The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1884-05-17
NO MORE FRONTIER.
Bill Nye on the Way the West is Losing
Its Strange Ways.

The system Of building railroads into
the wilderness and then allowing the
wilderness to develop afterward, has
knocked the essential joy out of the life
of tie pioneer. At one time the hardy
newer of wood and drawer of water gave
his life willingly that his son might ride
in the "varnished cars Now the Pull
man palace car takes the New Yorker to
the threshold of the sea or to the bound
AIRY line between the United States and
the British possessions.
1t has driven out the long handled
frying pan and the iiarjack of twenty
years ago, and introduced the condensed
milk and canned fruit of commerce.
Along the highways. where once the
hopeful hundreds marched with long
handled shovel and pick and pan, cook
ing by the way thin salt pork and flap
jacks and slumG ullion, now the road is
lined with empty beer bottles and peach
cans that have outIived their usefulness
No landscape can be picturesque with
an empty peach can in tn. foreground.
any more than a lion would look grand
in red monogram horse blanket ana
false teeth.
The modern camp is not the camp u!
the wilderness. 1t wears the halfcivil-
lied and shabby Senteel garments of a
| sawed off town. You know that if yun
ride a day you will be where you can get
| the daily papers and lead them under
the electric light. That robs the old
canyons of their solemn isolation and
peoples each guich with the oaor of cod
fish balls and civilization. Civilization
is not to blame for all this. and vet il
seems sad
Civilization could not have done this
all alone. 1t had to call to it's aid the
Internal fruit can that now desnlates the
most obscure trail in the heart OF the
mountains. lon walk over the chaos
| where the "hydraulic' has plowed NJ
| the valley like Il convu iSion. or You trea,
the yielding path across the deserted
dump, and on all sides the rusty, neg
lected and Inundated empty tin cal
stares at you with it's moDotonouS. dude
| like stare.
An old-timer once said to me: 1--we
about decided, b II, that the West is /;
matter of history. When we cooked
our grub over sage-brus' fire We coult
get fat and fight Indians, but now we fiji
! our digesters with the cold piZen anc
| pewter of the canned peach: We =" to :
chins and eat pie with Il fork ami hea
| up our carkisses with antichrist coal. an,
what do we amount to? Nuthin
used to chase Indians all div and e.
raw salt pork at night, l,ekuZ | dasSen
build fire. and still / I, 1t better than
| d. now with wad of tin can solder il
my Stummick and hnmesick feeling il
my weather beaten breast.
No, we don't have the fur we uset
to. We have more swarreeS aid sci,tici
| and one bloomin' thing and another o
that kind, but we don't get one saort o
pure air and appetite in year. They IT
bringih' in their blamed telephon. nov
and malaria and aigue and Oil >.ledye
and fun might as vel: skip out. Ther'
! amt no frontier any more. All WeV.
! got left is the old fashioned .rantler .ioo
/ and rhumatiZ Of 40
\ Behind the red squaw' cIynSe plug
The hand car roars and waves,
! And pie-plant pies are now produced
! Above the Indian graves,
| hear the naths of pioneer.
| The caucus yet to be-.
! The first low hum where soon will come
! The fuzzy humble be.
! TRUE REMEDY FOR gNORiNi.