intelligence, and in the virtue of the great mass of the American people, and having such confidence, I am willing to trust them; and I thank God that we have not yet reached that point where we have lost all confidence in each other. The spirit of the Government can only be preserved, we can only become prosperous and great as a people by mutual forbearance and confidence. Upon that faith and confidence alone can the Government be successfully carried on."

In these words of Mr. Johnson is embraced the single idea upon which depends the great issue now before the nation-Shall we or shall we not, trust the South The President holds to the doctrine so emphatically expressed in his letter to General Slocum that "the people must be trusted with their Government." He is a Southern man, born and bred among that people, and has shown his devotion to his government by the readiness with which he sided against the majority in his own State at a time when patriotism in Tennessee cost something. We should be inclined, therefore, to place great confidence in the President's iews, and especially in this instance, when they are supported by the opinions of the leading military men who have had opportunities for judging. But

aside from the views of the President and others, we believe that every consideration of national interest and of national pride, require the prosecution of the more generous policy.

We do not impugn the motives of those who think differently. It is natural that men who have given their best exertions, their lives, and the lives of those dear to the n, to maintain the integrity of the Republic, should require ample security against a repetition of the controversy. They apprehend the revival, under some form, of the doctrine of secession, and the continuance of laws oppressive to the race that the war has enfranchised. We are convinced, however, that such fears are groundless. The South staked their all on the issue of the war. They lost; and now the heresies which gave rise to it, no power on earth could vitalize. The Constitutional Amendment has also denationalized slavery, and the people and the States are showing, through their legislatures, and through private contracts with the freedinen, the good faith with which they accept the situation.

This frank avowal of Mr. Johnson will, therefore, we are persuaded, be accepted in the same spirit in which it was made. It is not by the holding of the conquered party to extravagant and humiliating conditions that the Union is to be established anew, that civil law is to be maintained in the Southern commonwealths, and their prosperity restored to its former condition. Enough that the majesty of the nation has beeu asserted, and the problem of secession has been determined by the arbitrament of war, that the social system of the South, which many regarded as the original source of the mischief, has been overturned. The time for peace has come, and the duty of the hour is restoration. The basis of this restoration must be mutual confidence, as the President has so clearly indicated. The Southern States must invite this by assuming a political attitude before the nation; the North, by cordial acceptance of their assurances.

The most important considerations of public interest demand this. When the war began, every one felt that the breaking up of the Union would involve the general disintegration of society, and endanger our national existence. The same feeling, rightly applied, must lead to the universal conviction that territoriai dependence and military subjection of the Southern States, expose us to similar peril. We cannot safely permit a colonial system to grow up among us, tending as it does to concentrate power in the hands of the Executive, and to enlarge it even to the dimensions of imperialism. This was the real issue upon which our fathers fought in the revolution; and it is tangibly expressed in their watchword, the reason why John Hampden retused to pay ship-money,"No taxation without representation." Till our Southern States are permitted to have their Senators and Representatives in Congress, they are but colonies of their sister common wealths, and can have no joint interest in our great national system.

This disorganized condition is liable at any moment to operate unfavorably upon our foreign relations. We cannot press so boldly upon the British Government the settlement of the questions of international law arising out of the spoliations upon our commerce by privateers fitted out, manned and chartered in British ports; nor venture with proper assurance to demand the evacuation of Mexico. The general lawlessness ex

isting in that Republic, and the weakness of the acknowledged Government, afford to Maximilian and his Gallican sponsor a pretext for their armed occupation almost as good as our own for military subjection of two-thirds of our own territory. So long as this state of affairs remains, the possession of that territory is a source of relative national weakness. Every foreign statesman knows this, and the diplomatic correspondence of Messrs. Seward and Adams cannot disprove so palpable a fact. It has been the great difficulty in our foreign intercourse; and we appreciate the feelings of the President when he declares that

"The moment it can be announced that the Union of the States is again complete, that we have resumed our career of prosperity and greatness, at that very instant almost all our foreign difficulties will be settled. For there is no power on earth which will care to have a controversy or a rupture with the Government of the United States, undersuch circumstances."

We wish most earnestly that Congress could take as broad and just a view of this question.

But most of all it is necessary to the prosperity of the country that this policy should be speedily put into operation. The vast region lately overrun by war was the garden of the Republic, and furnished to our export trade the staples which gave us our commercial preponderance iu the markets of the world. In this connection the following table will be of interest, showing the exports of cotton from the United States during the last seven fiscal years, distinguishing the ports from which it was shipped, and the countries of its destination. The figures for the year ending June 30, 1856, we have obtained from the Treasury Departinent at Washiington through the politeness of the Register; the figures for the other years were also compiled from the records of that office.

As recorded without correction for the omission of actual exports for nearly three quarters at the leading Southern ports. Including these the Treasury Department estimates the total export at 1.750,000,000 pounds, valued at $185,000,000.

† No returns from New Orleans for the quarter ending June 30, 1865.