The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1874-06-20
The Press Excursion.

tors to Baltimore and Washington, has but
word to add TO the resume OF the trip given
last week The last act in the drama, So lar
As the FREE TRADER is concerned, was the
reception at the White House, and our repre-
sentative, who fought NIT Grant" in Icnnes
see, bears away from that"rcccption" arather
melancholy realization of the truth that pros
perity, or whatever it may be, works mighty
changes in the human form divine in a very
few years. 1t was hard to recognize the 1.-the
alert comely and ai,able form and features
of our adored commander in the ungainly, adj
pose form and lacklustrc eye and dull eX
pressonless features now brought to view.
his friends in Philadelphia the night before,
and probably had bad night of il, for which
allowance must be made
At Washington we parted with our gay and
festive companions of tie bifurcate quill and
pinnate scissors, taking Philadelphia and
New York in our homeward route, so that we
have no fine writing to indulge in over the
return trip. There remains, however, the
duty Of grateful acknowledgment Of innu-
merable courtesies by the way, for which, to
fill up the measure of our feelings, we find no
adequate language at our command. In the
list of those to whom We were placed under
especial obligations we should take delight
in naming in gold-wreathed capitals, the Hon
/ NJ E. ingalls,, President, and John Egan
Esq, general passenger agent of the l. Z. X
l.. railroad, better knewn as the "kankakee
line" to whom the eXcursionists were indebt
ed for transportation from Chicago to Cincin
natl and return. Also to Vice Preslden,
Keyser James Walsh agent at Chicago, and
T. B. Barney, agent at Cincinnati, of the Bal
timore & Ohio Railroad for transportation
from Cincinnati to Washington and return
The thanks the excursionists are especially
due Col. ID. n. Welch, Of Chicago, General
Superintendent Pullman Palace Car Co., for
sleeplng-car accommodations for the whole
party For attentions and courteses, the ex.
curslonists are also under obligations to the
proprietors of the following prominent hotels
Sherman House, Chicago; Gibson House,
Cincinnati; St Clair Hotel, Baltimore; and
Wizards Hotel, Washington. And outside
of the excursion, for individual iavors to the
representative of the FREE TRADER we de-
sire to canOnize in our memory (as Brother
Radcliffe, of the Joliet San, would say the
Hon. d. NJ. Boyd, General Passenger Agent
of the Pa Central, and F. II. Meyers, Esq,
general pass. agent of the Pittsburgh, Fort
Wayne & Chicago r. r. The courtesies of
these gentlemen were extended with an unso-
licited hearty generosity that place US under
everlasting bonds.
Nor would it be just to dismiss the subject
without bearing record to the efficient and
excellent management of the officers of the
Illinois Press Association, by whom the trip
was so admirably planned and splenddly
carried out under their personal supervision
These were President E. B. Buck, Secretary
Cadet Taylor, and f, L. Merritt, Esq, chair.
man of the executive committee
One word more. AS, aside from the trans.
pcrtation, which had been generously tender.
ed the association without solicitation, and
reduced hotel bills, the members of the excur
sion bore their own expenses, which were quite
that here and there an impecunious country
editor in the state should sheer at the ex
cursionists as "deadheads, ;" dead BEATS"
sc But we are rather taken aback to find
potato defamation. Our surprise at the Tri.
bune arises from the fact that that journal it.
self was represented in the party by no less
than two of its editors with their families
in all secen individuals. The meanness OF
partaking SO hoggishly of generous hospi
tality and then abusing the host is so rare
that the dictionary makers give US no word
to characterize it properly. but the whole
idea is brought out by calling it TrsJnnish
The excursion was in no legitimate sense
either a "dead-head" or dead beat" affair
Whatever gratuitous transportation or other
entertainment the company received was ten
dered without solicitation and could only
have been churlishly refused; while as to
deadbeats, there was not a..man in the party
but was a bona-fide editor, nor one whom we
are not willing to place in comparison with
; any editor Of the Tribune on the score of in
telligence, refinement and gentlemanly de
pertinent. Nine-tenths of the scribbling OF
the Tribune lis done by as degraded a set OF
pimps and loafers as ever ventilated their
nastiness through the columns of metropol
itan journal, and it is by these, we imag
Inc, that this gratuitous fifth is flung at the
"bucolic" press.
Treasurer Spinner is said TO he famous