The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-03-10
Word from q Wanderer.
PATERSON, N. j., March

IAIEhSON, M D., MARCH O, looo.
Mr.. Editor In my absence am prompted
to say word through the familiar columns
OF the dear old WAToHMAN, at least as an
acknowledgment of the welcome home
news which its columns afford from week to
week.
The city of Paterson is situated on the
Erie railroad, sixteen miles out of New
York-has some sixty thousand inhabitants,
and is devoted largely to manufacturing, as
Is the case with most of the subur ban cities of
New York. The Passaic river passes directly
through the city, and its immense falls,
noted far and wide for their beauty and
grandeur, furnish almost unlimited water
power. There are three immense locomo-
tive works. each capable of turning out a
finished engine for every day in the year,
making more than thousand irst-class
machines annually. Then there are six
teen large silk mills, beside many other es-
tablishments connected more or less di-
rectly with the silk manufacture. We had
no Idea there were so many silk manufac-
tories in the whole country. The material
Is imported in the rough "skein into
which the cheap labor of the old country
has wrought it from the cocoon, and is here
manufactured into finished goods OF every
conceivable variety and color-web silk,
grenadines, handkerchiefs, ribbons, etc.
The process of manufacture is marvel of
skill to the uninitiated. A city devoted so
largely to manufacturing of course has a
liberal element of foreigners; but of neces-
sity they are for the most part skilled
workmen, and so, as a rule, intelligent and
law-abding. Church edifces of every de-
nomination are abundant, and remarkably
well filled. A single Sunday-school of which
we are observant not infrequently has from
five hundred to six hundred attendants.
For diversion we occasionally take run
into New York, where enough can be found
almost any day to quicken the circulation.
The celebrated Morgan art collection of
paintings, bric-a-brac, etc, which has been
on exhibition at the American Art Gallery
rooms on Twenty-third street for the last
month, has proved the chief attraction, and
drawn an immense and delighted crowd
| The entire collection cost the late Mrs. Nor
gan million and half of dollars. A single
vase, severely plain, and only eight or nine
| inches high, which the unskilled eye might
leave untouched on a five-cent counter, cost
the enormous sum of $4,000. The peach
blow tint, now said to be among the lost
arts, and the artistic form, are supposed to
give it this great value. The paintings
have now been on sale for three evenings,
and two hundred forty have brought the
enormous sum of 1885,, 300, an average of
S3,6SS for each. A single painting by Bre-
ton" The Communicates was sold for
$45,550l So much for cultivated taste.
A strike among the horse-car drivers
night before last resulted in !" lookup" of
the entire system in New York and Brook
lyn until afternoon yesterday. The commo-
| JlOH lutO WHICH DOUH CLUES were lurOW IL
would have been more amusing had it been
less threatening and alarming. Business
was almost entirely suspended, and vio-
lence and bloodshed were imminent. The
popular sympathy was all with the striking
drivers, and judicious action on the part of
the proper authorities soon brought about
an amicable arrangement-so that the usual
avenues of travel were all open before night,
and the threatening cloud once more passed
over. But the greed of those gigantic cor.
porations is a perpetual source of danger.
We were deeply interested in your report
of the proceedings attendant on the opening
OF our public library-especially in MT
Wrights account of the successive steps by
which this grand result has been reached
And it was eminently just and fitting tha
he should thus put on record the names O.
those noble women who, with a degree o
sef-sacrifice, faith and courage which this
generation will never appreciate, laid tn,
Ffo,Ass>tion stores of this noble structure
deep down upon the solid rock of temper
ance, purity and righteousness, and ce
mented them with their prayers and tears
AS with the drinking fountain at the head o
State street, so with this public library enter
prise; it was conceived for the special pur
pose of saving the young men of our village
from intemperance, ignorance and vice
and wherever the story of either shall bt
told in days to come let it be as memoria
of those faithful women who perhaps
planted better than they knew.
We have no snow here, and the weathe
for the most part is pleasant, with the mer
curry ranging from forty to fifty degree
above; though last week did bring us, in ex
cessively high and chilling winds, lttl
foretaste of what proved so lion-like up il
Vermont. The people of the city, so far a
we have been able to form an opinion, ar
exceedingly intelligent, social and agree
able, and we have met with everything +
+ render our sojourn agreeable; but when tn
spring SHOWS have all come and departed
we shall gladly set our faces homeward
For we often hear a familiar voice, half sc
liloquizing and half repeating
Make friends, but keep the old
Those are silver, these gold" j. p