The daily Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1878-1???, 1878-09-03
ON A RAILROAD.
EFFECTS OF THE ANTICIPATED COMPLETION
OF RAILROAD ON THE MIND OF A
SOUTHERN ILLINOIS EDITOR.
Benton Standard.

EFFECTS OF THE ANTICIPATED COMPLETION
OF A RAILROAD ON THE MIND OF
SOUTHERN ILLINOIS EDITOR.
Benton Standard.
When the morning stars sang together,
Benton had no railroad. When that old
sarpent, the devil, squat like toad at the
ear Of our mother Eve and whispered
naughty things to her, Benton was without
a railroad. When Joseph fled from Mrs.
Potiphar, when Cleopatra summed herself
on the Nile, when Molly Hoses slept with
the bull rushing all around him, when
Sampson fired the tails of the foxes, when
Joseph explored the vast profundity of
the whales inner recesses, Benton was
without a railroad. When Columbus
discovered a new world, when John A.
Logan was pulling Infant Benton had
no railroad. The shining bands of COM
merce were spread all over the meek bosom
of mother Illinois, and the great tides of
trade flowing back and forth over them left
their golden settings at every prominent
city in the state save at Benton Cairo has
her railroads. Shawneetown also knows
what bonded debt on an iron horse signi-
flies. Du Quoin, Carbondale, Marion, Har-
risburg, St. Louis, Springfield and West
End, can sit opcn-eyed and "hear the engine
holler.' Benton, until now, has never felt
the beating of that great iron artery
through which flows the traffic of a wide
awake world. No little Benton boy has
had the delicious pleasure of stolen ride
On u cow-catcher, or had hot water squirted
on his bare shins by facetious engineer.
Our undertakes have sold no collins for
people helped home by "calusion."
These joys have all skipped us. But
now, like boy on bridge, with his
teeth set and his hands above his head, we
are about to take the plunge, and the an
ticipated delights awaiting us make us
SILVER with bliss. The road is in sight.
The grading is going on right inside the
corporation. In ten days John A. Logan
and others will be sorry they ever left Ben
ton. But then they knew they had no
chance here. They could not build rail-
roads. We can, and have done so. In
spite of Bismarck and Beaconstield, the car
and the yellow fever Kearney, Ben Butler
and hard times-in spite of several things,
we have just gone on, split our own rails
and built our road, and now we begin to
feci scrumptious. We will soon be able to
elect mayor and organize a fire company.
Circusses won't skip us any more.
Lecturers on phrenology will come
in, and we can laugh over the explanations
given of the bumps on our heads. Times
will be brisk Taxes will be high, and
thunder generally will be to pay. What
was the use of being an editor in Benton
with a railroad pass and no road to use it
on. 1t was worse than bachelor with a
hoopskirt or a boy with the measles and
no brother to give them to. Oh, well, the
whrlegiggle of time brings in his revenge.
We have the road, and now will do as the
man did who married on the love at first
sight principle. We will try to form the
acquaintance of the crtter. For the pres
ent "hallelujer;" for the hearattcr, if we
step on a red-hot cinder, somebody's foot
will get burned.