The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1878-03-01

Murphy opened his temperance ball
here on Sunday last to the largest audi
ence ever in Lincoln Hall. Hundreds
were unable to gain admittance, and
policemen were stationed at the doors
to prevent attempted ingress. His lee
ture was full of eloquence, pathos, and
telling hits, and by the time he con-
eluded, his audience was in a state of
highest enthusiasm, cheering and ap-
/ plauding him again and again. He is
to remain here for four weeks, lecturing
daily in the public halls and churches
and Young Mems Christian Association
rooms. So far he has had much success,
and if he can Only be the means of pro-
hibiting liquors from the Capitol, res
taurants, and committee-rooms,w we fancy
many of the sOlOns will moderate their
appetites, to the undoUbted good of their
constituents and the country. We have
never seen a body Of Legislators here or
in the States but what offered a fine
field for the temperance lecturer, and
we certainly give Murphy our wishes
that he may succeed in removing the
sign boards of the whisky seller which
are carried in the faces of many of our
lawmakers.
On the 29th ultimo Miss Bertha Won
Hillern finished her second great walk,
completing one hundred miles in ten
minutes less than twenty-eight hours,
the time to which she was limited. The
large Odd Fellows Hall was filled with
admiring, enthusiastic ladies during the
last four hours of her walk, who ap-
plauded her vigorously at the end Of
each mile, and at the conclusion crowned
her with a wreath of flowers. So easily
does Miss Won Hillern accomplish her
feats, which are so nearly incredible to
the ordinary mortal, that old soldiers
should see for themselves how she does
it. Our young ladies are making nine
days wonder out of this matter, and
are giving sweeping displays of pedes-
trianism all over the city. But we do
not learn that they are discarding heels
to their shoes, or initiating Miss Won
HilIern's great temperance and prudence
in diet, and we predict that at the end
of the nine days not one of the dozen
walking clubs lately organized will be
in existence, as the plain diet essential
to prolonged effort will starve out all
the members.
The House has been considering the
West Point appropriation bill, which
invoked extended and interesting de-
bate. Ben Butler expressed the opinion
in his speech that the Indians, not our
troops, did the chasing in the West,
and that one hundred and twenty-five
of our army officers are in this city try
ing to escape the gout. He was very
severe on our army system, and said
that his son, now in West Point, should
not remain in the army to go into gar
rison life with nothing TO do but lay a
lump of sugar on the table, and bet
whether fly will first light upon his
lump before it will light upon the lump
of sugar of one of his comrades. He
was sending him to West Point because
in the next generation there will be
war, and he wanted his son stamped
with the patent of nobility, given by a
military education at West Point. Old
Ben, like General Kearney, seems averse
to garrison duty, and doubtless shares
the latter's expressed belief that the rea-
son why we failed in the beginning of
our civil war was because the brains Of
our generals had become ossifed COM
manding two company posts on the
frontier. Mr.. Butler will throw bricks,
and seemingly cares little whom they
hit, and his structures upon the aristo-
cratic tendencies of West Point will
find a good many admirers. 1t is some
what singular that in nearly every in
stance our successful generals were those
who had escaped the pernicious effects
Of garrison duty. FELIX.
Washington, D. c., February I, 1878.
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