The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1876-06-23
SIGHT SEEING.
Apoth e. Cary oN The Centennial.


To Philadelphia thee must go:
| Then thee can tell century hence,
| How much thee saw for fifty cents.
| have been to the Centennial.
! 1t is the first Centennial that ever at
tended, and perhaps it would be well
enough to add, the largest.
| Mary Ann went with me for company,
and that made our excursion party up to
ten. She was one, and / was the cipher.
Mary Ann is the female sharer of the
manifold luxuries which an income Of
twelve dollars a. week enables me to scatter,
with prodigal hands, around my domestic
hearth. at first felt as though the ex-
pense of the trip was too much for man
of my means Then Mary sent for her
mother to come and stay few days, and
before the Champion had been in the house
six hours, I knew that I should be able to
afford it, and if necessary, buy the whole
city of Philadelphia, with its entire Cen
tennial Paramount attachment. It is won
derful what convincing power there is in
some women.
Last Spring, when Mary Ann was sick
with kind of unremitting Spring-bonnet
fever she sent for her mother, as usual,
| and whenever came into the house the
old lady would tell over heart-rending
things Mary Ann had uttered in her delir-
ium. How the poor girl fancied herself a
missionary, and that when she married she
left the comforts of civilized life, crossed
the saLdy Sahara of unrequited affection,
and ever since has been laboring to convert
heathenish old Hottentot, and that
heathenish old Hottentot was her husband.
How she was half tempted to run away,
hide herself in the reedy banks of some
African river, untrodden by Stanley's large,
robust feet, and there in the more congo
NAL society Of the elephant, rhinoceros,
and the rest of the menagerie, let her life
run to waste. used to smilingly look my
mother-in-law in the face, and tell her that
solitude was sweet, Africa was a nice coun-
try, and undoubtedly the menagerie would
be worth going to see; but, said |, "Moth-
er, your daughter and my wife, which, like
|
BILE, is too much bound up in corsets to
ever let her life run to aodist." But such
kind of talk, continually tunnelled into a
mans ear, makes him feel like the hind
end of n small circus scooting out of town
without paying its bills.
We were quite little time determining
how TO reach Philadelphi. That there was
such place somewhere, and that in the
early history of the Republic it had been
the seat of Government, We were we'll
aware: but what had become of it since
the seat wore out, and whether anybody
had cared enough for it to reseat, or even
keep it patched UP, we had no means of
knowing. We found it, however, the day
before the Centennial opened, just where
William Penn found it years before, and
SO both of us having found it, our names
will probably go down the future hand-in-
hand as the founders of Philadelphia.
The city is situated few miles above
the confluence of the Delaware and Schuyl-
kill, and is made up of streets, boarding
houses, small hotels, restaurants, refresh
ment stands, lunch counters, dining saloons,
eating houses, and horse-cars, all crossing
each other at right angles. Never since
the continent was discovered have our eyes
witnessed such boarding house industry as
we saw at Philadelphia. The amount of
repast that we passed and re-passed sur
passed anything in the past history of our
Yankee civilization,
During our stay in the gormandizing
Centennial city we were ''the guests of his
Honor Mr.. William Smith. People who
are acquainted with "his Honor - call him
Bill Smith, and claim that he has about as
much honor as Sioux Indian. Mr.. Smith
is Mary's uncle.
EARLY on the morning Of the auspicious
day which crowned the right-angled tri-
ansled city of brotherly boarding house
love with glory, and fractional currency,
everybody was astir, and we were up with
the lark, The city is full of Larks. The
policemen often catch them on the wing.
/ Our getting out to Fairmount and into the
Exposition Grounds alive, was feat long
to be remembered, and the multitudes who
used our pedal extremities for a kind of
raised platform on which to stand, will also
be remembered. Itseemed as though part
of the opening exercises consisted in march
ing the entrie population of the United
States oyer our feet.
The largest thing we saw on the ground
was the main exhibition building, the i'm
mense copiousness of which would do cred-
it even to a larger State than Maine. We
saw look Of justifable pride creep over
the austere face Of Mr.. Blaine as his eyes
took in the vastness oc this main struc-
ture.
The smalles thing we saw there was the
man who changed a five dollar bill for US,
and charged US fifty cents for doing it. lie
was lineal descendant of the old money
changers who were driven ont OF the tenn
pie years ago.
The Centennial opening exercises were
brief, and Enthusiastically American, Af=
ter the exhorting and hymn singing the
show was pronounced open by good judges,
and we commenced tour Of Inspection
around the buildings. We do not claim
to have seen everything there was on ex-
hibition, but we think we saw as much as
any one man could see tagging around
after General Grant, Dom Pedro, Speaker
Cox, and two hundred and fifty thousand
common people. The works of art, the
wonderful triumphs of genius, and the
relics of by-gone days that everywhere met
the eye were calculated to draw exclama-
tions of astonishment from the beholder;
this was proper. as the whole thing was
gotten mp for that purpose-to draw.
After our curiosity had completely ex-
hausted our anatomy and physiology we
retired, feeling with the Queen of Sheba
that the half had not been told, and would
J not be unless some other man told it. Sc
overcome were we with this great mora
show IN three buildings that our poetic ma
ture drew us one side, and. meanderine
into the greenhouse Of our embowered in
tellect, Git has two bowers. the right ane