Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1884-10-10
"YOU DON'T FEEL IT."
The tnad dvertised Harvest OF the
Great Wheat Lands.
Dunoin t'Or \pw Nprl; SDn !

The Cnadverti-ed Harvest OF the
Great Wheat Lands.
Dakota Cor. New York Sun
No one will ever know how many
people have persisted i'll TINS res;ol this
winter from exposure aud cold. The
newspapers make ineignii;cant mention
of the circumstance, attending the
freezing t. death of i: family, and there
is Oh the part of everybody "a manifest
disposition to say as little a. possible
about such occurrences. Nearly every
man, woman and child in ! akota is
land owner. and all, therefore, have u
personal int r, st in keeping MP the
grand deluSion that while it may be
colder in this latitude ian it is further
soIth, "lou don't feel it." Men bury
their frozen wives, children and other
relatives and IT angers with many self
comforting observations on the mysteri-
ous dispensations o. Providence, and
ho. m their town all the harder the next
day livery little collect on of wooden
h IS calling lis III city boasts one or
more daily pane S, but these ponderous
organs of the real estate agent and tax
l!liNt iObUl W fiNC HIoiC
bare mention OF cccurr nces winch
els W y re III this country wo i'd possess
startling interest if man or Il
woman aud a child disappear, the news
paper is good enough to chronicle the
fact, and to express The fear that they
may have perished i'll the storm.
IL the spr NJ, when skeletons beSis
to peep out from the diminishing SNOW
bank, the discovery of the remains of o
human being is usually dismissed in
three lines as probably lost i'll one OF
last winters blizzards. TO dilate upon
any of these little incidents of life in the
frozen not..west would he rank treason.
If newspapers i'll other parts If the
country wish to learn the facts, they
must send their own men after them,
for no resident can more an a
mere natural death notice in any such
occurrence. Sometimes an enthusias ic
railroad telegrapher, impressed with
and surprised ut the fact that with the
mercury 45 degrees below zero ho is
still alive, legraphs the Information
abroad, but d,n;als are promptly sent
out from forty different points. If a
statement gets OH the wires that q
family has been frozen to death, u stage
lost, or q mail carrier buried in the
SHOWS, somebody will deny it from a
| point 800 miles awav, where nothing is
known about it. 1t is q fact, neverihe'
less, that dozens OF people have been
lost in the storms here during the past
winter. and the winter has not been
unusually severe, ether.
A snowfall which in some localitie,
wou,d scarcely make good s'eighing
becomes in this region foe to human
life of almost inconceiyable fury. The
flakes are always small and dry, and
borne along by winds Of such power
as to make locomotion almost impossi
BILE, they cut the flesh like raZors The
blizzard comes u suddenly, like &
tornado, wrapping the earth i'll semi
darkne 8, and yet giving every thing tn,
appearance of whitene S. Objects &
dozen yards away are shut out from
view, and the wayfarer is bin lei ant
stifed by the whizZing clouds waicl
envelop him. In thirty minutes f.on
the beginning OF one of these storms i
is hard to tell whether there is one foo
or five feet of snow, and whether, il
fact, the grea'e er part is on the ground
or in the air.
When blizzard once attacks sec
tion it grows colder very rapidly, aud
al led to the terrors Of people who ma,
be caught in it on the open pra ries. is
the extreme probability that they vii
lee to death. AS nothing can pre-
vent a man from losing his way in I
blizzard, so nothing in the shape o
clothing can prevent his freezing t.
death if he cannot find 8 .elter from tn,
cold which follows. 1t is very difficul
to tell Just when it stops showing. Th,
wind keeps the air filled with icy par
ticles long after the clouds have passe,
away, and so fur.oasly is the light snoy
driven by the gale that even then tn
vision is almost as circum .Cribed as be
fore.
A stranger experiencing this stage O
blizzard would protest that he neve
saw it sn wv so fast, but IN the momen
tary lulls of the w.nd he would see tn
cloudless sky and know that the blind
ing blast was but the af erclap of tn
great storm. There will he drifts tel
feet high packed so han d that human
foot will sink in them but few inche:
Then there W II be a res of wind-swep
earth as destitute of snow as in mid
summer.
To live in these Billiards is almos
an imposs bility. No horse can b
made to face the blast, and onl
, men who hare long been accu'
. toned to the rigors OF the mort
can breathe in them. Ther
is something suffocating about the wind
The no,trils and tongue seem ready
CONCEAL and the eyes ache far lack i
their sockets. Ten feet away ma
; yawn chasm, yet the driving snow
will hide it from view. There is
. ringing, roaring noise, such as is some
j times family heard under telesrap
wires on clear cold night. At time
the roar of the storm will resembl
, nothing 50 mnch as escaping steam
{ like thousand locomotives blowing O
at once. When this dies out for a
t instant the ringing no Sc will rise an
fal, sometimes shrek and sometime
hum.
2 The Jeannette's An sam.
[Chcago Journal