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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 1886)
THE WEST SHORE. 38 PRESS COMMENT. " TKo Uni iUf! Cl'y r Astorin." Ymm lh Ai"rin, Dwiiilwr W. Kokk time ago youth, to fortune and to fame un known, came canvassing fr tho Xorlhirent, a magazine U by a limn who has im'vit lost a chance to slur or ignore Astoria, iiinl who Ii'im always been useful to his employers. It whh nniiou 1 tlmt the December nuin- lcr of tlio magay.ino was to Ihi resplendent with the choicest productions of pen ami pencil, illustrating and describing Astoria. Tlio skill of tlio artist was to vie with tlio ability of tlio writer, ami tho number in ques tion was to Ihi to Antoria tlio tiling we long had sought, hihI mourned because wo found it not Incidentally the youth aforesaid bored every individual member of the Council in an attempt to have an appropriation made to "illustrate" the public buildings, and later on tlio Cham ber of Commerce listened to tho song of the sirou con cerning the advantages to be derived from "a map of the county." lint the City Council and tho Chamber of Commerce Initli felt that if any money was to be spent " ilbiHtrating" or advertising the city, that it could and would Im- done through Home other medium than the pub lication of the gentleman who two yearn ago characterized the city hh "a hamlrt" and sneered at its pretensions. "The article on Attain is to occupy tho greaUir part of the lctceinler uumlier," ho we were told, but took no stock in the statement Oh, lamo and imioteut conclu sion! The reading niutUr occupien lettn than three pages, and in rehash of old statistics ami weathor-lieateu state ment The "illustration" are an alleged "view of As toria, looking toward Tongue Point," a picture of the (l.-mrnl Mil, , the Astor House, the ClaUop Mill, John lloliMiii (the In-Bt engraving and the bout thing in tho Ixxikl, 1). K. Warren's house, U W Opera House," and a "distant view." The last is the worst There may be worwi picture than that "distant view," but we have imver een tliem. The article wivn that the Astor House in sitimUsI u.-i.r the O. II ,t N. ,U-k, and is tho largest Slid lHht hotel in the city. Theodore Urcuiusor must have given fnni board ami lodging to tlio writ'r during the two hour he Heut getting up tho article on Astoria! though it is hard to nee how he put in his time. Every thing in it has a .v..r of having l,eeu Umght and paid Tor, au, the only H.parent reason that tho article is no longer I that the patronage was not forthcoming. Like Jl.Nlg,., ra.rs that were made only to sell, tho whole thing acin gotten up "f(,r what there is in it" Men anil mutilation that I city ara not menHon-sl t i. The "article," ''illustra- ....... n..;, ,,,,, , . , Ul1K ft, t , , business u worth what it cwt 'wuoio In Plying .y.ntrast to the journalistic aWtion cm- "1" ? T' "! '-" "f Thk Wkst Smoke or June, 11, winch, without any Hourish of tru U o U.t,ug o drums. g,vo v.,.,,ll ,l(Wri, f 0" v.de city ami fillrt iMrilti((llHi - f'J " .r ui sank Mo LT J T r ,,rtx ueti Hchool house in the State outside of Portland (the best advertisement the town has), Captain Flavel's massive residence, Colonel Taylor's fine new house, and fifty others that might be naumd, all ignored probably be cause the owners declined to "put up." The Eastern Craze. From the Portland Sunday Welcome, Deoember 19. Almost daily out child-like faith in the superiority of everything "Eastern" receives a shock. We are gradually learning that we can and do produce at home as good, or better, things of many kinds than can be pro. cured abroad. ; Yet there are many of us who must eat "Eastern" butter and wear "Eastern" pants, and who continue to send East for manufactured work which can be produced as well and cheaply at home. Our disap pointments are frequent; but though experience is a hard taskmaster, we seem determined to learn in no other way. This " Eastern " worship is the baldest kind of nonsense, but we still continue to wear patches on our knees for worshipping with our faces to the rising sun. . A marked instauce of this folly is that of the St Paul Northwest Mminzini: With much pomp and circumstance it was somo time since announced that Portland and her sister cities were to be illustrated in that publication in the highest Btyle of the engraver s art. As the Northwest was an " Enstern " magazine we naturally plaoed implicit reliance upon- tho highly colored announcement and looked for somothine " too utterly far bevoni" It came and we collapsed. Instead of handsome engravings of Portland, we were treated to a collection of cheap photo engravings of sketches by amateur artists, the subjects mung a nuiuoor oi uusiuoss uuiiuings, mseriea ana paiu for, simply for advertising purposes, several of them ap pearing twice in order to permit different firms to cover them with their signs. Accompanying these were the residences and portraits of some of our wealthy men, all put in " for a consideration," and a " View of Portland" which was but an indistinct reproduction of a photograph of about one-third of the city, taken several years ago, all done by the cheapest possiole method photo-engraving. The next number paid its respects to Vancouver and As toria in the same manner, and met with very acrid criti cism at the hands of the press at those cities. Says the IiukH-nth-nt: "Such an apology for a view of Vancouver is a libel on tho scenery of the Columbia River. If an enemy had employed that magazine to damage Vancouver it could not have been more adroitly done nor proved more effectual than this miserably managed advertising scheme." The Alitor inn, in paying nearly a column of compliments of a similar kind, thinks it drew a very large blank in the illustrating lottery. The fact is this " East ru " craze is ridiculous, and never more so than in thia iiwtnce. In our own illustrated magazine, The West Siioiie, we have an establishment that has a larger corp of high-priced artista than any magazine in the United States but Harper's and Century, and no other Eastern magaziue, no matter what it may promise, can possibly pve us anything comparable with it The West Shoue has promised a Portland number for January, and we have every coufideuce that it will give us something that will romove from our mouths the bad taste of this b orth osis fiasco. A Profitable Investment I kvB It mL l - .. . (t PuttiUtd. Hun .k... -- . LVwtbm im .K to ood rar addraee to Hi .... i: -J mri urn joa ran ao ua u" . . . -A ) per atf, ana aoae atn fro. KitliaciuUM .
