The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1859-08-11
Life I'm tho Cities and ON the
Frontiers.


our recent borders, are brought to us in our
exchanges from the frontiers. The papers
that we receive from the extreme Northern
and Western towns of Wisconsin, Mime
sofa, Iowa, and the outposts of Nebraska
and Kansas, and from the farthest borders
of Arkansas, and the remotest counties OF
Texas, bearing all the evidences OF being
published in busy and fiourishing CONNER
cial communities, bring home to US, in
most striking manner, the reality of our ma
tional growth. But it is not only in the
extension of our borders and the increase of
our numbers, that we are advancing in
greatness and power; the railroad, tele-
graph, and all the improved modes of con-
veyance are disseminating intelligence, and
carrying the electrical forces of thought to
the remetest cabin, and spreading the high.
est intelligence of our cities into the re-
motest circles of society, awakening men,
tai energies that have slept in the shades of
the forest, excluded heretofore from the rays
of knowledge, which are arousing them
into life and growth. AS vast as have been
the increase of the physical resources and
population, the gain in the intellectual
and moral power and activity of the coun-
try by the dissemination of intelligence
through the increased means of intercourse,
has been much greater.
The statistics of the next census will re-
veal to US an increase of material strength
and resources that will surprise US; but
there is an intellectual and social change
going on, all over the country, that will not
be realized, except by personal observation
and travel. Provincialism has disappeared
from the remotest and most secluded dis
tricts of the country. Metropolitan tastes,
habits, fashions and intelligence are begin
ming to prevail in every settlement. The
elegance, refinement and intelligence ofcities
are found in the social circles of places that
were but few years ago upon the borders
of civilization. The books, magazines, and
papers that form the tastes and mould
the sentiments of society in our eastern
cities, are found in the parlors of nearly all
prosperous planters, farmers and traders in
every opening in the forests of Missouri, Ar
kansas and Louisiana, and on the boundless
prairie Texas, as well as in the New England
villages that are rising up throughout the
rich regions of the northwest. The traveller
through the wilds of the Southwest, is
astonished to see at every social gathering,
even in log cabins still emitting the odors
of the green timber that form their sides
"a display of luxury in dress, and
knowledge of the habits and manners of
fashionable life, that would put their in
mates at ease in any company. The means
of intercourse and inter-communication
are removing all the differences in the habits
and manners of life among the inhabitants
of different regions and making the dis
tinctions between the city resident and rural
bred family imperceptible.
an able sheet filed with unmistakable proofs
of coming from large and active CONNER
cial place; it contains full reports Of the
proceedings and deliberations of its City
Council upon the engrossing interests of the
city-the repair and lighting of its streets
the paving of its alleys-the salary of its
Mayor and other city officials, which are, by
the way, higher than ours-the collection of
its municipal revenues, and the payment OF
its corporate debts. Turning TOTS advertise
ments, there are stocks of merchandise OF
every variety, in extent and richness that
few towns, where supplies are more acceSsi-
bic, could boast of; the manager of the the
atre, after an uninterrupted season of four
months, announces the closing of the estab-
lishment, with the profoundest sense of graf
itude to the people Of TT. Smith for the i'm
mense liberality bestowed on him." He
promises to return in October, to reit his
house for the next winters campaign, with
stock company, equal-judging from the
names-to many that tread metropolitan
boards. The closing plays are Ingomar and
the Pleasant Neighbor, in which Mulholland
and other celebrities take part In reading
the paper, it is difficult to realize that these
things are going on in frontiercity, stand
ing upon the boundary line between Arkan-
sas "a State whose society is considered,
abroad, scarcely half ciyilized) and the ter
ritories Of the Greek and Choctaw Indians
Mingled with all the evidences of wealth,
civilization, and luxury, the columns of the
paper are filled with notices OF Indian life
and news from Indian tribes whose territory
borders on the corporate limits:of the city.
There is a strange mingling of subjects
relating to refined, fashionable society and
savage life. An elaborate criticism on the
dramatic performances is followed by an
account Of the location of the Washita In
dams in their new homes-a description OF
a beautiful "boquet rose" with sixteen roses
on one stem, in the space of FIVE inches,
raised by lady in her garden, is succeeded
80 II