The first legislature had few French members, and was apparently southern in nativity.(271) After more than three years and a half of legislation by the Governor and judges, the inhabitants at last had an elective legislature. The journals of the two houses indicate that the belief that had been expressed in petitions to Congress some years before that such a body would provide an efficient government, was well founded. The laws passed were eminently practical for the frontier conditions under which they were to operate.(272) A man contemplating settlement in Illinois could now be sure that he would be governed by Illinois men whom he had a share in electing. The rude character of the facilities for transportation is indicated by the fact that the earlier laws of the territory deal with ferries only rarely and with bridges not at all, while as time progresses and population increases, ferries multiply and bridges begin to be constructed. By 1817-18 the desire for banks and for internal improvements, which was to be disastrous to the state at a later period, began to show itself. As examples, the Bank of Cairo and the Illinois Navigation Company will suffice. Nine men purchased the low peninsula lying near the junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and were incorporated by “An Act to Incorporate the City and Bank of Cairo.” A site for a city comprising at least two thousand lots, with streets eighty feet wide, was to be laid out. The lots were to be sold at one hundred and fifty dollars each and were to be not less than one hundred and twenty by sixty-six feet in size. Of the purchase money, two-thirds should go into the stock of the Bank of Cairo, and one-third to a fund to build dykes to keep the city from being flooded.(273) Considering the time and the location, the scheme was utterly impracticable. “An Act to Incorporate the Stockholders of the Illinois Navigation Company” authorized the formation of a company with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars, for the purpose of cutting a canal through the peninsula between the Ohio and the Mississippi. Within twelve years a canal sufficiently large for the passage of a vessel of twenty tons burden should be completed. The company was given the right of eminent domain.(274) Here again the character of the project was unsuited to existing conditions. Population was increasing rapidly at the time these laws were passed, but they required for their success an increase much more rapid. They were, however, pleasing to the settlers and the prospective settlers of the day.