Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1872-05-16
THE RUTLAND HERALD.
An Interesting Letter.


have been permitted the perusal of an
interesting letter from a former promi-
nent citizen and official of Rutland
county, now a resident of Michigan
We take liberty also to make few ex-
tracts from different parts of the letter,
as matters of interest and as containing
some suggestions of value which may
awaken consideration in the mind of
some reader of THE HERALD.
The writer, in speaking of the con-
dition of Rutland as reported to him,
draws contrast that may be of value
as it contains much of good common
sense as applied to our town at the pres
ent time.
He says Il am informed that Rut-
land is proud and aspiring and bases her
future prosperity and greatness upon
embryo railroads So think her wise
men, her oracles. admit that railroads
are powerful to make or mar the growth
and prosperity of towns and cities.
When we look at Chicago, st. Louis,
ii owing to their commanding position
for trade and traffic that gives them such
pre-eminence over others. But railroads
are their subordinates, and by night and
day pour into their marts golden
stream. But all interior towns and cities
are the subjects and vassals of him who
snorts and bounds along the iron path
way. In Michigan and elsewherein the
West towns and villages ebb and
flow, rise and fall, with a large trade
to-day. She wakes up on the morrow
and that trade is gone. In the night
new railroad has sprung up not far dis
tant, and Delilah like has shorn her OF
those locks in which lay her strength.
Not that business or trade i'll the aggre-
gate has diminished, but divided and sub
divided. Now has Rutland such a ST.
premacy of position that, like Chicago,
she can command like golden stream
Of traffic to be poured into her elevators,
her capacious warehouses. If not,
then let her seek other sources and
DlctuS lOI ldyluB bLIO AOoiANe''AOAiS " 49,
future prosperity and growth.
If Rutland were surrounded with
farms, each with its fifty or hundred
acres of golden wheat, to be marketed
in her streets, then indeed would her
hotels, her stores be thronged with Gus
toners ready to make liberal cash pur-
chases. But the God of nature has de
MED her this, her soil, her climate refuse
to bear the royal grain, the Goddess
Ceres boon. Neither then, it would
seem, by railway interests or by agri-
cultural productions can Rutland arise
from her present position. Only, as it
ceems to me, can she wax rich and en-
large her borders by the establishment
of manufactures All over New Eng
land you will observe that this interest
predominates That it gives to all its
interior towns their population and com
merce. Rutland unfortunately never in
the past saw fiji to utilize the great adj
vantages which nature conferred upon
her for impelling machinery. Upon the
marble interest alone has she been lifted
up to her present position, and should
this decline her twenty and fifty thous-
and dollar churches would but stand as
gilded mausoleums of human folly. |
do not claim prophetic vision. but Meg
Merriles cast the horoscope of Rutland
for me and the above is what saw.
In moralizing on some occurrences,
the writer says:
While we may decry and deplore the
sensuality and extravaganza of our day,
may we not also admire and applaud its
love of noble and generous deeds, its
large and magnificent contributions of
aid for fire-stricken and homeless hui
manity. While for the victims of a
morbid appetite and senseless adornment
we feel no sympathy and have no friend
ship, yet by their folly we mount to a
higher plane of wisdom and happiness.
During the the year 1871 a hundred
thousand persons in single city within
a few hours lost their all. During the
year 1871 perhaps twice one hundred
thousand have fallen, not at the touch
Of fire, but drowned in the Shiny and
bottomless ocean of incompetence and
sensuality, their graves unhonored, or
as the poet has il forevermOre, I'm |
cago has fallen, but not in disgrace. Not |
by her drunkenness and feasting in the
night time did her destroyer
enter and apply the torch to her
palatial residences. her Babylon /
ian structures. Therefore she has /
the sympathies of the world, the dona- |
tions from far and wide, from Queens |
and Princess toshelp her build her ruin |
ed homes, her stately edeGces and rein |
state her in her former prosperity. But |
who will help to rebuild a ruined char |
acter, to restore wasted patrimony, |
lost by crime and profligacy. have no |
sympathy for the poor, made such by
idleness and extravaganza. The world |
has none. Your village is building
churches. When you dedicate a new
one with all its conveniencrs and adorn- !
ments, will you delicate it to pride or to
the Most High God The poet says
that
He'll was built on spite aud Heaven on
pride,
Was his satire true. does the church
Of to-day verify IT, A church costs
twenty-five thousand dollars, including
the kitchen and parlor, etc, and sup
pose house costing onc-half that sum
would have answered the same purpose
then ten thousand dollars is saved, or a
fund nearly sufficient at ten per cnt to
defray tho expcnse Of Pastor for AL
time. But me'e pride having tn" right
Of suffrage vntrs fifty thousand dollars
on a church and !! is carried.
GRKelrY The C4rjvti1n Fa'on
(Beecher's Paper regards Ike Cincinnati
convention as politicians convention,
in which men Of excellence and econom-