commendable progressive spirit has latterly been evinced by the
managers generally, of our railroads, in the transmission of freight,
especially live stock and grain. The improvement is a most grateful
one to shippers, who have ordinarily quite enough anxiety and vexation
to suffer in the fluctuations of the market and subjection to unlooked
for and onerous charges, without having superadded unreasonable
exposure and deterioration of their property while en route to market.
In this movement the management of the Central has fully sympathized.
Their stock and grain cars have received high commendations from those
for whose benefit they were intended. The entire equipment of the road
is such as to comport with them; the safety, comfort and convenience
of the public, being constantly kept in view, regardless of the cost
incurred.

The three staunch and magnificent steamers belonging to the company,
the Plymouth Rock, Western World and Mississippi, owing to the hard
times have been laid up at their dock since the fall of 1857, to the
great regret of the public generally, as well as to the detriment of
the business interest of our city. With the return of a more
prosperous era they will doubtless be again placed in commission. The
line formed by these boats is the most pleasant and expeditious medium
of communication between the East and the West and Southwest, and
cannot fail to be well patronized, especially now that the Dayton and
Michigan Railroad is completed, which will bring a large amount of
both freight and passenger traffic by way of Detroit that formerly
sought other routes.

The rolling stock now on the road consists of ninety-eight engines,
seventy first class passenger cars, twelve second class cars;
twenty-nine baggage cars, and two thousand seven hundred and
seventy-eight freight cars, making a total of two thousand eight
hundred and eighty-nine cars and all of which were built in the
company's own shops.

This road is one hundred and eighty-eight miles long, and has been in
operation throughout its whole extent since November, 1858. It is
deserving of the distinctive appellation of the _Back Bone Road of
Michigan_, having been of incalculable value in developing the
resources of the region through which it is located, decidedly one of
the richest and most important in the West. The principal towns and
cities upon its line are Pontiac, Fentonville, St. Johns, Ionia, Grand
Rapids and Grand Haven. The grow