The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-03-08 00:00:00

SENDING ANIMALS BY POST.

The Berlin Tageblatt gives some interesting details
concerning the extraordinary number and nature of
members of the brute creation which during the course
of one single year have been transmitted from one
spot to another in the German dominions by post. No
fewer than 40,000 boxes containing one or more living
animals passed through the hands of the postal ad-
ministration during last year, and this figure, says
our Berlin contemporary, does not include crabs, frogs,
bees, and other smaller insects, which would swell
the total to millions. The Post Office authorities are
invested with the right of refusing such animals as
may be deemed either dangerous or disagreeable, but
that they rarely use this right is proved by the fact
that within the last six months only thirty nine pack-
ages of living animals were refused, amongst which
figured an alligator, "done up in a box considered as
too fragile ;" a lot of dogs, "whose persistent barking
could not be quieted ;" and a number of pigeons loosely
tied up in a sack. On the other hand, during the same
six months, a crocodile, scores of birds of prey,
monkeys, serpents, a leopard, and four living bear cubs
were transmitted to their respective destinations by
the medium of the post ! A Hamburg postmaster re-
marks on this subject that some means should be
taken to force the public to use some discernment in
the manner in which they profit by the complaisance
of the postal administration; for, says he, "the
screaming and chattering of parrots, the singing and
chirping of myriads of birds, the shrill cries of
monkeys or whining of puppies disconsolate at the
absence of the maternal bitch, forms at times a dis-
cordant concert which is more suited to the precincts
of a zoological garden than to the interior of a post
office."—Evening Standard.

MINNESOTA a FIELD for EMIGRANTS.

The Times of Monday publishes a letter respecting trade
In the United States, and after having given several explana-
tions (from an American point of view) as to the reasons why
trade is reviving in America, whilst it is declining in Eng-
land, the writer (H. 0. N.) says :

Such, Sir, are some of the American arguments;
and if they be as sound as the American lands, every
man out of work had better pack up his trunk and
start at once for the Western States. In Minnesota,
for instance, he will find a country, not exactly flowing
with milk and honey, but rich beyond his most extra-
vagant hopes.

In the vale of the Red River, though the soil is
more fertile than in the Tropics, the air is more
exhilarating than champagne. The rotation of crops
is an art unknown. For upwards of 40 years crops of
wheat averaging 20 to 25 bushels per acre have been
gathered off the same fields. Manure is never used,
for the natural soil is richer than manure. Nor does
the land need clearing. No forests encumber that
varied expanse of prairie and of lake. The settler may
arrive in March, plough his land in April, and reap
his harvest in July. The wheat is the highest priced
in Chicago, and in two years' time, with ordinary good
fortune, he should have replaced his original outlay.
Until this autumn, there being no cheap means of
transport, much of the commoner kinds of grain was
burnt where it grew. But a railway has now been
opened throughout the whole length of the valley, and
young farmers from Ontario and the Eastern States
are pouring in by hundreds. Land is selling freely for
less than a pound an acre, and while to every healthy
labourer Minne,ota offers good wages for hard work,
to every farmer owning £3OO or £4OO she offers affluence
if not fortune, and a certain future for his children.
There, as elsewere, the settler's life is not fitted for the
weak or sickly, but for the industrious and the robust
it is a life full of promise.
In those life-giving Western States an energetic man
may easily become in turn farmer, storekeeper,
banker, or, if he will, senator. He grows with the
people, and the growth of the people is almost miracu-
lous. Ten years since the population of Minneapolis
might have been counted by hundreds; to-day it num-
bers upwards of 40,000. Within three years all the
available land in the Red River valley will probably be
settled on and sold. So if any man thinks of going he
had best delay no longer. Minnesota is no Castle of
Indolence. Some hardships every emigrant must
expect to undergo. His labour for the first two
years will probably be more severe than in England.
But, his ties to home once severed, he will never
regret his choice. He will have exchanged despondency
for hope, he will be working not only for bare life but
for prosperity in the future, and with hope of the
future those troubles which might otherwise have
seemed unendurable will appear to him as trifles un-
worthy of complaint.