Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1879-07-17
Lawrence and Topeka.

MAI w ~ DiShLdtAA3 COtbOI VI IIl6 lJaV-
ton Journal, was one of the number who
made the late Ohio Editorial excursion tc
Colorado, and to the top of Pixies Peak.
The Major is a good writer and jolly
good fellow, and has written some excel
lent letters, descriptive of the Western
country, and has given some valuable in
formation. We clip the following from
one of Major Bickham's letters, in re-
ferenceto Lawrence and Topeka:
A Massachusetts colony settled Law
renee and built church and school-house
while camping out. Hence you will un-
derstand that the people are intelligent
and thrifty, and spell nation with big
N. Many citizens focked to the station
to meet the Ohio editors, but [ doubt if
any were so welcome as an old woman
with basket full of homemade ginger
bread.
A New York 'Pinafore" company got
aboard the train here for Topeka, and en-
tertained our car with spirited rendition
which we never heard excelled-that is,
hardly ever. 4 $50 ts. -aes z a-
At Topeka a good dinner awaited the
famishing. Here! we saw the first pill
grims of the Exodus. The suburbs were
thronged with them, and a black mass
gathered about the depot. Dimes and
quarters were distributed among the poor
aspirapts for liberty, until the supply was
exhausted. for which they requited us by
moving tales of privation and hardship.
Upon interrOgatipg the Hopekans we dis
covered that the pilgrims had ceased to be
welcome. They had become too numer-
Gus, and the tax was too heavy upon the
limited population. In some instances
even respectable people had mobbed the
poor creatures and burned their cabins to
drive them to more hospitable settlements.
Committees were organized to provide
them with shelter, food and work, but the
supplies had not proved equal to the re-
QUESTIONS. Those employed for farm and
harvest hands were incompetent for farm
ing in the North, though dilligent and
willing enough to labor. Farmers un-
reasonably complained, | thought, that
they cannot even hoe corn, but expect
that little practice will remedy that de-
ficiency. The. Pilgrims seemed to COM
prehend the difficulties which beset them
and were patient and uncOmplaining.-
They were simply too numerous at one
point. They had assumed that the capi-
tai of the State was the center of wealth
and the proper distributing depot. They
told one story. They had submitted to
oppression as long as it was endurable,
and fled from Louisiana and Mississippi,
to find home where they would be hon
estly paid for honest work, and enjoy the
right to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. They preferred starvation in
Kansas to oppression in the South. A
member of the TOpekan Relief Commit
tee stated that about 900 Pilgrims had
rendezvoused at that point. They had re-
ceived from east of the Mississippi about
$40, 900 in cash, besides food and rainent,
in addition to their own liberal contribu-
tions, but the amount was sadly made
Quate. 1t requires but brief calculation
to comprehend that $20, 900 is a small sum
for such responsibility. 1t is reassuring
to know, however, that nine-tenths of the
arrivals at Topeka had found locations in
various parts of the State. We saw many
in little cabins more than a hundred miles
east of the capital. The story of these
poor pilgrims is one of the most pathetic
epics in human history. How blessed it
is to feel that 'tGod tempers the wind to
the shorn lamb"
Topeka was the first Free State capital
of Kansas. Here liberty was organized
and slavery repelied Lee, by the defeat OF B9T- Boz
1.-The city crowns roll
ing prairie, and from the ridge commands
view of superb valley. The distant
prairie hills rolling up around it seem
like blending ramparts swelling up to
catch the rim of the sky and sustain it as
a canopy. These splendid valleys, like
grandly decorated amphitheaters, are
DISTINGUISHING LIlu OICldlGIllA lduuSCdI)O
features of the State. AS. at Lawrence,
the railways girdle the city on the north
ern border, and you catch but a glimpse
of it while you are passing. Looking up
through the main avenue from the depot
the eye rests upon the rounding summit
of a swelling prairie and skips off into
the sky. Near the depot, of course, you
may easily become deeply cultured in the
popular street literature of the age-Beer
Saloon! This reminds me, by the way,
that if the last Vestige of the railway
track from Kansas City across the broad
desert to Denver were Obliterated, a man
with one eye could find his way to the
gates of the Rocky Mountains by the
double track of empty beer and whisky
bottles-not to consider an infinite variety
of fruit and other kinds of cans on either
side of the road. These supply the van
ished landmarks of buffalo bones which
once made the prairies and plains glisten
as if they had been embellished with pol
ished marble. The reader will please OBJ
serve that the railway tourist is con-
strained to confine his observations to
narrow-gauge narration-eXcept on oc-
casiOns when he vagrantly skips into the
vanishing horizon or dives into a mirage
on the thin pinions of volatile fancy
When Horace Greeley passed through
these then almost virgin regions in 1859,
he contemplated them with the hard fea
lures OF Gradgrlnd," ana saw DuG llC-
tie else in the present and future of Kan
sas but material development, the growth
of F'the grand Republican party" and
'one-horse politicians" If he had been
the correspondent of "the ideal journal
of the future, Whitelaw Reid would have
hurled him from the Tribune tower with
indignant haste. He was the most prosy,
if not the least instructive of all the lite
rary tourists who have adorned page
with natures splendid pictures of Kansas
prairies.
RemarkabIe Case.