The weekly north Iowa times. [volume] (McGregor, Iowa) 1857-1867, 1859-12-14
NO. 165.

held nearly every Sabbath, 4 Sunday School
is strongly talked of, and there are various
evidences of moral improvement Thelow-
er class of citizens is passing away, and
their places being filled with substantial,
worthy inhabitants, and trust brighter
day is dawning on this whisky-stricken
valley. B. F.
New Hampshire Corr espondence.
CONCORD, N. H., Nov 80, 1859.
Ed Times:-The other day chance copy
of the Iimes-the first for long time
dropped across my path. 1t seems 'you
still live," luxury which that curse of a
| liver disease has very near denied your cor
respondent, until short time past.
Let us bring forward the papers on our
last docket A strange season we have had.
Frosts have pinched US every month in the
year; the hay, rye and cat crops have been
excellent; that Of the wheat good, where
the weevils have notdestroycd it, which they
have done in many places. In some places
there have been fair amounts of fruits pro-
duced, but, as whole, the yield has been
below an average. The potato crop is less
than average in quantity, and much below
that in quality. The corn crop, between
the Charybdis of frosts, damps and chills,
and the Scylla of an intense drought, has
been ship-wrecked; the proceeds will hardly
pay for salvage. In financial matters the
Ides of March have passed, but not SO with
the kalends of November. Money can be
had here,-and the same is g,nerally true
Of all our banking institutions, easy
rates on No. paper, but safe men are not
moving in any new business enterprises ::
there is a scarcity of the ncedful among the
laboring and agricultural classes. There is
discernible caution among purchasers, and
everything denotes that, with money enough
in the country, there is some chronic infirm-
ity Of its financial heart; it does not diffuse
the vital power Of business life with health.
full warmth to the extremities.
Atlantic Telegraphs and Lcviathan steam
ers have become myths. Legislative con-
tempts and water, ''noxiously extended" so
as to be termed liquors, seem to have usurp-
ed their places. Muggins seems to have
fastened himself upon the Republican party
of Massachusetts,. Every new touch of the
probe seems to reveal corruption "extended''
beyond tina reach of the most vivid imagi-
nation Banks, who is an adroit tactician.
curses most heartily the leading spirits in
his party, for being found out in their cor
ruption-plunder schemes, and thus disgrace
ing the party and defeating his "best laid
schemes" Shepard was to take his pct
seat in Congress-but unluckily the rumor
took wind that he had stolen SIT 900 Of the
Bank in which he was an officer. Though
lass-leader, and one of the immortal three
thousand. he was brought into court and in
dicted it turned out that the money stood
against him on the books of the Bank, open
to observation-that the Directors knew of
it, and that the ''main chance of this money
was used in the election of Banks, Burlin.
game, and others of the ''Hen-Fever'' tribe
of politicians, to Office. On such state of
| facts, no indictment would hold against him
alone. The circle of official knaves was be-
| coming too much extended :" so another
dodge was resorted to. Notes had been
given to secure some Of Shephard's liabili-
ties; his brothers name was on them. The
Bank rule required two names; so he wrote
in a fictitious one, to bring the paper within
the rule. He was given ''loose rein" on
the first indictment, and then brought up
for forgery. A pretty snarl of saints put
to pickle in the old Bay State-the great Pu-
ritanic porridge-pot!
| "Hen-Fever' Burnham's foacl proceed
ings with the great temperance -moral-reform
rum-hole of New England, has set every
body to swearing, and come nigh oblitera-
ting Christianity in the Eastern States; and
the chances are that in the melee the whole
liquor law will be thrown overheard, to pre-
vent going to to the bottom. The evidence
-ho tbo% NJ
stitution cheated and deceived everybody
sold new rum for old Jamaica, pure spirits
and water for brandy, and kind of burn
ing fluid for whisky, to soothe the last hours
of the consumptiye-bu that it was little
better before the Hen-Fever man got hold
of the brakes. 1t is now well known fact,
and partially shown in evidence, that in ad-
dition to all this much, sold as pure liquors
for the sick, were the most poisonous and
villainous compounds-for instance New
York whisky, standing buyers in Boston 80
cents per gallon, would be pumped into the
''still, y fumed over, then bodied with a
box of the 'Red Powders"-so so strong and
poisonous that it nearly suffocates the man
who Sits it into the liquid-and then this
chemical admixture went into the invalid as
good brandy, s. to Sc per gallon. might
fill this sheet with the like, but this is
enough. If the ID don't get such sinners
we had better abolish the prison-house of
the damned, for we shall have no need of
such an institution.
The angry Legislature, bearing in mind
the summary proceedings under the Pest
House Act, shut up the great Hen-Feyer in
Jail, whereupon he brought up the aforesaid
honorable body for contempto of the Consti-
tuition. The Court decided that he might
seal up all his papers that he deemed private
land thereby hangs tale" The reason
why he refused to show them is well known
here; they contain the evidence of how
much he has plundered, and also how much
of that plunder has been expended to elect
the Hen-Fever crew to the highest Offices in
the gift Of the people. The poetess sings,
There is silver lining to every cloud"
There may be to this. Evil may be pro-
ductive of good; purity may be engendered
by filth and corruption. 1t may serve to
billet common sense into those who have
been deludcd by the impracticable theories
Of the brood of hypocrites and visionary
enthusiasts who together framed these
Maine liquor laws-the procrustean beds by
which the whole moral and physical frame
work of society was to be adjusted. As
the morning sun of June burns away the
mist and reveals the black, huge proportions
of some old Highland castle, SO this inves.
tigation has shown to the world that the
laws of trade have been uprooted, every
petty Minion of the law armed with the de-
spotic power of Austrian police espionage
over the doings of his neighbor, trampling
under foot the safeguards Of individual right
and domestic tranquility, opening the pub
lie treasury for pimps to work out the de-
signs of malice upon the unoffending, con-
verting the officers Of the law into press