The population of the city is thirty thousand.

There are some large factories here, and manufacturing, of many sorts, is done on a great scale.
La Grange and Canton are growing towns, but I missed Alexandria; was told it was under water, but would come up to blow in the summer.
Keokuk was easily recognizable.

I lived there in 1857--an extraordinary year there in real-estate matters.

The 'boom' was something wonderful.
Everybody bought, everybody sold--except widows and preachers; they always hold on; and when the tide ebbs, they get left.

Anything in the semblance of a town lot, no matter how situated, was salable, and at a figure which would still have been high if the ground had been sodded with greenbacks.
The town has a population of fifteen thousand now, and is progressing with a healthy growth.