The evening Argus. [volume] (Rock Island, Ill.) 1861-1871, 1871-01-10
DICK RICHARDSON ON ROCK ISLAND

We never catch q stranger in Rock Island,
without dropping our work instanter and
proceeding straight way to show them the
city. Who should we grab the other ds!
but Dick Richardson of the Davenport Dem
ocrat. Dick was sleigh riding on the ice
playing he was young man-holding on
to one end of a buffalo robe in one of the
transfer seighs, while something Of curls,
calico and bright eyes, tugged at the other
end. We soon had him aboard the street
cars going to the Glass Works. Now we
knew Dick would have good word for
Rock Island enterprise, SO with this essur-
ance we smothered our conscience, and beat
the street cars out Of our fare, John hadn't
sent us the pass he promsed,) and were
soon standing before Lord Carter at the Glass
Works. Here is what Dick says of US. Good
words they are, speaking well for our enter
prise:
ROCK ISLAND.
And so We went over to Rock Island
over across the ice IN q cutter for ten cents
and found the place there. 1t Is q good
towns Rock Island has bran new
Harper House made by Harper himself a
spacious, lofty, well put up, neatly finished
earthly tabernacle, where the hungry may
cease from huageriug, aud the weary may
| sit down, stand up, or go to bed and rest !;
may do so after the 22d of February next,
when it will be opened by Harper himself
the richest man In Rock Island, and owns
the Gas Works. John Warmers horse cars
run through Rock Island at % per cent
dividends and away down town is the glass
factory. the stove works--and there the
Bufords, those two ilustrious plow-boys,
strive to make an honest living. There is
a good deal in Rock Island that you can
see with your eyes. You can see the old
| ID usty bonds and corpulent book accounts
tina. the Harpers, Robinsons, Warmers, Bur
rails. and other bloated bondholders have
been Juggling about and getting round
| shouldered under. and pot bellied with for
years, turning themselves into manufactur-
ed articles. and reproducing themselves in
| livelier per cents. Capital is breaking loose
! in Rock Island, and making the dirt fly.
| Bonds and big balances, loahng round
bank vaults-curse town.
Money ID good thing on wheels,
! but bank it up and it helps about as mnch
| as the same weight of river mud. Butthey
get it out, swap /, off for sand, clay, iron,
| lum Der, muscle, brains, and put them ali
| at work, and out comes million dollars
worth of manufactured goods, two or three
hundred people are directly supported, twice
as many indirectly; noise is made along the
streets; the store doors open and shut ten
times as often; there is more smoke, dust
clatter, commotion; everything seems tear
ing about and doing something because the
money has been let loose and when the
year comes round the same money takes mp
more room than it did before. 1t has work
ed all the year; helped people work paid
people for working; turned the big wheels,
rode around on the belts, blowed at the
forge and furnace, smote the heated iron,
shaped the molten ores, digged coal from
, beneath the prairie turf, run the LOGON olives,
built up houses, supplied the tables, clothed
men, women and children, paid up the bills.
and had good frolic out in the open air.
and grown fatter upon that style of lite.
every day. That's what you may see money
doing over in Rock Island -see i, with your
eyes. 1t is making something out of raw
material; and that's the way the world was
!, made-and all that has been made in j,
: since it was made. a year or two ago and
our sister city was rather drowsy; had beer
for many years; grass and weeds fourished
i in her streets, because capital hid away. a
new era has dawned-may the increasing
light of enterprise be no more obscured.