Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1869-09-14
80 what caEty world were it,
"W ould pain and care and sickness spare il
And fortune favor worth and merit
"As they deserve:
''(And ayes rowth, roasr be 4fand slaret
"Syne wha wad starve2|'

"As they deserve:
"(And ayea rowth roast be 4fand slaret
''Syne wha wad starve2J'
This fine country about Boston is
perhaps as free from causes necossa-
rily producing disease as any in
America. And not doubt that
worth and merit bear the highest
premiums awarded to these virtues
anywhere in the world. But beef
and claret are decidedly dear and
out Of reach, except to the rich and
initiated. Robert Burns would
therefore still have an open field
even in Boston, for designing and
painting to the life his very naturs
and finished sarcasm in rhyme. But
singular indeed, there lives not il
Boston a man having the genius tC
humble the aristocratic heads O.
trade as could~Bu ! Thirty cents
per pound for beef in Boston, when
in Grant County choice rounds are
but twelve to fifteen, when fat cattle
parade upon the western prairies az
stars in the milky way, proves mo-
nopolies and combinations in high
quarters which some song king like
Robert Burns could relieve by a sin,
gle rhyme Of such force as relieved
Scotland of even greater wrongs.
A nonresident OF any country
finds more to interest him than can
a resident. What is seen here is
generally unlike its kind in the West,
and TO me the contrast is very great.
The old surveyors here are still
standing by their land marks, whilst
the western engineers have gone be-
yond into fields, and into an almost
opposite system Of ideas, notions
and opinions. The forms of social
life are quite different, and the SUBJ
jects of thought are not the same.
A difference is seen in the expressions,
accents, actions and tones of voice
just enough unlike to set one to
thinking and trying to remodel him.
self. For there is very much here
in the personal bearing and manners
of people that should be emulated
by western society. In many re-
spects there is great perfection here
in departments in which one like
myself can feel but an infant exist
ence. There is an unchangeableness
here to which | am q stranger, for
in the West there is little of to-day
that is, to remain for u twelve month
Those fine prairie lobes, Fennimore
Patch Grove and the like, have gone
on changing, since | first saw them
without habitation, till no man can
recognize an original feature. But
this eastern country wears the same
features now as twenty-five years
ago, Chicago is not the same CITY
now as then, but Boston is the same
except what is being torn away and
remodeled precisely after Chicago
architectural style.
To Il western observer the East
has long since revealed and exhaust
ed all its capacities, and is living on
from aye to age upon about the same
level, rising no higher nor falling be.
low-though society now and then
takes. on new forms and STYLES.
Fashion seems here the only auto
orat that can alter the level, by rails
ing or lowering it. OF course there
are exceptions, tor invention and new
means eft communication have forced
certain changes. Every manufacto-
ry adopts improved machinery and
10 certain extent is not what il
was before; and when better aud
more direct linesItor business dispatch
are opened, they are at once accept
ed. But the farmers appear Just as
they must have been fifty years ago.
Whole streets in Boston appear of a
style in use an hundred years ago.
The house in which Jonn Hancock
lived, now being removed, resembles
most of its neighbors in color, style
and quar- tness.
And with New England the West
is now racing for the numbers,
wealth, perfection and power which
must rule our great country. Their
epoch in all these seems to be at the
zenith-ours is further along in the
future. In numbers we have all
ready passed them-in all else we
ire q long way in the rear. But num-
,ers though giving majorities, can
lot avail in power giving, nor COM