Connecticut western news., 1881-08-17
Nantucket Letter.

which the writer proceeds to answer the ques-
 tlon ln the negative, and to show that the country was going, if it had not already gone,
 to the demnition bow-wows, we were seized
 with an irresistible but natural impulse, which
 was intensified perhaps, by the state of the
 thermometer, ranging we'll up in the nineties,
 to get out of it by the shortest route. We re- : membered the fate of the wicked cities of the
 plains, and wished to escape before it was
 too late. But whither shall we flee Where
 shall we find refuge? If we take the wings of
 the morning, etc., what then? What assur-
 ance will we have that the politicians will not
 be there. We might go to Twin Lakes, and
 hide in the umbrageous groves that cover
 their salubrious shores, and pass our time in
 beguiling the innocent bull heads and flat fish,
 and eat the luscious pickled clam, or we might
 seek boundless contiguity of'shade in Sage's
 Ravine, but even then the baleful influence
 of the destroyers of our civil liberty, (vide the communication aforesaid, might overtake us. No, that will never do; we must seek some other refuge, and instead of fleeing to the mountains as Lot did, we will flee to the sea and surround ourself by it's angry waves, and listen to its ceasless moaning over this wicked world and the destruction of our civil liberty. So packing our carpet bag with box of paper collars, and bidding adieu to our better half and little ones, (we remembered the fate of Lots wife, and thought we wouldn't9 risk a similar calamity-a piece of prudential fore- thought, which perhaps she will appreciate, as wives generally do,) we took Conn, Western train, and in due course of time were | landed at Nantucket, in the broad Atlantic, away from the busy world. it's cares and strifes.
 ''God bless the sea beat island,
 And grant forevermore --4s That charity and freedom dwell,
 AS now upon her shore."
 ] Thus wrote Whittier years ago, and we believe his prayer has been answered. Yes, freedom and civil liberty still do dwell there in all their original simplicity and pristine purity. The only thing that cast & shadow upon the joy of | our escape as we landed, was the sight of & large, gloomy looking building with this ! strange device in golden letters over the door, 1 ''Custom House," for where the carcass is, there will the vultures gather, or words to that effect, and we thought that we hadn't got away from them after all. But we felt some l what treasured when informed that they were few in number, and that they were not likely therefore to interfere much with our civil | liberty.
 The ride from Hartford to New Bedford was somewhat hot, dusty and tedious, the road running portion of the way, the eastern por- tion, through sandy barrens, but the trip from | New Bedford to Nantucket, was, as some of your fair readers would say, perfectly splen- l did," except that the boat was & little over- | crowded The inevitable obese old lady was there with her innumerable band boxes and bundles, trying to get the full benefit Of the l sea breeze, so as to add to her adipose, but | the weather was fine and the sail delightful l One of the strangest things in the world is | this pleasure seeking craze which seems to have seized upon the whole country. Every body appears to consider it 8 religious duty to get away from home and take vacation (so called,) if it is only for day or two. It is as- l tonishing what an amount of discomfort, hard ship and misery people will endure for the 1 purpose of enjoying themselves. They will travel hundreds of miles in hot, dusty, crowded cars, swelter in 8 by 9 room in the attic of some third-rate hotel or boarding house, and eat all manner of dyspepsla inspiring food, all for the pleasure of the thing, and to improve | their health. If they would only think soF seventy-fve per cent. of them would be better of at home, at least our, experience is, that ! ''there is no place like home." The harbor of Nantucket is not what it used | to be. A sand bar has formed across the en-. trance, which prevents large vessels from en- tering it. To remedy this, they are now bulld- ing stone wall out into the Atlantic, to turn | it's current and increase the water on the bar. | For this purpose that staunch civil service senator, Dawes, we believe procured an appro- priation of $10O,0 GOO in the last appropriation bill. The appropriation may be all right, but l plan is faulty. If they had procured a strong cable and fastened it somewhere out in the l ocean. it would have answered the same pur. pose and been much cheaper.
 A strange incident or coincident. or what 1 ever you may call it, awaited our arrival. We found the town filled with Cofins. Under or dinary circumstances, such a circumstance would have had very depressing effect but on account perhaps of the motives that in- l duced us to leave home and our mental con-, dition, arising therefrom, we only thought | that some one had kindly made prepara tions
 to decent interment of our civil liberty. One would naturally suppose that so many Collins (we met them on every street corner and in every hotel and boarding house) would give the town very funereal aspect, but it did not. They were the liveliest and best behaved Coffins we ever met It seems that years ago,
 we believe it was, as the lawyers say when they can't or don't want to be very definite, on
 or about the time Columbus discovered Amer ica, Coffin, historian Coffin, the story goes,
 settled here, and being godly man, as all our forefathers were, o5eyed the scriptural in- ljunction, 90 that it came to pass that the Golf fins multiplied greatly and Waxed numerous, and oyerspread the land. Some c+ cct them went
 to California when the gold fever broke out (we got this from 8 guide book, and must be true, J and many of them are scattered through
 out the length and breadth of the land, filling many positions of honor and profit but they
 are not the kind of men who bring Ca imoral, intellectual, Christian and law abiding blight upon our nation, crushing all our liberties un- der manufactured majority" We'll, not to
 the ''clan Coffin (so they delight to style themselves,) are going to have grand reun- ion here on their native heath, which is to last l three days, Aug. 16th. 17th, and 18th, during which they are to have clambakes, orations, poems, music, dancing, pumpkin pies, etc. We are sorry that we cannot trace our geneal- ogy to the original Coffin, somewhere this side of old Father Adam, for we have no doubt we should have very enjoyable time and get ac- quainted with many pleasant people. The Cofings of Salisbury are perhaps of the same l family-the only difference being the final "g," and what can one letter amount to2 It l ought not to separate them from the Coffin family. tried to convince # my oonnpagnon du and proposed to register his name as N Cof- ] fin, but suspect he was afraid they would want him to attend the meeting, and perhaps call on him for speech, and so he gave me strict injunctions not to say anything about 1t, | Of course I wont.
 l It is good to be in Nantucket-for a few days; the influence is soothing and salutary. We are carried back in imagination to the good old days of yore before the world became ! 50 wicked, and when we had some honesty in politics and public life-before the days of rings and bossism. There are some things about the town that remind us of home-Can- aan-notably the sandy roads. It is sand, sand, fathomless sand. We had an idea when we iele uoLne' tAat lP was small, quiet, Old- fashioned fishing village, whose glory had de- parted. and which had not yet been invaded by the ubiquitous tourist Imagine our surprise then upon landing, to find the wharf and shore packed with them-more numerous, if any, thing, than at Cottage City. Like the grass hoppers and potato bugs, they swarm every where, on boats. wharves, streets, hotels, boarding houses, beach and bluff.
 We had the utmost difficulty, the night of our arrival, to find place to sleep. The ho. tels are not very numerous or extensive, and the great rush of visitors has made landlords and clerks very independent. We were in. 4cc Ao ,l,.