Baled Hay. A Drier Book than Walt Whitman's «Leaves o' Grass»

He said he didn't believe that such a remark had been made, but if it had he would go home and kill the man who wrote it, if that would poultice up my wounded heart. I said it would. If he would just mail me the remains of the man who made the remark, not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith, it would be all right.

We talked all night, and incurred the everlasting displeasure of a fat man from San Francisco, who told the porter he wanted his money back because he hadn't slept any all night. He seemed mad because we were having a little harmless conversation among ourselves, and when the clock in the steeple struck four he rolled over in his berth, gave a large groan and then got up and dressed. Some people are so morbidly nervous that they cannot sleep on a train, and they naturally get cross and say ungentlemanly things. This man said some things while he was dressing and buttoning his suspenders, that made my blood run cold. A man who has no better control of his temper than that, ought not to travel at all. He just simply makes a North American side-show of himself.

Cheyenne is very greatly improved since I was here last. The building up of the corner opposite the Inter Ocean hotel has added greatly to the attractiveness of the Magic City, and other work is being done which enhances the beauty of the city very much. F. E. Warren is one of the most enterprising and thoroughly vigorous western business men I ever knew. He is an anomaly, I might say. When I say he is an anomaly, I do not mean to reflect upon him in any way, though I do not know the meaning of the word. I simply mean that he is the chief grand rustle of a very rustling city.

WHAT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY NEEDS

THE candidate for county commissioner, on the Democratic ticket, of Sweetwater county, keeps a drug store, and when a little girl burned her arm against the cook stove, and her father went after a package of Russia salve, the genial Bourbon gave her a box of "Rough on Rats." What the Democratic party needs, is not so much a new platform, but a carload of assorted brains that some female seminary had left over.

A LETTER FROM LEADVILLE

Leadville, Colorado, Sept. 10.

THIS morning we rose at 4:30, and rode from Buena Vista to Leadville, arriving at the Clarendon for breakfast. Our party has been reduced in one way and another until there are only eight here to-day. Secretary Morgan and family remained at Buena Vista on account of the illness of Misa Lillie Morgan, who suffers severely from sea-sickness on the mountain railroads.

One thing I have not mentioned, and an incident certainly worthy of note, was the sudden decision of our president, E. A. Slack, on Friday, to remain at a little station on the South Parle road, above Como, while the party continued on to Buena Vista. Mr. Slack is a man of iron will and sudden impulses, as all who know him are aware. He got in a car at the station referred to, and under the impression that it belonged to our train, remained in it till he got impatient about something, and asked a man who came in with a broom, why we were making such a stop at that station. The man said that this car had been side-tracked, and the train had gone sometime ago.

Then Mr. Slack made the rash remark that he would remain there until the next train. He acts readily in an emergency, and he saw at a glance that the best thing that he could do would be to just stay there, and examine the country until he could get the next train. He telegraphed us that the fare was so high on our train that he would see if he couldn't get better rates on the following day. In the meantime, he struck Superintendent Egbert's special car, and rode around over the country till morning, while our party took in Buena Vista. The city is but two years old, but very thriving, and has 2,500 to 3,000 population. At the depot we were met by Agent Smith, of the South Park road, who had secured rooms for us at the Grand Park hotel. He had also arranged for carriages to take us out to Cottonwood Hot Springs, about six miles up Cottonwood creek, where we took supper. We found a first-class sixty-four room hotel there, with hot baths, and everything comfortable and neat. The proprietors are Messrs. Stafford and Hartenstein – the latter having been a medical student under Dr. Agnew. After a good-supper we returned to Buena Vista, where the home military company, under Captain Johnson, led by the Buena Yista band, serenaded us. I responded in a brief but telling speech, which I would give here if I had not forgotten what it was. Some of the other members of the party wanted to make the speech, but I said no, it would not be right. I was representing the president, Mr. Slack, and wearing his overcoat, and therefore it would devolve on me to make the grand opening remarks. It was the greatest effort of my life, and town lots in Buena Vista depreciated fifty per cent.

We found A. D. Butler, formerly of Cheyenne, now at Buena Vista, also Tom Campbell, well known to Laramie people, doing well at the new city, and a prospective member of the Colorado legislature. George Marion, formerly of Laramie, is also at Buena Vista, engaged in the retail bridge trade. We also met Messrs. Leonard, of the and Kennedy, of the Herald, who treated us the whitest kind. Mr. Leonard and wife went with us yesterday over to Gunnison City. Billy Butler, formerly of Laramie, is now at Buena Vista, successfully engaged in mining.

Yesterday we put in the most happy day of the entire trip. Under the very kind and thoughtful guidance of Superintendent E. Wilbur, of the Gunnison division of the South Park road, we went over the mountain to Gunnison and through the wonderful Alpine tunnel, the highest railroad point in the United States, and with its approaches 2,600 feet long. When you pass through the tunnel the brakeman makes you close your window and take in your head. He does this for two reasons: first, you can't see anything if you look out, and secondly, the company don't like to hire an extra man to go through the tunnel twice a day and wipe the remains of tourists off the walls.

The newsboy told me that a tourist from Philadelphia once tried to wipe his nose on the Alpine tunnel, while the train was in motion, and when they got through into daylight, and his companions told him to take in his head, he couldn't do it – because it was half a mile behind examining the formation of the tunnel. Later, it was found that the man was dead. The passengers said that they noticed a kind of crunching noise while going through the tunnel that sounded like the smashing of false teeth, but they paid no attention to it.

Mr. Wilbur afterward told me that there had never been a passenger killed on the road, so I may have been misled by this newsboy. Still, he didn't look like a boy who would trifle with a man's feelings in that way.

However, I will leave the remainder of the Gunnison trip for another letter, as this is already too long.

TABLE MANNERS OF CHILDREN

YOUNG children who have to wait till older people have eaten all there is in the house, should not open the dining-room door during the meal and ask the host if he is going to eat all day. It makes the company feel ill at ease, and lays up wrath in the parents' heart.

Children should not appear displeased with the regular courses at dinner, and then fill up on pie. Eat the less expensive food first, and then organize a picnic in the preserves afterward.

Do not close out the last of your soup by taking the plate in your mouth and pouring the liquid down your childish neck. You might spill it on your bosom, and it enlarges and distorts the mouth unnecessarily.

When asked what part of the fowl you prefer, do not say you will take the part that goes over the fence last. This remark is very humorous, but the rising generation ought to originate some new table jokes that will be worthy of the age in which we live.

Children should early learn the use of the fork, and how to handle it. This knowledge can be acquired by allowing them to pry up the carpet tacks with this instrument, and other little exercises, such as the parent mind may suggest.

The child should be taught at once not to wave his bread around over the table, while in conversation, or to fill his mouth full of potatoes, and then converse in a rich tone of voice with some one out in the yard. He might get his dinner down his trochea and cause his parents great anxiety.

In picking up a plate or saucer filled with soup or with moist food, the child should be taught not to parboil his thumb in the contents of the dish, and to avoid swallowing soup bones or other indigestible debris.

Toothpicks are generally the last course, and children should not be permitted to pick their teeth and kick the table through the other exercises. While grace is being said at table, children should know that it is a breach of good breeding to smouge fruit cake just because their parents' heads are bowed down, and their attention for the moment turned in another direction. Children ought not to be permitted to find fault with the dinner, or fool with the cat while they are eating. Boys should, before going to the table, empty all the frogs and grasshoppers out of their pockets, or those insects might crawl out during the festivities, and jump into the gravy.

If a fly wades into your jelly up to his gambrels, do not mash him with your spoon before all the guests, as death is at all times depressing to those who are at dinner, and retards digestion. Take the fly out carefully, with what naturally adheres to his person, and wipe him on the table cloth. It will demonstrate your perfect command of yourself, and afford much amusement for the company. Do not stand up in your chair and try to spear a roll with your fork. It is not good manners to do so, and you might slip and bust your crust, by so doing. Say "thank you," and "much obliged," and "beg pardon," wherever you can work in these remarks, as it throws people off their guard, and gives you an opportunity to get in your work on the pastry and other bric-a-brac near you at the time.

WHAT IT MEANT

WHEN Billy Boot was a little boy, he was of a philosophical and investigating turn of mind, and wanted to know almost everything. He also desired to know it immediately. He could not wait for time to develop his intellect, but he crowded things and wore out the patience of his father, a learned savant, who was president of a livery stable in Chicago.

One day Billy ran across the grand hailing sign, which is generally represented as a tapeworm in the beak of the American eagle, on which is inscribed "E Pluribus Unum." Billy, of course, asked his father what "E Pluribus Unum" meant. He wanted to gather in all the knowledge he could, so that when he came out west he could associate with some of our best men.

"I admire your strong appetite for knowledge, Billy," said Mr. Root; "you have a morbid craving for cold hunks of ancient history and cyclopedia that does my soul good; and I am glad, too, that you come to your father to get accurate data for your collection. That is right. Your father will always lay aside his work at any time and gorge your young mind with knowledge that will be as useful to you as a farrow cow. 'E Pluri-bus Unum' is an old Greek inscription that has been handed down from generation to generation, preserved in brine, and signifies that 'the tail goes with the hide.'"

VOTERS IN UTAH

THIS is the form of the oath required of voters in Utah under the new law:

Territory of Utah, County of Salt Lake. I – being first duly sworn (or affirmed), depose and say that I am over twenty-one years of age, and have resided in the territory of Utah for six months, and in the precinct of – one month immediately preceding the date thereof, and (if a male) am a native born or naturalized (as the case may be) citizen of the United States and a tax payer in this territory. (Or, if a female) I am native born, or naturalized, or the widow or daughter (as the case may be) of a native born or naturalized citizen of the United States. And I do further solemnly swear (or affirm) that I am not a bigamist or polygamist; that I am not a violater of the laws of the United States prohibiting bigamy or polygamy; that I do not live or cohabit with more than one woman in the marriage relation, nor does any relation exist between me and any woman which has been entered into or continued in violation of said laws of the United States, prohibiting bigamy or polygamy, (and if a woman) that I am not the wife of a polygamist, nor have I entered into any relation with any man in violation of the laws of the United States concerning polygamy or bigamy.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this – day of – , 1882. Registration Officer – Precinct.

It will be seen that at the next election some of the brethren and sisters in Zion will be disfranchised unless they do some pretty tall swearing. This is a terrible state of affairs, and the whole civilized world will feel badly to know that some of our people are going to be left out in the cold, cold world with no voice and no vote just because they have been too zealous in the wedlock business.

Matrimony is a glorious thing, but it can be overdone. A man can become a victim to the nuptial habit just the same as he can the opium habit. It then assumes entire control over him, and he has to be chained up or paralyzed with a club, or he would marry all creation. This law, therefore, is salutary in its operations. It is intended as a gentle check on those who have allowed themselves to become matrimony's maniacs. If we marry one of the daughters of a family, and are happy over it, is that any reason why we should marry the other daughters and the old lady and the colored cook? We think not. It is natural for man to acquire railroads and promissory notes and houses and lands, but he should not undertake to acquire a corner on the wife trade.

Hence we say the law is just and must be permitted to take its course, even though it may disfranchise many of the most prominent pelicans of the Mormon church. Matrimony in Utah has been allowed to run riot, as it were. The cruel and relentless hand of this hydra-headed monster has been laid upon the youngest and the fairest of the Mormon people.

Matrimony has broken out there in a large family in some instances, and has not even spared the widowed and toothless mother. It generally seeks its prey among the youngest and fairest, but in Utah it has not spared even the old and the infirm. Like a cruel epidemic, it has at first raked in the blooming maidens of Mormondom and at last spotted the lantern jawed dregs of foreign female emigration. In one community, this great scourge entered and took all the women under forty-five, and then got into a block where there were nineteen old women who didn't average a tooth apiece, and swept them away like a cyclone.

People who do not know anything of this great evil, can have no knowledge of it. Those who have not investigated this question have certainly failed to look into it. We cannot find out about this question without ascertaining something of it.

INCONGRUITY

OUR attention has been called recently to an illustration by Hopkins in a work called Forty Liars, in which a miner is represented as sliding down a mountain in a gold pan with a handle on it. Mr. Hopkins, no doubt, labors under a wrong impression of some kind, relative to the gold pan. He seems to consider the gold pan and the frying pan as synonymous. In this he is wrong.

The gold pan is a large low pan without a handle and made of very different metal from a skillet or frying pan.

The artist should study as far as possible to imitate nature and not make a fool of himself. Some artists consider it funny to represent a farmer milking a cow on the wrong side. They also show the same farmer, later on, plowing with a plow that turns the furrow over to the left, another eccentricity of genius. There are many little things like this that the artist should look into more closely so as not to bust up the eternal fitness of things.

We presume that Mr Hopkins would represent a gang of miners working a placer with giant powder and washing out smelting ore in a tin dipper. Its pretty hard, though, for an artist who never saw a mining camp, to sit and watch a New York beer tournament and draw pictures of life in a mining camp, and people ought not to expect too much.

RIDING DOWN A MOUNTAIN

GUNNISON CITY is one of the peculiarities of a mining boom. It spreads out and slops over the plain like a huge camp meeting, but without shape or beauty.

The plains there are red and sandy; the trees are not nearer than the foot-hills; and the city, which claims 5,000 inhabitants, though 3,000 would, no doubt, be more accurate, is composed of a wide area of ground, with scattering houses that look lonely in the midst of the desolation. Mining in Colorado, this season, has not advanced with the wonderful impetus which characterized it in previous years. Wherever you go, you hear first one reason, and then another, why good mines are not being worked. There is trouble among the stock-holders; a game of freeze out; lack of capital to put in proper machinery, or excessive railroad freights, to pay which virtually paralyzes the reduction of ore owned by men too poor to erect the expensive works necessary to the realization of profit from the mines.

Returning from Gunnison City, now, you rise at a rate of over 200 feet to the mile, zig-zagging up the almost perpendicular mountain, near the summit of which is the Alpine tunnel. As you near the tunnel, there is a perpendicular and sometimes even a jutting wall above you, hundreds of feet at your right, while far below you, on your left, is a yellow streak, which at first you take to be an old mountain trail, but which you soon discover is the circuitous track over which you have just come.

Near here, while the road was being built, a fine span of horses balked on the grade, and like all balky horses, proceeded to back off the road. The owner got out of the wagon, and told them they could keep that thing up if they wanted to, but he could not endorse their policy. They kept backing off until the wagon went over the brink, and then there was a little scratching of loose stones, the kaleidoscope of legs and hoofs, a little rush and rumble, and the world was wealthier by one less balky team. The owner never went down to see where they went to, or how they lit. He was afraid they would not survive their injuries, so he did not go down there. Later, the carrion crows and turkey buzzards indicated where the refractory team had landed; and deep in the mountain gorge the white bones lie amid the wreck of a lumber wagon, as monuments of equine folly.

On Saturday evening we had the pleasure of riding down the dizzy grade from Hancock, a distance of eighteen miles, at which time we descended a mile perpendicularly in a push car, with Superintendent Wilbur as conductor and engineer. A push car is a plain flat-car, about as big as a dining-table, with four wheels, and nothing to propel it but gravity, and nothing to stop it but a sharpened piece of two-by-four scantling. Hancock is near the Alpine tunnel, at the summit of the mountains, about 11,000 feet high. Secretary Morgan, Mrs. Morgan, with their little daughter Gertrude; E. A. Slack, of the Sun, Frank Clark, of the Leader, Superintendent Wilbur and ourself, constituted the party.

At first everybody was a little nervous with the accumulating velocity of the car, and the yawning abyss below us; but later we got more accustomed to it, and the solemn grandeur of the green pine-covered canons, the lofty snow-covered peaks, apparently so near us; and the rushing, foaming torrent far below us, were all we saw. Like lightning we rounded the sharp curves where the road seemed to hang over instant destruction, and we held our breath as we thought that, like Dutch Charlie and other great men, only a piece of two-by-four scantling stood between us and death.