Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1879-03-05
Letter from Illinois.

pAbfsbuhG lLis., TeDruaTy 20, 1919.
Messrs. Editors We are in the midst OF one
OF your best Vermont Winters, and enjoy it all
the more for it being unlike our common
Winters here. On this great prairie where the
wind has an uninterrupted sweep for hundreds of
miles, there is force and feeling OF chill and
dampness about II unlike Vermont "a its dead
level is unlike the succession of mountains and
valleys, hills and rushing waters OF the latter state
But for once old 4Eolus seems to have been
chained in his den. From early Fall almost to the
present time with only slight exceptions, we have
had delightful and uninterrupted freedom from
winds. November still, clear calm and de-
lghtful as May A week into December with
roads everywhere dry and smooth, 1t began 10
snow, and in few days more we had perfect
sleighing with about foot Of snow, lying just
where it FELL unmoved by thought of wind the
thermometer meanwhile ranging from twelve to
twenty five degrees below zero. Six weeks OF as
fine sleighing as | ever saw brought ont from
their long retirement every Imaginable form OF
sled, sleigh, cutter and pnng that had for years
escaped the search for kindling-wood, and, in ad-
dition to these, hundreds were extemporzed,
couple OF pieces of plank with the bottom forward
corner sawed off answering for runners, and
sometimes two green poles bent towards the mid
die making runners and shafts both. Well, the
January thaw " came early in the present month
and lasted till Tuesday, the 18th, the streets be-
ginning to be dry and settled like April; but on
that day, with characteristic celebrity the morning
rain brought mud in the afternoon the sinking
Thermometer changed the rain to snow, and after
a night that for wind and storm might have set
even old Mansfield or Cancels Hump in the
nj oil ind OF tba oil atnr
king seemed let loose, the mercury was found to
have fallen more than fifty degrees. to twenty
below. But excuse 20 Internationally long de-
scrption. forgot for the moment that what has
been new and interesting to us here is quite
common experience with you.
Our sixteen or seventeen churches in this city
have nearly all good degree Of external prosper
ity several of them beginning the year with
union prayer-meetings. Revival efforts have
since been attended with apparent good in a few
OF them, but the great work in which many hearts
and hands have been engaged has been temper
ance The Red Ribbon Reform Club organized a
year before by Doctor Reynolds, has been ac-
lively at work, holding weekly meetings in its
| hail. and nearly all the time mass meeting Sun
day afternoon or evening, besides sending speak
ers to several places each week to hold meetings,
organize clubs and prepare the county for still
greater work. and II possible, speedy triumph
| Having the cordial cooperation OF the woman's
Christian Temperance Union the club secured
| the services OF Hon A. b. Campbell an able law
| yer and temperance worker OF Bloomington, who
has been here two weeks, and whose labors have
been attended with very deep interest, the Opera
House packed night after night with from twenty
to twenty-five hundred, and nearly three thousand