The west shore., June 01, 1885, Page 185, Image 23

THE WEST SHORE.
185
ganized as a regular life company, it made suoh poor
progress in competition with oldor and better managed
companies a lo le compelled to accept a change of some
Bort, and choosing between reformed management, going
out of existence and a change of plan, it adopted the
last The talismanio word "cheap" promises to win it
a new, though temporary, success, to loave iti, of course,
ultimately a wreck where other such transparent soliemes
lie stranded.
Still another, and even more delusive, thing is a so
called self-endowment company, whose most attractive
feature is the promise of large returns for small invest
ments, which returns result from the doliborate robbery
of the reoently widowed and orphaned. Insuring in the
concern for $5,000, a man does so that he may obtain the
money in his own lifetime. But such a result is possible,
according to the scheme, only by witholding four-fifths
of the insurance money from the families of deceased
members. Hatched in an obscure Texas town, the tiling
has sought and found "verdant fields" on this Coast,
which, for a brief time, have afforded its managers a fat
thing, at the expense, of course, of it dupes! Consider
ations of humanity alone should make even the temporary
success of suoh disreputable schemes impossible,
In strong contrast with such business is that con
ducted by the honest and well-meaning oo-ocratives,
suoh as the Masonio and Odd Fellows mutual benefit so
cieties, the K. of P., A. 0. U.W., I). B.'s and other beno
ficial organizations, wIiobo aims are noblo amHho results
of whose labors are, for the present, bonoficout, but unless
the law of mortality is defeated and history reversed,
every such attempt to insure life by ignoring well-known
facts as to the increasing doath rate of advancing age and
the accumulative power of compound interest, will in the
future, as have already hundreds in the past, end in fail
ure. Of all business contract that designed to provide
for one's family after his work is closed should le so
carefully guarded as to be certain of its result Business
prudence, as well as affoction and humanity, suggest that
first there should be sought the nearest jxmaible approach
to absolute security. Then questions of oost, non-forfeiture
(in ease of failure to pay by the insured), eta,
may and should be considered.
Horace Greeley, whose $150,000 of life insurance
proved to be the best part of all the estate lie left, after
a long life of hard and successful labor, onoe wrote:
" Beware of frauds, and shams, and siocious false pre
tences. Proceed with wise and vigilant ciroumBjoction,
and you will have reason to bless the forecast that in
duced you to invest in life insurance." Thousands of
the ablest business and professional men are insured on
the regular basis, in amounts running into the hundreds
of thousands; and so firmly established is their confidence
in the system and in those companies which for a quarter
of a century or more have been doing this business, there
has recently arisen a large demand for the contracts of
those companies by the sons of these same men whose
experience has taught them the security and necessity of
sound and trustworthy life insurance. J. F.
LA CONNER AND SKAGIT COUNTY.
HHE town of La Connor is the chiof commercial point
I in Skagit County, W. T., and is situated on La Con
ner Slough, a few miles north of the point where the
Skagit River enters Pugot Sound. It has a population
of between four and five hundred, and is supported chiefly
by trade with the settlements on the surrounding flats
and further inland. Light draft steamers, such as ply
between the various Sound ports, outer the slough and
reach the dockB of La Connor. The Vuyrt Soiiml Mutt
is published weekly, and the town has good schools and
churches and a number of prosperous stores. Skagit
County has a water frontngo of twenty-four miles and
extends a hundred miles inland. It also includes a num
ber of adjacent islands. Several bays and tide sloughs
afford navigation to light draft steamers into the heart of
the best agricultural lands. Skagit County's surface
rises gradually from tide flats to peaks oovered with per
petual snow. For the first fifteen miles inland the coun
try is level; thence it rises gradually into high river
bottoms, table lands and rolling hills, culminating in the
high ridges of the Cascades. 'The low lauds, eaecially
the celebrated Olympia marsh and Swinomish and Sam
ish flats, are extromely fertile, producing iiiiineiiNe crops
of hay, grain and vegetables. Dyking is necessary on
the greater portion of this land to guard it from over
flow. The river bottoms further up aro less liable to
IsHMime flooded. The table lands and bills are densely
covered with magnificent timber, which Is lieing logged
to some extent. When cleared this land becomes valua
ble for agriculture, and will gradually bennim settled by
homesteaders. Coking coal of excellent quality is found
in largo quantities in the county, also iron ore of pro
nounced cxoellonea There is a vast extent of bottom
lands and timbered uplands o.en for settlement, all of it
requiring much labor, either by clearing or dyking, to
reuder it cultivable. One looking for such land will be
as well, or lxitter, suited in Skagit County as anywhere.
LaCounor is easy of access by steamer, and a visit to
that region would pay the intending settler. The chief
wateroourse is the Skagit, the largest river flowing Into
the Sound It is navigable by steamers somo seventy
miles, and affords access to one of the best agricultural
and timber regions in the Territory. Much logging is
done along the stream, and settlements are numerous.
m
Smith III veil, in Douglas County, offers splendid
timber-covered bottom land locations for settlers. From
Drain, on the O. k C. road, to the river, a distance of
eight miles, there is a good, wide trail, and with a little
work and help from the County Court, a good wagon
road can le constructed on that route. There are at
present only a very few settlers on the head of Smith
Iliver, although some of the best lands of Douglas
County can be found in that viciuity. The lands have
all been surveyed, and all that is ueedod now is a good
county road, and one of the most thrifty settlements iu
Donglas would spring up there. The river Is clear and
contains no obstructions to floating logs to Gardiner.