Columbia weekly news., 1858-08-26
Aceerioa.,zshs ! ~ North.

Us We ars progressive. We see and feel
that we are both Wefcan see it in the
settlement Of territory after territory, in
the admission Of State after State, in the
long lines of emigrantwagons continually
vending their way to the land where the
east and the west meet, and where the
''star of EMPIRE having fulfilled its
mission, has gone down forever in the
deep bosom of the Pacific we can hear
it in the scream of the steam whistle as
it dies away unechoed on the broad PAM
pas of the West, in the click Of the tel
egraph in every State and almost every
town of the Union, in the hum Of the
printing-press aud the din of falling
hammers from OCEAN to ocean.
This is a fast age all the world is
moving with twice the rapidity Of fifty
years ago: yet We are fifty years in ad-
vance of the rest of the world in restless
strength, daring vigor and reckless ad-
venture. Place us side by side, and see
how we will distance the best Of them.
The Frazer .iver excitement fairly dem
onstratos our superiority It is claimed
that the existence Of gold on Frazer and
Thompson siveis: has been known to the
Hudson Bay Qempany for years-that
the soil of Yapf pf1pser is rich and the eli
mate delightful that the Puget Sound
country is a northern paradise-that the
regions north Of the parallel Of forty nine
possess alIs the requisites for the support
Of large population and yet it might
have remained unprospected and untitled
for years, with no embryo cities to give
a harvest to speculation, no printing
press to herald its glories, had IT not
been touches with the msgie Of a msfican
What people ssve the Z an
KEGS could have doDe in 50 short = time
what has already sbecn acfompi shed
there r
:. ,a4s sass;ss Il .s4g; sss;, s.=
been laid out, STEAMBOATS, 'haye been
placed upon its rivers, trails have been
cut through the passes of the mountains,
the mines have been prospected and
found westhless in comparison with those
of = llifo.nia, and two newspapers, one
of them daily, have been started, and
are still published there Is all this not
wonderful. And it has been done, too,
solely in response to vague report that
gold was to be found on Frazer river!
But the newspapers-let US speak of
them. There is something new and
grand in the idea of the press leading
the van Of settlement and civilization,
instead of following in the path of the
pioneer, as has heretofore been the case.
There is something American in that,
something worth thinking of it is one
feature, at least, in Yankee go-ahead-
ism, in which we may with reason eeel
pride. What must our fogy brethren in
the North have thought at seeing, first
load Of passengers and then printing
press They asked US for men, not
newspapers, and we gave them both
The files Of daily paper from Van
couver's Island look strange to us. Five
years ago the city of Liverpool had not
single daily paper Less than ten
years ago the island Of Vancouver was
ceded to the Hudson Bay Company,
with the stipulation that fort and set
tlement be made there within five years.
What was known of the British posses
sions north of Washington Territory and
west of Lake Superior one year since
Little enough, except that it was under
the control of the Hudson Bay Company,
who ruled the white inhabitants of the
country with despotic power, who gained
princely revenue by trading with the
Indians and dealing in furs, and whose
transactions were mystery to the gov
ernment under which they hold their
charter, as well as to the rest of the
world. Now a daily newspaper is pub
lished at Victoria newspaper, through
whose columns the heart and soul of
community may be seen.
In the Gazette we see the account of
a school examination, with the awarding
of prizes and the reading of an address.
Unknown to the world, the school may
have passed many such examinations,
enlivened by music and encouraged by