Turner County herald. (Hurley, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1883-07-05
Turner County Herald.
Published Every Thursday.
HURLEY, DAKOTA, JULY 8, 1883.
o, woMAN.
What an Enthusiast has to say Of the Dako-
Ia Women--An Appeal to tho Women of
tho East.
OF a. the airs tire wind can bsaw,
dearly lo'e the west,
For there the bonnie lassie lives,
The lassie lo'c bcsr.

-UttrflS.
/ wonder If Scotland's "sweet singer"
had in mind the land of the Dacotahs
when he gave birth to the above stanza?
Probably not, for his sentimental heart
was unable to drag the shackles of love
thrown around it by his Bonnie Mary
far beyond the romantic Doom; but
could the,susceptible Robert rise from
his grave, shake off the dust of the past
decades, and take a trip through this
country, he would probably return to
the shadows of the Grampian hills, and,
looking away over the sobbing Atlantic
toward the high-backed Rockies, reel off
euloglstic doggerel with redoubled speed
in honor of the fair daughters of the
northwest, for between the occidental
shores of the superior lake and the mist
beclouded waters of Puget sound exist
to-day some as fair types of womanly
beauty and perfection as ever weakened
Sampson, or caused the heart of mis-
ogynist to dance around like kernel
of corn on red-hot stove.
Dakota is worthy of notoriety for the
sake of her women; it was here that
the restless imagination of Longfellow
sought and found the beautiful
Minnehaha, and his plastic pen seemed
reluctant to cease its laudations of the
dusky beauty, and from the day when
We are to suppose this veritable Diana
tripped over the prairies in wild chase
with step as light, as fair, and jaunty
as fairy queen, or stood on the bank
of the raging Red and coyly listened to
the love-tale of some lithe-limbed,
feather-bedecked "masher," whose Sc
ductive wiles were as full of pathos as
the winsome wavelets that sung sweet
symphonies at their feet, the women of
Dakota have proved themselves worthy
of the title, beautiful"
Every type of beauty is represented;
there is the alabaster-cheeked, golden
haired child Of the spice-scented isle of
Corsica; the dark-haired, rosy-lippci
daughter of Spain, whose very breath
seems to be laden with the fragrance Of
magnolia bloom; the dark-eyed beauty
of the south whose natural navieness
renders he irresistibly bewitching; the
graceful, prudish, aesthetic miss from
New England, with flowing tresses
breathing everlasting fragrance of
ocean spray; the silver-tongued maiden
from the mist-environed shores of Brit
ain; the robust, dimpled-cheeked, will
full daughter of Norway and Sweden;
and the supple, wiIIow-formed, timid-
eyed, raven-haired child of the plains
who is loath to exchange the wigwam
and campfire for parlor and base-burn-
er; all these enter into the female por-
tion of Dakota's population, and Junos
Venuses, Psyches, Pandoras, Niobes
Octavias, and Cleopatrias, are as plenty
in this realm of wonders, and romance
as mosquitoes on New Jersey marsh
in an August evening.
But unfortunate word) there is room,
for more, in fact the territory is sadly
in need of women, for masculinity pre-
walls here in an alarming proportion
and many an heroic heart grows glum
sad, respondent and discouraged, be
cause there is no Juliet to infuse il
with life and hope; in short, the womer
who have braved the dangers and for
titudes of frontier life, and fought fol
their rights side by side with an over
whelming majority of the opposite sex
have succeeded in throwing arount
themselves comfort and protection, th'
offspring of some heart that has beer
touched by the heroism and indomita
BILE determination to overcome all oh
} stacles; and they are all taken, engaged
monopolized, and it has come to tn
point that when man catches the mat
rimonial fever, his case is incurrabl
here, and he is obliged to seek restora
ton in the east.
Dakota offers good field to unmar
ried women. Beauty is not a necessit,
to success. The men here, who hav
lived alone since the tramp of immigra
tion was first heard in the northwes
are liable, very liable, too liable, t
throw their hearts and fortunes at tn
:. feet of anything that wears dresses {
milliner't dummy excepted that the
may escape from the irksomeness an,
: monotony of single life. 1t is not agree
ablefor a thoroughbred New Nngland
er to stand on the street corner, and Sc
his countryman walk by with tn
double-and-twisted tongued daughter o
Norway or Sweden, even if she be beau
!. tiful, or to see his manly and accom-
plished associate of carly days making
love to pretty-faced maiden of Spai
for lack of better opportunities, bu
this is just the state of affairs that es
lists, and all because the tender hearte
maids Of the eastern states will not ba
lance the scales of chance by emigratin
to the west.
What terrible tale is told of Mass;
chusetts by the census; women 5000
majority in the state of lofty mountain
and laughing streams, 10000 maidens
spinsters, widows and "grass" widow
living Il life of misery, wooing inactiv
ty and inadvertency, swaying to an
fro from sunrise to sunset, musint
browsing, scoring the passing minute
Y by the clicking Of their knitting ne,
dies, letting the romance drift out {
their lives, plunging their hearts into
pool of torpidity, aiding disease in il
determination to fasten itself upon the
attenuated forms, and humoring whir
with hot foot baths, pennyroyal te;
red flannel bandages; $4,000 of thes
poor, unreasonable lifeless creature
going down to a common grave; livin,
life-like machines, turning their bach
upon golden opportunities, and driftin
like chaff on the bosom of the river
life, out, out onto the ocean of Oblivion
The thought is nOrrihle and annealS