“The ‘World’s Progress,’ published by Putnam, of New York,--a reliable authority,--gives the population and increase of the principal cities in the United States. Boston, between 1840 and 1850, increased forty-five per cent. Toronto, within the same period, increased _ninety-five_ per cent. New York, the great emporium of the United States, and regarded as the most prosperous city in the world, increased, in the same time, sixty-six per cent., about thirty less than Toronto. “The cities of St. Louis and Cincinnati, which have also experienced extraordinary prosperity, do not compare with Canada any better. In the thirty years preceding 1850, the population of St. Louis increased fifteen times. In the thirty-three years preceding the same year, Toronto increased _eighteen times_. And Cincinnati increased, in the same period given to St. Louis, but twelve times. “Hamilton, a beautiful Canadian city at the head of Lake Ontario, and founded much more recently than Toronto, has also had almost unexampled prosperity. In 1836 its population was but 2,846, in 1854 it was upwards of 20,000. “London, still farther west in Upper Canada, and a yet more recently-founded city than Hamilton, being surveyed as a wilderness little more than twenty-five years ago, has now upwards of ten thousand inhabitants. “The City of Ottawa, recently called after the magnificent river of that name, and upon which it is situated, has now above 10,000 inhabitants, although in 1830 it had but 140 houses, including mere sheds and shanties; and the property upon which it is built was purchased, not many years before, for _eighty pounds_. “The Town of Bradford, situated between Hamilton and London, and whose site was an absolute wilderness twenty-five years ago, has now a population of 6,000, and has increased, in ten years, upwards of _three hundred per cent._; and this without any other stimulant or cause save the business arising from the settlement of a fine country adjacent to it. “The Towns of Belleville, Cobourg, Woodstock, Goderich, St. Catherine’s, Paris, Stratford, Port Hope, and Dundas, in Upper Canada, show similar prosperity, some of them having increased in a ratio even greater than that of Toronto, and all of them but so many evidences of the improvement of the country, and the growth of business and population around them.