Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1867-11-23
St. Paul.

Like brandy TO the cOnvalescent invalid, 50
is st. Paul to the nerve and vigor of well
man. 1t does rural fellows Ii Ike 0urself, good
to take an occasional tas te of its abundant life.
ST. Paul is unequalled in the world. But
comfortable Eastern village in size, with its
$4,000 or Is. 600 people, it wears the airs and
sustans the character of metropolitan town.
It's spacious stores. commodous hotels, ele.
giant churches and enterprising papers-its
thrift and commerce, its trade and fashion, its
business and pleasures, are on a scale of mag
nitude never before known in a town ofequal
size. The growth of but yesterday. it is al
ready as widely known as New York, Lon-
don, Paris or Rome.
Rome and st. Paul Stop and think
They are the very antipodes of civilization
its earliest dawn, its latest day. Rome. heavy
with tradition. gloomy with shadows of the
past, the dust of dead centuries clinging to her
dingy robes. borrowing mournful glory
from faded splendors. and sitting in hel ruins
like age lamcnting over the loss of youth and
beauty St. Paul, the eager, vigorous, hopeful
hope beaming from her eye, ambition burn
ing in her heart.
In newspapers and hotels. the two things
by which stranger forms his opinion of
town, st. Paul is pre-eminert. The Press
and the Pioneer would be creditable to city
of 100000 people. Milwaukee with her
10000 has not as good papers as these. Alive
vigorous. fresh, they deal in news, not history
And look at her hotels. See Col. SHAw's
magnificent. great stone tavern, the Merchants
Hotel. and he has a passion for charging it
as great as Stewards passion for enlarging the
boundaries of the United States. 1t is pity
that Mr.. PRINCE has built so fine block so
near, for it will have to he taken away some
time to make room for an addition 20 the
Merchants Hotel. Aud the International Ho-
tel, known TO fame and many guests-any
one who wants better House, better kept,
will have TO 90 to Julesburg, or farther West.
iol il. Weber we suppose was built when
the Hotel was-that's the reason he fits the Of
fee so well. Col. Johnson, who recently be-
came a partner in the Hotel, is well known in
this State. and when a Wisconsin man lands
at st. Paul. it is just as natural for him to
go 20 the International as it is for Presby-
terian to assert the sovereignty of God in the
first sentence Of his prayer. The Globe, Park
Place. and other hotels.are worthy of the rep
utation Of the town, TO say nothing of Moffat's
Castle. which is most striking illustration of
the power of matter over mind.
1t is meu. men of brains who give charac-
ter and spirit TO place-men who, as TRAIN
says, "would know what to do in fire,
shipwreck or an earthquake" st. Paul is
fall of them. Let us look around little
Come up Third ST., and drop in at the Pio-
neer Office. What glorious group Placid
WILLIAMS, genial NASH, benignant FISHER.
brilliant CALKINs Far off be the day when
FrsHER's benign cOuntenance shall, in fancy,
CLEAN upon US from "the other shore" OF
Life, and his pictured lineaments hold an
honOred place beside those of departed Coon
HUE. CouP.to Bridge Square. There is JOE
WHEELooK, ofthe Press. We do not know
him much, and never saw any one who did
Except DR.. Foster but all know of him.
He deals in principles, thoughts. In the
crowd, he stands
"Among them but not of them in a shroud
OF thoughts which are not their thoughts,
but he is a writer, sometimes Of great beauty,
nearly always Of rare force. He will come in
triumphantly on the flowing curves of rhet-
oric. aud SAFELY ride the topmOst wave Of met
aphor where weaker men would be submerg-
ed.
Come down to the Levee. Here is Capt
age will put a white collar around the
North Pole and use it as a snubbing post for
his boats and Capt RHODES, who we expect
will sometime remove his headquarters TO Be-
hering's Straits, and look after the steamers
arriving hourly IRON Patagonia and Japan.
Look around little Here is DoDGE, Os-
SIAN E.. singer like his namesake. quaint,
witty {practical and peculiar, whose dish of
EQUALS" we all are now enjoying. Here is
CHARLEY, who runs the great business of the
Merchants Union Express as easily as if it
was one horse cider mill and near by Rus
MUNGER, inimitable Rus. vino defies des-
cription-a shining comet among steady
stars; and GILBERT MUNGER, the painter,
whose art is winning him substantial fame
and more substantial cash. His painting of
the scene on the Mississippi just above Trem-
peleau, is more than copy--itis the October
morning itself, the frowning hills. ihe blend
ing colors, the vanishing mist, the placid wa
ter ripping TO the shore. 1t is reality-a
noupareil, portable edition of one Of the most
poetic passages in Natures open book, on
which the sun will never set and from which
the light of beauty will never fade.
There are man. others princely merchants
eloquent lawyers. brilliant politicians, able
financiers, but we cannot speak of them now.
We would like to write an ''item" about St
Paul, but have not time Her brilliant rep
utation is fast ripening into lasting fame.