therefore, with high hopes and large anticipations, that the results of your deliberations may result in great good to our common country. And now, gentlemen of the Convention, I have the further pleasure of announcing that the people of our city are desirous of extending you a cordial welcome, and have chosen a distinguished son of Ohio to speak in their behalf. I have the honor of introducing to you the Hon. GEORGE H. PENDLeton.

Mr. PENDLETON was received with prolonged and enthusiastic cheers by the Convention. After some moments, silence was restored, and Mr. PENDLETON spoke as follows:

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION:

My fellow citizens have done me infinite honor to-day. The civic authorities, the commercial authorities, the Chamber of Commerce, the Board of Trade, the people generally, have commissioned me to speak to you in their behalf.

They have commanded me to give you a most fraternal greeting. They have commanded me to say, with a sincerity and warmth for which I find no fitting words, that you are their honored and most welcome guests. They have commanded me to say that they appreciate the honor of your presence here, and they desire to recognize it by every act of courteous, and attentive, and affectionate hospitality. (Applause.)

These annually recurring meetings-this concourse of representative men-these delegations from every State and City and Chamber of Commerce and combination of business men, from the Hudson to the Rio Grande-these earnest, thoughtful, learned debates by friends of every industrial interest, and advocates of every growing enterprise, from the Alleghanies to the Rocky mountains-attest the dignity of this Convention, and the magnitude of the questions committed to its consideration.

Your predecessors who met at Norfolk in 1868 were few in numbers, and the chief subject of their consideration was the ocean trade of the Atlantic cities with Europe.

Your numbers already reach many hundreds; and your debates will touch every project of material development-every phase of intelligent industry-every facility of commercial intercourse every plan of finance and taxation-every encouragement of immigration-every question of governmental economy.

It must be so. This Convention meets to consider and advance the interests of the great Mississippi valley. I say this in no selfish or sectional sense. I say it in no narrow spirit. I would limit your duties and your influence to no local lines.

The interests of the Mississippi valley are the center and source of the well being of other portions of the country. Its development is their growth. Its prosperity is their wealth; and when the hand of industry touches into life any dormant element of power which nature has hidden in its fields, or mines, or lakes, or rivers, they grow by its activity, and move under its impulsion.

The Mississippi valley! The very name calls up a vision of transcendent grandeur. Mountains filled with ores; valleys instinct with fecund life; prairies carpeted with the most brilliant wild` flowers, and redolent of the sweetest perfumes; lands generous with wheat, corn and barley; lands teeming with cotton, rice and sugar; the snow-clad fields of the North shading into the dusky yellow of the parched and thirsty South; the freezing blasts of Canada, melted to genial breezes in the warm embrace of the fervent winds of Florida.

It stretches from central Pennsylvania to the western boundary of Kansas, from the Lake of the Woods to the gulf of Mexico. Its soils are fertile; its mines are productive; its forests are exhaustless; its skies are bright; its climates are healthful; God has given to it every element of wealth; every attribute of beauty; and through its whole length the great river, made of the confluent waters of every spring and rivulet and stream in all its broad expanse, rolls its ceaseless flood from the frozen regions of the arctic ices to the golden orange groves of the sun-begotten tropics.

Cheap lands and abounding breadstuffs will secure its future. Ere long a hundred millions of people will inhabit it. They will till its fertile soil; they will work its fruitful mines; they will manufacture its raw materials; they will bring every force of nature into co-operation with every appliance of art, and use both with every device of human ingenuity and every effort of human industry in the development of its unrivaled resources.

They will be an active, enterprising, self-reliant, audacious people.

They will not submit to isolation.

They will require and they will have free, uninterrupted, easy communication with the gulf of Mexico by the Mississippi river; with the Chesapeake by the canals of Virginia; with Sandy Hook

by the canals of New York; with the North Atlantic by the lakes and the St. Lawrence.

They will reach the Pacific by the Northern and the Central and the Southern Railroads.

They will dig through the mountains of Virginia,. and import by way of Norfolk. They will thread the valleys of Kentucky and Tennessee, and load the ships of Charleston and Savannah. They will build the levees of the southern rivers, and reclaim to cultivation their rich alluvion.

They will sweep away every embarrassment, caused by a restrictive, or, if you prefer the word, a protective system; and they will demand every improvement in the burden of taxation and in the benefits of currency which the most enlightened and sagacious civilization can suggest.

And I would fain believe that in the midst of this splendid material advancement they will never forget that in the eyes of God and humanity they are charged with the preservation of free government, and with the maintenance, as its best guarantee, of the confederated system of our fathers. (Loud applause.)

Does this consummation seem improbable?

Look at the ocean telegraph, at the Pacific railroad, at the Suez canal, at the delicate machinery which does actually supply the place of human hands, and can almost think! and who shall doubt that the Almighty has touched with living fire the inventive genius of this age, and has subjugated to the control of daring and audacious man the mysterious forces which fill the earth, and sea, and air.

"We live in deeds, not in years; in thought, not breaths;

In feelings, not in figures on the dial.

We should count time by heart throbs;

He most lives

Who thinks most, feels noblest, acts the best."

Gentlemen, it is your work to aid this development-to set in motion those agencies which shall tend to its accomplishment.

This is the Southern Commercial Convention.

Ohio was the first fruit of the munificence of liberal, patriotic, magnanimous Virginia. Eldest-born of the north-west, the fairest of her sisters, conscious of her own matured and matronly beauty, she looks with loving pride upon their youthful bloom and vigor. In her name I bid you welcome.

Cincinnati is the queen of the Ohio. She has been throned by her industry; and the dark crown which sits forever upon her fair brow is the symbol of her royalty and the sign of her intelligent and indomitable labor. In her name I bid you welcome!

Her people are sagacious enough to be foresighted, wise enough to be instructed, large enough to take within their affections every one of their countrymen.

In their names I bid you welcome, thrice welcome, to their homes and their hearthstones!

Wild applause followed the conclusion of Mr. PENDLETON's address.

Mr. THEODORE COOK, Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements, then announced to the Convention that as soon as the number of delegates from each State had been reported to the Secretary, arrangements would be made to have the members of each delegation located together, and requested the chairman of each State delegation to report as soon as possible. Mr. Cook also announced the place selected for headquarters of the Convention, and where the committee rooms were located. Also, that the Committee of Arrangements proposed to have a Banquet on Friday evening, and requested that delegates would make no other arrangements for that evening.

Mr. Cook then read notes of invitation to the delegates from the Y. M. M. Library Association; from the managers of the Industrial Exposition; from the Managers of the Theaters; from the President of the Street R. R. Companies; from the President of the Chamber of Commerce; from the Managers of the Telegraph Lines, and followed these with the reading of the official list of subjects submitted for the consideration of the Convention, as follows:

The following subjects having been officially reported to the Committee of Arrangements are presented to this Convention for its consideration and action:

1. Direct trade between southern Atlantic cities and Europe.(Adjourned from Louisville Convention.)

2. Southern Pacific Railroad.-(Adjourned from Louisville Con

vention.)

3. Obstruction to navigation by narrow span bridge piers.-(Adjourned from Louisville Convention.)

4. Continuous water line communication between the Mississippi river and the Atlantic seaboard.—(Adjourned from Louisville Convention.)

5. Removal of obstructions from the mouth of the Mississippi river.-(Adjourned from Louisville Convention.)

6. Construction of permanent levees on the Mississippi river.(Adjourned from Louisville Convention.)

7. Finance and taxation.-(Adjourned from Louisville Convention.) 8. Removal of the national capitol.-(From St. Louis.)

9. To abolish all toll charges on the navigable rivers of the United States. (From Cincinnati Board of Trade.)

10. The enlargement of the more important lines of canal in the United States so as to render them navigable for vessels propelled by steam.-(From Cincinnati.)

11. The charges on passenger and freight traffic by rail and water lines. (From Cincinnati Board of Trade.)

12. That all railway viaducts over navigable rivers, be made highways for railroad companies, which will pay their pro-rata toll on same; and that efforts be made to secure legislation to that effect. (From Cincinnati Chamber Commerce.) 13. To abolish throughout the whole country all license imposed on commercial travelers.-(Cincinnati Board of Trade.) 14. Free trade in money.-(Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce.) 15. A settled policy in the public interest in regard to the disposition of the Government lands.-(City of Cincinnati.) 16. Improvement of seacoast harbors.-(From Mobile Board of Trade.)

17. Wharfage on the navigable rivers.-(City of St. Louis.) 18. Ample railroad facilities from the Ohio river to the central south.-(From Chattanooga, Tenn.)

19. Direct and reciprocal trade with Brazil and other South American countries.-(From Dubuque, Iowa.)

20. Tares and short weights.-(From Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce.)