The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1876-08-18
EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENTS.

After having written you from Battle
Mountain the other day, we skipped in
termediate appointments and hastened
on to Kelton, where we were sure we
should get letters and papers from home.
But, alas for the vanity of human ex-
or the imprint of familiar type
awaited US.
Unbottling the vials of our disap-
pointment and mingling them with the
wrath of baffied hopes, we sent home a
savage telegram and more savage letter
to the dear ones, after which we re-
signed ourself to the exercise of patience
till the following morning, when we
concluded, upon reaching Ogden, to
take run over to Salt Lake to inter
view subscribers and see if we might
learn whether the folks at home were
yet in the land of the living.
Found Kelton to be ragged-looking
little way station, containing Mr.. Ellis
worth, the gentlemanly stage agent,
and a number of excellent families,
who are settled there simply for consid
erations of business. The towns sits as
flat as battercake upon an alkali plain,
where more house flies congregate than
would be necessary to run metropolis.
The families fight the flies with screens
at doors and windows, and the hotel lets
you take 'em straight. In all our trav-
els we have not seen so good an opening
as this for a good hotel. Being the
terminus of the Northwestern Stage
Company line, travellers are obliged to
stop here, and it should be somebody's
interest to provide place for them.
On our way over from Battle Noun
tain the train was detained for several
hours by wrecked locomotive, and we
all took hash at a way station where
hard-tack would have been a luxury.
After long waiting, the train rumbled
on, and at last we overlook the out
winded engine which had caused the
delay, lying in hopeless helplessness be-
side the track, looking like a mammoth
pack mule from Wagontown, that had
lain down to rest under its burden of
virgin quartz.
The very unusual rains of the plains
have flooded the country everywhere,
sometimes undermining the track, and
often tearing away bridges, hence de-
lays upon the Central Pacific are grow
ing decidedly monotonous.
Despite the unpretending proportions
of Kelton, we gathered half-dOzen
subscribers, and spent the evening in
the hotel dining-room, where the viii
layers had assembled to witness an itin-
Grant literary performance. The enter
tainment was decidedly good, barring
the flies, Mcguire, the performer, evil
IDENTIFY having seen better days.
But here is Ogden, the terminus of
the Central Pacific line, and we change
cars for Salt Lake and faint hope of
hearing from home through late news
papers. a three hours ride through
the fertile valley of Deseret, and we
reach the city and are soon enscOnced
in the Walker House, an elegant hotel
with all the luxuries of home to be had
for the-money, except the greatest of
all luxuries, the hum of loved ones
voices.
Here we were called upon by Hon. J.
r. Mcbride and his estimable daughter,
and were soon welcomed guest in their
elegant home, where we were soon en-
gagged in ransacking files of old newspa-
pers for back numbers of the NEW
NORTHWEST. Anxiety being thus
partly gratified, we turned attention to
visiting, canvassiug, and seeing sights.
Among Oregonians we met Mr.. H. J.
Chapman, of Portland, who is sojourn-
ing here with his young wife, and Col.
S. E. May, who is employed in the Of
flee of Messrs. Mcbride & Robertson.
These gentlemen have a large and con-
stantly increasing run of legal business,
a conspicuous part of which consists in
procuring redress, or release from polyg-
amous bondage, for wives among the
latter-day saints.
Called at the office of the Woman'S IS
Exponent, where Mrs. Wells, sixth wife
of Mayor Wells, and a very intelli-
gent and conscientious woman of mid
die age, met US with hospitality and
gladness. While here, we were intro
duced to the foreman in the cooperative
store, or "Co-op.," as everybody terms
it, an enormous building, three hundred
feet by fifty, lighted entirely from the
roof, and containing three stories and a
basement, well stored with every con-
ceivable merchantable commodity.
"Zion's Cooperative Union" is so far
practicable in money matters that it
hesitates not to deal in everything i'm
aginable, from needle to a threshing
machine, and nutmeg CRATER to a
quartz mill.
We were next invited to the Mormon
ladies' Centennial fair, where we were
surprised to note the prevailing evil
/ dences of wOman's handiwork. Laces
of every kind, quite equal to those i'm
! ported, may be seen here, also cloth,
carpets, fancy work, paintings, and, in.
deed, industries of every class. Mrs
Davis, faithful and enthusiastic Nor.