North from the South. It was not diversity of interest alone, but diversity of habits, principles, and aspirations. Wide apart in heart and mind as the poles from each other, the citizens of the opposite ends of the Union had but the feeble Federal bond to delay that violent disruption and severance of which, even then, the signs of the times gave fearful warning. But it is not my purpose to linger on the happy days I spent beneath the roof of my kind hosts. Let me rather relate the information I received from General Warfield, when his friendly hospitality had caused me to confide to his ear my errand to America, and the ruin I had too much reason to anticipate. “My dear sir,” said the General, “I am glad you have told me of this—very glad. I can help you in this matter.” The General then proceeded to tell me that, in the first year of his residence in Missouri, Harvey, a notorious speculator, had begun the railway whose miserable wreck I had visited. He had given it up for want of funds, had become insolvent, and was reputed to have died in Texas. That he had received a real concession of land and authentic charters from the State legislatures, was undoubted. But the concession had been clogged by the express stipulation, that in two years Harvey should have a hundred and fifty miles in working order, and that the whole should be completed in four years. The condition not having been complied with, the concession was null and void. The Great Nauvoo and Nebraska Railway Company, had no right to a corporate existence. “But,” said I, “I of course perused the papers. I saw no mention of such a conditional clause.” The General smiled. “Depend upon it, Mr Bulkeley,” said he, “that erasure and forgery have been practised to make the old deeds sufficiently tempting to effect the only purpose their present holders have in view—that of raising cash in the London market. Colonel Sling—who, by the way, is no more a colonel, even of militia, than black Cæsar there—is no novice at fraud. He was convicted at Jefferson city of a like offence, and I was present at his trial, and heard some of his antecedents; indeed, I was a witness in the case. But if you will take my advice, you will hasten back to England, and, if possible, save the funds in the hands of this confederate of his, this Bett, before the pair can abscond with their gains. Do not parley, but apply to the police at once, if, indeed, it be not too late.”