Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1876-10-03
Western Correspondence.
GREELEY, COLORADO,
Sept. l3, 1876.

GREELEY, COLORADO.
Sept. l3, 1876.
Do not be astonished, when tell you
l have been TO jail. Il was the Greeley
Jail, built by the enterp.ising people OF
this town, aud presented to the County
over year go,--before the County seat
was returned 10 Evans. As | walked
slowly toward the tire-proof brick dun
geon, and as the ponderous iron door
swung slowly back 80 receive me,
thought OF Garrison incarceraLed in Bos-
ton to save him from the fury OF 3 Ie-
spectacle moo; OF Touey in his cell in
Baltimore; OF the refractory newspaper
correspondents imprisoned by Congress,
and getting three square meals per day,
Ca most unusual circumstance in the life
of newspaper MANI Thought OF the
words of Burns
Mans inhumanity % man
Makes countless thousands mourn
But | did not mourn at all. Like all
true martyrs, had courted my doom
from the beginning aud was happy.
Judge OF my feelings Nj Editor, when
was met by man who had formerly
been d minister, and upon whose cheek
the rose of health still bloomed, and upon
whose head the apple blossom Of forty
FIVE springtimes had gathered. He, too.
seemed to be happy, and he was all
alone. In the most affable manner he
explained to me that the jail was both
strong and fire-proof; that Greeley being
a temperance town had no rows, iracases,
rumpuses or jumborees, and consequently
had no need of Jail to put peace dis
turbers in; and he. rather than see so
much good store room go unused. had
rented the Jail as store house tor buffalo
robes. Having concluded his intro
ductory remarks, he commenced to show
his visitor samples OF the tho thousand
beautiful robes. Here were buffalo robes
from each of the half dozen tanneries in
town; some soft and white and pliable as
chamois, and some nut brown and SMELL
ing of Indian tan Some were calf
robes and some had once covered the
grave defenders of the herd. In some
the fur was brown and shaggy, and in
others soft, aud shiny, the animal having
been killed when its fur was in the silk.
These robes were worth nearly twenty
thousand dollars on the day OF my visit,
and will bring much more when shipped
east. Some fine specimens tasteiully
painted By a native artist, OF no mean
skill, will fetch twenty-five dollars readily
in Boston or New York, and some extra
fine ones fifty dollars.
Wha. pictures of buffalo hunts come
thronging upon the mind as one looks
upon these builet-pierced robes. There
is the ardent youth running TO make a
shot at his first buffalo with coffee-pot 10
one hand and rifle in the other, having,
in his excitement forgotten to set down
the frs. when he took up the second.
With fancy's eye, too, one sees the
grimy, greasy and brouzed veteran,
co,hed in bucKskin. and begirt with car
fridge belt cool as fate itseli-a stand OF
buffalo in yonder sag-laying out twenty
seven believing, paving, blood maddened
creatures, ia less time than it takes
swift horse to go mile.
But Mr.. Editor, did not start out to
talk buffalo, but 10 show you what our
jail has come to in this salooness town
of two thousand inhabitants. Isn't il
awful, A nice Jail and nobody TO put in
ifi