--PENNSYLVANIA CENTRAL RAILWAY.--RETURN TO NEW YORK.
Lexington, Kentucky, Nov. 13th, 1858.
My last letter was closed at Indianapolis, but despatched from
Louisville. On the morning after I wrote we had time, before starting
for Louisville, to take a walk through the principal streets of
Indianapolis. The Capitol or state-house is the only remarkable
building; and here, as in most other towns in America, we were struck by
the breadth of the streets. In the centre of Indianapolis there is a
large square, from which the four principal streets diverge, and from
the centre of this, down these streets, there are views of the distant
country which on all sides bounds the prospect. This has a fine effect,
but all these capital cities of states have an unfinished appearance:
great cities have been planned, but the plans have never been
adequately carried out. The fact is, they have all a political, and not
a commercial origin, and they want the stimulus of commercial enterprise
to render them flourishing towns, or to give them the finished
appearance of cities of much more recent date, such as Chicago and
others.
We left Indianapolis at about half-past ten, and reached Jeffersonville,
on the north side of the Ohio at four. The country at first was entirely
prairie, but became a good deal wooded as we journeyed south.
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