The Kansas herald of freedom., 1857-08-22
coanrn Life.

Ii the editor OF the ReveiLe would make
visit to the vast region west of the 'Fath.
er of Waters" his wonderings on thi:
point would cease to have an existence
But perhaps the country life' he would
here find would be rather rarifed, toe
much of a good thing, if his ideas of rilral
retreats are those viewed from the gay
city, with pebbled walks, bewitchine
groves and twittering birds, in short q
haven of relief from mind labor, where
dolce far niente win rule supreme. Life
in Kansas has been and is at present in
many portions, emphatically country
life," and such will continue to exist fol
some time here; yet we are fast vergins
into city scenes, and perhaps ere long We
too may wonder if there be any such thing
as country life. TheE, the denizens OF
Oregon and Washington will monopolize
pioneering. in due time to give place to 9TH
ers further away in the wilderness.
But as things at present exist, none can
look upon our broad prairies, upon the
squatter's "claim" cabin, without becom-
ing impressed with the idea that the dem
izen thereof is enjoying Country life" to
its fullest extent. The corn dodgers and
bacon of the pioneer have little of the city
about them, although they may bring to
mind, if the participator is of a despond-
ing nature, the days when they would
have looked upon these articles of diet
with disgust and turned away to dine,
perhaps at the luxurious tables of an Astor
or fremont. After all, squatter life, with
its priyatiens and difficulties, bestows a
zest upon existence, which one must feel
to realize. TO enjoy life one must be oc-
casionally little miserable. Trouble is
like cayenne, giving biting flavor, and
after the first effects have disappeared,
we feel wondrously improved by the po-
ton.
We are in the country, at some distance
from anywhere, now; but soon will be
heard the scream of the steam whistle,
bringing us emphatically close to every
where, and then those appliances of the
country. stage coaches and drivers will
merge into something else. Perhaps the
latter, some of them, will assume the po-
sition of railway drivers or conductors,
becoming much less original in their char
acters than when seated on the box, rum
bling through the Delaware woods. The
railroad has removed all idea of distance
from the mind ofmigratory man, and jour
ney from the country nowis an every day oc-
curence which, thirty years ago would have
required months preparation. A few
years will pass and then the iron bands
will be laid, perfect network of rail-
way, upon which we can journey from
anywhere to everywhere, from the rock
girted shores of the Atlantic to the golden
sands at the Nevada's vase. Progress is
the watchword, and the reality of country
life is disappearing before it; seclusion will
soon be impossible. However, let us en-
JOY while we have it. The heavily load
ed wagons, relics of primitive times, will
soon be no longer needed as means of
supplying the neceSsaries of life, for the
long train of the iron horse will bring them
to our doors, and then will have passed
every vestige of country life, or its char
acter have become so changed as to be
with difficulty recognized. Towns which
now have hardly an existence, save on
paper, will become tangible reality,
with their depotS, their hotels, their classes
and grades of society, their mingled vice
and virtue, their mud and mire, city's
prerogatiyes, their omnibus lines, and their
fashionable hells, and all those appurte-
nances and appliances which conspire to
form the heterogeneous elements of full
fiedged city. Still there may be country
life; but it will exist in such close proxim-
ity to the city's hum, dust and din, as to
become part and parcel of it. Perhaps
it may be miles away, but those slaves of
free labor, the elements of fire and water
have annihilated distance, until the
whilom remote is near as the country
town of our young days, out of which, its
sights and wonders ye ancient Jehu was
wont to rehearse such strange tales. Let
these things 90, and let us dream of won
drous events hidden in the future, which
time cannot fail to bring forth. at is
the annihilation of the difficulties once
kept up by space and time, that has done
most to change the character of country
life," says the wondering editor quoted
above, and he thus concludes his ideas of
the causes which have produced such eff
fects, soon to be no less visible in Kansas
and other portions ofthe great West, than
in the old settled country east of us. Life
in Kansas is country life on fiiost extef.
sive scaleI btit the Spirit of Progress has
issued her mandate, and soon will we re-
semble many in the bright sisterhood of
States
"The railway, the ocean steam-naviga-
tion, and the magnetic Telegraph have
brought people SO nearly together that the
moral distinctions that were between town
and country are becoming as obsolete as
most of the old material machines in
which the slowness of forfier titftes stood
embodied. This bringing tbs world to.
sether, as 1t were, without ant change
having been effected in the physical por-
ion of the least ofits members-a change
utterly impossible to be made-it is, that
mas caused all the difference between now
md then; between 1857 and 1927. and |
till more between 1857 and 1907; and |
glIcb hos o0nuorfo1 o,.,,, II r