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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 1, 1876)
February. where politicians discussed finance, wherr- farmers wrote of agriculture, poets sang of war, wine and women, and where the dis appointed politician, the combative theo logian, strong-minded woman, and the love-sick swain were allowed to give vent to their feelings in maudlin prose or senti mental doggerel. All this and more, pos terity will know of us, for the world has taken a new departure, and files of our newspapers will be handed down to remote generations, who will shudder at our inhu man laws, ridicule our habits and tastes, wonder at our ignorance, bigotry and in tolerance, and laugh at our fashions, slow going steamboats and railroad travel. From the records we have, how little we know of our ancestors who settled the New World, The man who goes to Plymouth and sees the huge iron pot in which Miles Standish cooked his dinners, the rude spin ning wheels, the uncouth arm chaira. the flint-lock carbines and huge pewter plates brought over in the Mayflower, and then passes through Copps Hill Cemetery in Boston, where Cotton and Increase Mather are buried, has a far different view of the intelligence and handicraft of our fathers than have those who have only read of them in history. The religious intolerance of the Old World set adrift from the moor ings of religious bigotry a peculiar people, and landed them upon the shores of the New. They were human, of course, for they ate, drank, sleptj loved, hated, married, quarreled and got divorced just as others did and do; but they had idiosyncrasies of character and peculiarities of physiognomi cal contour that no other people had. It might have required skill in diagnosis to find them, but they were there. The iil-E; W-EST SHORE. r grease ended and tobacco juice began. They were marks that showed the workings of a more than or dinary soul genius that couldn't be hid under a bushel," or kept out of sight by un kempt hair, a dirty shirt or butternut col ored clothing marks Uiat were bound to tell on his fu ture life and corrobnra ted by another " poetic pro duction which appeared the same day and year a s the above. Til uy mi-sax. t bi-it nMlMuueo fllim aUuto; Kind t'u,ld t,nM,. HIV Pt'll 10 llUIVe, While linrnlurea To'S THR NARROWS Or THE COLFMHIA niVKH. . ,ii. ouu lamiiira ail join me nra", Tula ancient Louie wlU never need a bead. masses were ignorant in science, profound ly so, compared with their descendants of to-day but they had their great men in Adams, Hancock and Washington; greater perhaps on the wjiole than the world had ever seen, lor they lived in one of those epochs which, under a great law of evolu tion, occur at long intervals in the cycles of ages and set up great wavmarks in hu man progress by illuminating the heavens witn such intellectual meteors as Moses, Homer, Byron, Newton and Franklin- epochs which, notwithstanding our blind attachment to traditionary names, will con tinue to produce still greater and greater men. The intolerance of climate, fitful, fickle, nd shifting from intense cold to extreme "eat, the malaria that pervaded the atmos phere, the unsatisfactoiy results of farm labor, with a migratory disposition inherited from ancestors drifting towards the setting son and increasing as they traveled, sent long years ago a band of peculiar people to Oregon. They, like our fathent, pos sessed many characteristics in common uh those they left behind to raise corn, t catfish, and nurse torpid livers; but still they were a peculiar people. The differ ence between the man who came and the man who staid on the old place was really ffreat, though to a superficial observer it as scarcely perceptible. To look at one f the immigrants of '43 or '50, most peo ple would have said he looked like any other Missourian; but he was not, for nuks of something that placed him above Wends he left behind flashed out ""rough his optics and the intervening freaks of cuticle that showed where bacon the character of his yet unborn offspring, when the wheat bread, mild climate, salu brious atmosphere, ciystal waters and ro mantic scenery of Oregon should cleanse him of corn, bacon and mercury, and co operate with his intellectual "inwardness" to lift him to a position where he couldn't do without an agricultural or illustrated newspaper, and would hanker after a clean shirt every Sunday morning. Landing in Oregon, he found, in addi tion to the advantages for a more rapid development already enumerated, several co-operating handmaids. Priestly dictation was at a discount, politicians were scarce, as taxes and salaries were low. the "snoils" consisting of wheat, beef hides and orders on stores with empty shelves; doctors' saddlebags had become empty, with 110 drug stores to replenish, and the God dess of Fashion had never as yet even perched herself on one of our mountain toj to look down on our women, who were weaned from milliner shops, and content to wear home-made "sundowns," and dresses cut from unbleached sheet ing colored with tea grounds. A strong prohibitory liquor law that forbade a sale or rift of ardent sniriu stond like an anirel with flaminir sword at the door of every cabin w here the thirsty toper Knocked lor admittance, and sent him to the cooling spring to quench his thirst and vitalize his brain. There was some grumb ling at the law. of course, bv new comers who took their last horn out of the old stone jug they brought from Tike, away back on Snake River, and smacked their lips in the vain hope that they could buy a barrel when they reached the Willamette. It will be thirty years the ninth of next July since an Oregon "poet" look his pen in hand " to rap these fellows over the knuckles and explain the " spirit of our laws" on ardent spirits: "What ( the Rpirlt To read luein Uno bother Do ea you please with jour owu aelt. But juelle bj an other. Make Honor, then, alio drink It. too, Miirliea.iouiteaM to nii-aauie; But If jiiii aril ar WVII lake';, Proud nature ln'itotahrr luiktvll leeeektll. My loriuer wnrke I'll nuw mvl, And ah, ehe did her nuriuei. 1111 lu Suinn. Could I but rail Unit Jewel mini.. Deareat nf all thhiita aavo di vine. I'd huniHv how me at the nhrlne Uf Sneaii. Oh, then thrun&h every vale and glnde, U.Y uoo' tlde anil at eveiitu liiide. Id thank and nralao the Uod My Suaao. If that fellow, after he won his black eyed Susan, had seen the hair pulling ahead, and from the basaltic cliffs at the Falls could have peered throw th tlilnv years' future and seen her as she is to-day, .in arum grass widow, with a large slice of her heart in the purse of some do ni fast men, he would, like many other theo logians, nave lound that his first imnrrinne about the design of the Deity- in making cusan were slightly erroneous. It is estimated that the State of Orcirnn has within its limits a district of rich soil to the amount of 2,752,000 acres. One inurth or this area, devoted to the raising of wheat, at twenty-five bushels to the acre, would result in a yield of 17,200,000 bush els per annum, j.css than one-tenth of this will satisly home consumption, leaving over 1 5,000,000 bushels for export, a source of wealth in itself that Is simply im-inense. drops taken in a snnnnfnl nf em. ...111 k found highly efficacious. I am confident that all who will try this.simplc medicine will ever after keep it constantly on hand, as a ready, safe and certain remedy." CoMi) Hack. Last Summer a well to do farmer living out on the Coppei came to the conclusion that he did not like Walla Walla valley, and after leasing his farm here, because he could not sell it for what he considered it worth, he swrtr.,! iv-i. . his old home in Indiana, taking his family a.iu a large Danu ol horses. Ho arrived there in the Fall, and found that fee,) I stock was so scarce and high that he could nut allow to winter his horses there, and as he could not sell them, drove them into Illinois to winter. Ho now writes back here that Indiana has changed a good deal since he left there, and that he thinks Walla Walla is a better country than he used to believe it to be; and finally that he will return here in the Spring, or just as soon as he can sell his horses, and that he will hereafter make this valley his home. Kvcry year we have cases of this kind muli nnr observation, and it generally gives a man who has lived here fcr some time a better opinion of this country to take a little irin like the one referred to. When they see how much poorer other countries irenerallv are than ours, they are almost invariably glad to return. HWa Walla I mhii. Thk Dayton (W. T.) Antu savs: The Wrst Shohk, an illustrated monthly, pub lished at Portland bv L. Samuel. Ks.fl. linn been received in this community with great favor. Mr. Samuel has incorporated some new features in his manner nf cnn. ducting this paper which should commend T11 k Weathkk. We of the Dalles for some days past have had and are hav ing delightful weather. The thermometer ranges from 40 to 65 degrees aliove zero. Grass is springing up all over the lulls around us and growing finely. Scvcrallkinds of birds which arcgcnerally supposed to be weather wise and know what they are about have migrated hither and carol sweetly. Spring is actually here unless appearances arc very uecepuve. iiauts JnDuut, fit. Cheap and Vamiahi.ii I.i.vimkst Th following recipe was originally riven nnrl. one numireo years ago, and has been con stantly in use in one family for more than eighty years: One quarter of a pound of mmnlinr and the same quantity of pure castile soap; m.iiii lite camphor and add to it a wine glass full of high proof brandy or alcohol; scrape the Hi womli-r pmnlit itar urul cut rlnitrra, WIipii rovka mud I me. ml ,totk. ana .0U(J- main tmct: TourraoDcj, then, we'll take It, all, Or we aim innsmn joa: 'But It wr have no tnuuff llirn r Tnii niay dprnd we'll liani u," This and other produc tions of Urn dav nreserved in our arch- ives showlliat, i n common with the ante diluvians, old Oregon. ans were of like sionswith our selves.' men pas-or- This RAPI1W AIRiVK TUNWATKII KALI, COI.I'MHU HIVKK. soap fine and put both into a junk bottle, and add a pint of spirits of turpentine. Put in the cork ' not very tight and set the bottle in warm water, increas ing the heat until the con tents of the bottle are am algamated. This liniment is excellent for bathing sprains and braises, and for internal soreness; 18 themselves to every newspaper reader. The reading matter is select and suitable lor all family circles. The illustration! are excellent, and convey to the reader abroad a more correct idea of the advancement made in Oregon and Washington th.m n other publication we have seen. Thk Outijwk. We have abundant cause to predict that the year 1876 will prove one of unusual nrosneritv. The season thus far has been all that the tillers of the soil could desire, barring the rain. There has been but little frost in rpinrd vegetation, and there have been no floods to do any serious injury; hence the pros pect lor bountiful harvest in 1876 is truly flattering. Owing to the continued early rains last fall, the acrcajre of fall-sown rrmin is not near as large as heretofore, but the deficiency will he mo,ln ,m 1... t.. : 77 " , "1" l"'ng !. Kiimcrs ate running the plows con stantly. The health of the State is general ly good, and its prospects fnr prosperity were never more favorable. The Dayton (W. T.) Am, of January 1 5th, speaking of Columbia county, says: "We have a voting population of about 800, ami assessable prowrty amounting to about Si 000 rwv '-i..r. - . . townshi of surveyci, land in the county, - .i.,r,Uiuii 01 wiucn, nemg the finest wheat land nn the. r,wt .t .1.. " vum aula me rc- mainder hm-class grazing lands. Walla Walla and Columbia counties to-day offer greater inducements to the agriculturist than any other district of country on the Pacific slow. As we are writing wa can look out un the hills surrounding Dayton and see green grass in every direc tion. Go Out Ution ana rrti.l f.nm t-.. and you can see farmers plowing their 1! i,
