Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1854-08-28
RANT COUNT" HERALD MONDAY AUGUST %, 1854.
Cna,dea and Dubuque.

ChaIdea and Dubuque.
| Ages back in history we read that Nebuc-
haanezzar founded a mighty kingdom, and
stocked it with myriads of satraps The halls
Of Belshazzar who succeeded the founder,
were thronged with rich wares, golden cups,
old wines and other apparatus OF fun, fan
CIV and comfort,-also, rich melodies and
music at the festive maze like a million
cats screaming in perpetual cataracket.-
Once the King on his throne closed his
ewes and dreamed of some dangerous beast
like dredge-boat; he awoke with appre.
tensions of pretending evil, and well he
might, for
Gin hat same hour and hall,
The finger of hand
| Came forth against the wall,
And wrote as if on sand"
The monarch trembled with fear; his
paleied limbs shook, and despair reigned in
his household. Assyrian priests and Chal-
dean seers were brought, but the wisest Of
earth could not read the writing on the
wall. A lonely captive in a secret prison
of the land, was sent fora slave boy
whom the Lord God (Douglas) was raising
up to rule over the earth and drive decent
laborng white people away. He saw the
writing, consulted the oracles and
'sHe read it on that solitary night,
The morrow proved it true"
Byron makes the youthful captive ex.
pound the awful writing after the follow
ing manner:
| ''Belshazzar's gr ave is made,
His kingdom passed away,
He in the balance weighed,
Is light and worthless clay,
The shroud, his robe of state,
His canopy, the stone;
The Mede is at his gate
The Persian on his throne"
However solemn the moment or circum-
stance, things will sometimes assume ri
diculous or farcical shape. Dubuque, in
her dignifed men who rule our political af-
fairs from Lake Michigan to the Mississip-
pi, and shape everything from St. Louis to
St. Paul, and from a post Office to raft
Of saw logs, resembles the Babylonian mon
archy. Proud, domineering and powerful,
tmiserably governed by set of priest-rid-
den ignoramuses and petted demagogues,
they were unprepared for the handwriting on
the wall; the expounded words of that
writing however is the finger traced along
the letters, made their blood run cold, for
their doom, like Belshazzar's, was in the
irrevocable decree.
Never did artist sketch more perfect pic
lures of despair on the one hand, Or f.
ner smiling faces on the other, than may
now be seen in Dubuque. That writing
which frightens the one, delights the 9TH
er: first came the repeal of the Minnesota
Land Bill, by that Bill, Dubuque intend
ed to build a railroad to Shanghai; next
OoiuO o1iS ICDluCi4e , ftGO Vi tliS IelFcF ana
Harbor Bill,-there stopped the Dredge
Boat; close upon the heels of that came
in the Iowa election returns! Horror of
Horrors Dunder and blixton! Jasus! Be
atification and shouts of glory hallelujah-I
all ugly and grizzly as lucifer, beautiful as
the May halo woven by the GOODIES for A
pollol Had the Mississippi reversed and
run up towards St. Paul Or round by Ga
lena, the disorder might have been rene
died by the Dredge, but for the State to
not indorse Pierce, Douglas and Julius Ce
sar bod ge-llo such event could be found in
the Bible or Will Shakespeare.
To make affairs worse the Central Rail-
road Company seem inclined to stop at Ca
lena, for the present, and the Company in
tend to ask Government for revocation
of that part of their charter requiring their
termination at Dubuque; also, the Know
Nothings have dropped down over Du-
buque like a sack full of cats into cellar
half full of rats. Such squalling among
politicians never was heard before.