The next ten years of this history do not promise to be as rich in incident for the historian, or as full of practical value to the city, as were the few years just chronicled. A number of causes were operating at this time to retard the prosperity of the town, and but for the vigor with which it was endued, it must have sunk under the misfortunes which surrounded it. Evil reports, prejudicial to its health; garbled accounts from rival cities of the mortality here; a lamentably disordered state of currency, a Board of Trustees whose inefficiency was constantly complained of, were all opposing the growth of the town; and had it not, as has been before said, inherently possessed the elements of its own progress, it must have faded, and might have been entirely destroyed by the pressure of these untoward circumstances. For about two years the western country had been laboring under the operations of shaving and brokerage; there was not at this time a single bank west of the mountains whose paper could be passed at a fair value, except in the immediate neighborhood of the bank itself, and there were not more than three or four that pretended to pay their notes in money. The paper of the Bank of Kentucky was at a discount, and there was no hope of its improving. Tennessee and Ohio were in a similar, if not a worse condition. The paper of the United States Bank was alone merchantable at its value, and upon Louisville, as the great commercial mart of the western country, must these circumstances weigh most heavily. Despite all these disadvantages, however, the town did progress, not so rapidly as its past course would have promised, but with a rational and steady improvement. One of the drawbacks mentioned above was beginning to be removed. The new Trustees of the town began to prosecute their measures of improvement with some degree of energy. Wells were dug; pavements laid; streets graded; ponds drained; and a general activity prevailed which showed some attention toward making the town more desirable as a residence, both in point of comfort and of health. The removal of the causes o£ disease, however, could not be instantaneous, and even if they had been it would have required time to convince those disposed to emigrate hither of the fact.