Seattle daily post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, W.T. [Wash.]) 1881-1888, 1883-10-25
A BCsy SCENE.

A visit to the warehouses and wharves
along the city front will give the seeker
after information concerning the COM
meree centering at this point clearer
insight into its magnitude. and better
idea Of its multifarious characteristics
than any description which can Dc writ
ten. The vhsrves are numbered and
the warehouses literally overfioviug
With importations of every class, char
aeter and value. All along the city
front yesterday steamers and sailing
vessels were discharging cargoes As va
risd As the places whence they came,
and aggregs,ing thousands Of tons,
while at the coal buukers tao fleet
steam eollisrs were loading. The ocean
steamer Mexico was dlscharginR All
enormous quantity Of miscellaneous
material The Idaho, Gypsy and North
Pacific came in heavy laden with all
sorts of products from the up and down
sound region. The warehouses of the
Oregon Improvement Company were
filled With carts and trucks, while long
line stood awaiting An opportunity 70
load. There were products and manu-
features from every corner OF the habit
able globe: sweet potatoes, watermelons
IN great crates, teas from j pan and
coffee from the East Indies, spices from
far Cathay, beer from st. Louis and
beer from California in predictions
quantities, coal from England. oils from
Pennsylvania, baskets and pals from a
dozen different places, huge sheets OF
plate glass, tons of steel aud piping, a
half mile Of l0-inch. water pipe, iron III
sheets, plates, bars and pigs: hosting
rig with 100 feet of wire cable for New
castles large vault door from Clncinna-
ii, With time lock attachment; organs
and pianos, furniture al tib,tpa, Hour
IN enormous quantity, onions, railroad
IRON, wheelbarrows and wagons by the
| dozen, with here and there an elegant
new buggy, cords of well filed gram
sacks. canned fruits in wonderful va
| riety, mountains of we'll baled timothy
hams, bacon, soap, trunks filled with
| furnishing goods and clot and
drugs and chemicals enough to poison \
| whole race. There is no use III recapit
| ulating. On the wharves yesterday
there lay, at a low estimate, goods
worth $4,000. comprising every
necessary and unnecessary article OF
staple required by a cosmopolitan peo
pie. II there is any lesson to bs drawn
from this scene of activity, other than
the fact that Seattle stops not in hei
onward march toward commercial su-
premacy, it Is that We import too muct
and produce aud manufacture too little
We should not DO forced to import food
while around us stretch out the mos
productive valleys and hillsides of this
or any other land, while ever and arouno
Us is climate not surpassed on earth
we should not be compelled to seno
abr nd for fully half of the manufac
tured articles above enumerated, while
raw material in abundance blocks the
way on every hand. Why should We
import woodenware, or baskets, or soap
or iron, or wheelbarrows, or boots ant
shoes, or garden truck Is it not plain
that there il room for home production
in all these things? The money paiG
for them would in one year, if Kept a
home, establish manufactures equal il
capacity and completeness to those d
MANY larger cities. Will some one take
the hintI