The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1876-04-07
The Black Hills Fever.
winfield Courier.l

.
| just now many citizens of Cow
ley are seriously intending to spend
the summer in the Black Hills.
The Courier would induce every
man to remain at home if 1t could.
But the desire to go is spreading.
1t is unfortunate. A large majority
of those who yield to the desire
will recognize the misfortune when
too late to avail anything. The re-
greet will begin to creep over some
when on the road aud they will
tnrn back. Others will not realize
| their mistake until they get to the
Hills and find them swarming with
10000 adVenturers. Others more
persevering will spend the summer
in the delusiVe chase. OF the one
hundred men or more who will go
from this county eighty per cent.
will return in the fall. A few will
engage in permanent occupations
along the route or at the Hill, and q
few will never return. The Black
Hills will furnish the sablesrobes of
tier everlasting sleep. In money
expended, in time lost, in opprotu-
mites wasted, three hundred dollars
to the man is low estimate of the
loss that the hundred men from
Cowley will experience. This
amounts to thirty thousand dollars.
Ii the pilgrims should, when the
summer is gone, heap their collec-
ted gains in q pile it would not
make $4,000. And what they
have, if anything, will be held by q
few The extra toll and anxiety of
families left at home, the loss of
health, the roaming, unsatisfied dis
position acquired, are not here tax
en- into the count. An unreasona-
BILE hope for sudden wealth prompts
men to do many foolish things.
Patient, persevering industry and
temperate habits are the pick and
pan that will find the "color" in all
the dirt we touch. And no where
will it wash more cents to the pan
than in Cowley county. If the
swing of our pick and the shake of
our pan is wrought by contented
hands, the "color" comes thick and
fast to the man who washes the
poorest sand.
There is class that are excusabIe
for being Eighty when attacked
with the gold fever. They are
those who are on the watch for
something. to turn up" They
never attack the bosom of mother
earth determined to have milk Or
blood, but they coil up on dry
goods boxes and recount their lost
opportunities to similarly afflicted
associates, or they stake a claim"
and idly wait for rise in its value
by the enterprise of adjoining
neighbors. This class can be spared,
and might as well procrastinate
their "turn up" season in one place
as another. They are nerveless
vegetarians who can inhale exis-
tence from the shadow of the.evap-
orations of cold ;'turn up" soup.
They begrudge the muscular ac-
ton that involahtarily draws their
breath. They hate their own bow
els whenever they manifest a dis
position to move. Let such go.
To the man who has labored and
waited, thought and wrought for
themselves and the county; to the
men who have helped to give Cow
ley the good name and fair fame
she has; TO the men who are an
honor to their kind, a solace to
their families and comfort TO their
friends; to the men who are just
breaking away from the tolls of
penury and the talons of three per
cent. ; to the men who have come
to this fair region "to stay" and
make homes whose sheltering caves
shall catch the dews and pelting
storms that fall upon declining
years, we say think once more be-
fore you start! think once more of
the cost and risk, think once more
of the season you must loose, think
once more of those you must leave
behind.