News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1883-12-13
WAYSIDE INNS.
4 Chat with LiiadIOrd of the Days OF
stage COaches and Cattle DrOvers.

A Chat With LiiadIOrd of the Days of
stage COaches and Cattle DrOvers.
GLOW long have you kept roadside
hotel?" inquired reporter of the hale,
hearty proprietor OF a hotel several miles
from the city on the Grand River road.
'NearIy forty. I've been at it so long
that 1 suppose I'd be homesick if [ was
to quit it now. Sort of second nature to
me now, you know"
"There must have been some changes
in the business since you commenced
it 2, ventured the reporter.
"Changes !" eniaculated the veteran
boniface as he dropped one leg to the
floor and threw the other across it.
"Why, man, keeping hotel now is no
more like what it was twenty or thirty
years ago than a Vermont Sunday is
like Cincinnati one It would kill
me now to work as hard as [ used to
then. What with the stage coaches,
and farmers wagons, and the drovers,
business was lively all day. About sun
down the dTOy-= eff cattle would begin
to stop for the night, and by the time
one was put into yard and fed another
would arrive, and it would be II or 12
o'clock before the last Of them would be
cared for.
'In the house it was even worse than
at the barns. The drovers and their
boys would be awful hungry, and the
way they would hide victuals was a
whole show. The tables were occupied
from early morning until late at night,
such thing as clearing them off and re-
setting them never being thought of.
All that the girls could do was to bring
more, more, all the time If they got
to bed by midnight they were lucky
and it was just as bad with the cooks
the stove was hot all the time.
"About twelve or one o'clock every
body would be in bed and the house
would be still, but not for moro than
two or three 4.GS-==- BY three o'clock
those drovers who got in early the
night before and were abed by nine
o'clock, would be up, stamping about
he house, shouting for their breakfast
and pounding on the bar for me to come
down and give them their bitters. I
couldn't stand it now"
"You must have made money or you
wouldn't have stood it then"
ooh, I've got a four hundred acre
farm down here. | make little some
thing out of the hotel yet. There's a
good deal of travel by here i'll the day
time, most of 'em stops to get cigar or
q nip or bait their horses, and few dol
lars drop into the till every day"
"Have the droHers deserted you en-
tireIy?"
ono, there's a few Of them that keeps
20 the road yet, but it's a rare sight now
TO see a big drove Of cattle, with the
boss on horseback half a dozen drivers
and big shepherd dog. Them dogs
used to be wonderful intelligent. The
railroads have put an end to all that"
''And ruined the business of the way
side inns.
''WeH, no. There amt so much money
in the business as their used to be, but
there's a heap more comfort. Detroit
Free Press.
Nor WANTED.-The Popular Science
Nc,os says that, after mature delibera-
ton, it has come to the conclusion that
people would be far better off should the
art of producing alcohol, in any form
whatever, be lost to the world entirely :;
neither the physician, the chemist nor
the artisan absolutely needs 1t i'll any
department Of his calling, and it cannot
be used without doing violence, in some
degree to mans best physical welfare.