An article in the "Hamburger Borsenhalle" gives a commercial review for the year 1849, and some statistics of the trade and navigation of Hamburg during that year, which will be of interest to our readers, and will bring our information down to the latest date. But we shall look forward with interest to the next official report from Hamburg for fuller and more authentic details. The article complains of the depressing circumstances under which the trade of Hamburg labored in 1849, although of a more satisfactory character, in general, than that of 1848. Until the middle of February the Elbe was blocked up by the ice, from the 12th April to the 12th August it was blockaded by the Danes, and from the end of November again blockaded by the ice. Foreign wars, internal confusion, disturbances in Baden, and revolution in Hungary, combined with the elements to depress the trade of Hamburg. The local and inland trade was the most animated, on account of the deficiency of previous supplies, as well as from a speculative spirit induced by low prices, the blockade of the Elbe, the encouraging reports from abroad, but above all the abundance of idle capital. The rate of discount was from 1 to 3 per cent, the year round. At the beginning of the year there was a lively demand for that great article of Hamburgh trade, coffee, which was then selling at 31 marc banco for ordinary Brazil-it being the favorite object of ceaseless speculation, and gradually rose, but with many fluctuations, to 5 marcs banco-a price 80 per cent higher than that at which it was quoted at the beginning of the year. 169,000,000 lbs. changed hands-more than twice the sales of the ordinary years. 85,000,000lbs. were sold the last three months of the year. A good business was also done in cotton, tobacco, spices, dye-stuffs, metals, wool, clover-which all advanced. This was also the case with sugar the first half of the year, but on the raising of the blockade there were extensive importations. Hides gradually rallied from previous depression.

Exact statistics are not at hand at the close of the year, except of the colonial and corn trade, which are published periodically. For statistics of other branches of business in which there was much activity-manufactures, exports, direct and indirect freight business, banking and exchange-recourse must be had to the tables of the Statistical Bureau, when published.

After the raising of the blockade the export trade was very lively, particularly to the West Indies, Mexico, West Coast of America, and the newfound market of California; and the foreign carrying business compensated to a great degree for the loss of business occasioned by the wars at home. "We close the year," remarks the editor of the Borsenhalle, "with the pleasing hope that the new year will bless the world with a more settled state of political affairs, that the negotiations with Denmark will soon come to a favorable termination, and that the policy of cabinets will interfere as little as possible with that freedom which is indispensable to the operations of the merchant. We take with us into the new year the greater confidence on this point because the great commercial States-England, North America, and Spain-have set the example of freeing commerce of every fetter; and already Holland, Austria, and Russia itself, have resolved to give heed to this necessary tendency towards a free and equal development of commercial intercourse. This happy turn of affairs must soon bear the best of fruits for Hamburg, and, in case peace is restored, secure for us a good business year in 1850."

This enthusiasm of the worthy Hamburg editor at the prospect presented by the opening of the carrying-trade of all the world to his fellow citizens is easily understood, and we sympathize with it heartily. We hope Hamburg will get her share—we know that our countrymen will get theirs. The following tables give the Navigation of Hamburg in 1849:

Art. V.-HOW SHOULD RAILROADS BE MANAGED?

THE materialistic tendency of the age is in nothing so strikingly exhibited as in the intensity of the desire to diminish the quantity of time necessary to pass from one spot of the earth's surface to another. The first railroad charter in the United States was granted March 4th, 1826, to Thomas H. Perkins, William Sullivan, Amos Lawrence, David Moody, Solomon Willard, and Gridley Bryant, to convey "granite from the furnace lot, and from the granite ledges near said lot, in Quincy, to tide-water in Quincy, or Milton." The first railroad in the United States, upon which passengers were conveyed, was the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, chartered February 28th, 1827, and which was opened to Ellicott's Mills, a distance of thirteen miles from Baltimore, December 28th, 1829. A single horse was attached to two of Winan's carriages, containing forty-one persons, which were drawn with ease, eleven to twelve miles per hour. Several parties of ladies and gentlemen, and also several members of Congress, were present at the opening. The number of miles of railroad now in operation in the United States is about seven thousand; eleven hundred of which are in the State of Massachusetts; one thousand in the State of New York; and the remainder in the States lying east of the Mississippi. The increase of this species of locomotion may be considered somewhat remarkable, when we consider that Benjamin Franklin, postmaster of Philadelphia, in 1743, in an advertisement dated April 14th of that year, announces "that the northern post will set out for New York on Thursdays, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, till Christmas. The southern post sets out next Monday for Annapolis, and continues going every fortnight during the summer season." At that time the post between Philadelphia and New York went once a fortnight; now there are three daily lines of communication between the two cities. The news of the battle of Bunker Hill was two weeks reaching Philadelphia. William Ellery, a delegate in Congress in 1777, occupied from October 20th to November 15th, in journeying on horseback from Dighton, Mass., to York, Penn. And Josiah Quincy, father and grandfather of the mayors of that name, of Boston, spent thirty-three days upon a journey from Georgetown, S. C., to Philadelphia, in 1773. The Newcastle (Eng.) Courant of October 11th, 1712, advertises, "that all that desire to pass from Edinbro' to London, or from London to Edinbro', or any place on that road, let them repair to Mr. John Baillie's, at the Coach and Horses, at the head of Cannongate, Edinbro', every other Saturday; or to the Black Swan, in Holborn, every other Monday; at both of which places they may be received in a stage-coach, which performs the whole journey in thirteen days, without any stoppage, (if God permit,) having eighty able horses to perform the whole stage. Each passenger paying £4 10s. for the whole journey. The coach sets out at six in the morning." Now there is a daily morning and evening train between

the two cities, accomplishing the distance (377 miles) in eight hours, at a fare of £3 5s. And it was not till 1825 that a daily line of stage-coaches was established between the cities, accomplishing the distance in forty-six hours.

A letter can now be transmitted from St. Petersburg, across an ocean and a continent, to San Francisco, in fifty days; a feat which could not have been accomplished, even so late as a dozen years since, in less than two hundred. In 1790, the length of the post-routes in the United States was 1,875 miles; at the present time, it cannot be less than one hundred and seventy thousand. And in contemplating the progress which has ensued, it is a cause of humiliation that, as in the instance of other great inventions, so many centuries have elapsed during which the power of steam, an element almost constantly within the observation of man, were, although perceived, unemployed. But reflection upon the nature of man, and his slow advancement in the great path of fact and science, will at once hush the expression of our wondering regret over the past, while a nobler and more cheering occupation for the mind offers itself in speculation upon the future. The Hon. Wm. Jackson, in a lecture delivered January 12th, 1829, at Boston, before the Massachusetts Charitable Association, stated "that the commissioners, upon the survey of a route from Boston to Albany, presented several calculations upon the present travel and transportation; and have come to the conclusion that the net receipts from the use of the road, after deducting expenses of keeping the road in repair, will amount to a sum exceeding $60,000 a year. That the number of passengers annually passing the road would be 23,000; and the amount of goods passing between Boston, Albany, and Troy, but little short of 30,000 tons." In 1849 the net income of the Worcester and Western railroads was over a million of dollars; the number of passengers transported over the Western Railroad was 959,557; and the number of tons of merchandise transported over the Western Railroad was 273,608. If such was prophecy, and such is reality, you may well take courage, good reader: for if you should live to behold the centennial anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill, there will probably be an hourly train of railroad cars between New York, Boston, and Philadelphia; a daily line to San Francisco; a daily line of steam-packets to Liverpool, and another to Havana.

But to our tale. "How should railroads be managed?" is a question more easily asked than answered. "Ask now of the days that are past.”

Upon the morning of the 7th of April, 1834, the first train of passengercars left Boston for Davis' Tavern, in Newton, to which place the Worcester Railroad was then opened. The Western Railroad was opened to Albany December 21st, 1841. The number of miles of railroad in operation in Massachusetts* January 1st, 1842, was 429 miles; and at present there are 1,100 miles in operation, constructed at a cost of about $50,000,000. We select the railroads of that Commonwealth, for the two-fold reason, that they were opened at an earlier period, and that the data are more accurate, and fuller, than can be obtained from any other source.

The following table, compiled from the source before alluded to, will exhibit their progress during the past eight years:

* For a series of tables exhibiting the condition and operation of the railroads of Massachusetts, see the successive numbers during the months of May, June, July, of the present year, of the American Railway Times, Boston. Robinson & Co. publishers: John A. Haven, editor. It would be well if New York, and the other States where railroads exist, would compel the different companies to make similar returns, so that information regarding railway management and economy could be collected and concentrated.