"A promoter," he said, "was once trying to borrow money on a boom town.
He went to a banker and showed him a map, not of what the town was, but
of what he claimed it was going to be. 'Here,' he said, 'is where the
town hall will stand. In this lot will be the opera house. Over here we
are going to have a beautiful park. And on this corner we are going to
erect a tall granite office building.'
"'But,' said the banker, coldly, 'we lend money only on the basis of
population.'
"'That's all right,' returned the promoter. 'Measured by any known
standard except an actual _count_, we have a population of two hundred
thousand.'"
I shall not attempt to point this tale more than to recommend it to the
attention of the secretary of the Chamber of Commerce in every city in
the United States.
* * * * *
Raleigh is situated within seven miles of the exact center of North
Carolina. The land on which the city stands was purchased by the State,
in 1792, from a man named Joel Lane, whose former house still stands.
The town was then laid out in a one mile square, with the site selected
for the State Capitol directly at the center of it, and lots were sold
off by the State to individuals, the proceeds of these sales being used
to build the Capitol.
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