Wichita eagle., 1889-04-02
IN AND AROUND KANSAS.

IN AND AROUND KANSAS.
The editor of the New York Observer
recently made visit to and partial toul
of Kansas and is giving the results OF
his observations and impressions of the
state in series Of articles to his paper.
In the last weeks issue of the Observer
we find the following in regard to the
state in general way:
Ihave been disappointed in nothing
since | came to Kansas except the wealth
er, and in that happily. I came prepared
for a wintry reception, but found the
climate like the people, genial and kindly.
The robins sing every morning under
my window; the farmers are busy plow-
ing; the wheat fields are showing green,
and the roads are dry and dusty. The
country generally could hardly be ex-
pected to present its most inviting ap-
pearance at this season of the year. A
prairie landscape is always monotonous,
and it is particularly SO at this time,
when there is but little else for the eye
to rest upon, in the whole
sweep of the horizon, than vast
fields of corn stubble and miles and
miles of dry brown grass. If had been
in search of the picturesque, l would
not have come to the Suntlower state.
The only picturesques things IN Kansas
are some of the characters you meet,
lingering "reminiscences of the border
and cowboy period, but they are few
and far between. | saw several of these
relics at Fort Scott, but they appeared
to be i'll at ease, and were evidently out
of their element. The majority of the
people are natives of the east, and they
differ in no respect from eastern people
in general, unless it is that they are
more thrifty and enterprising, and more
hospitable. The prohibition law has had
a decided effect, | am creditably in
formed, upon recent emigration to the
state, and it is likely to have more in
the future, if surrounding states contin-
ue to hold to the license system. /
shall dwell upon this point at another
time.
While Kansas landscape does not ap-
peal to the aesthetic tastes in any such
degree, for example, as would a section
of New Hampshire scenery, yet the for
mer has certain strong points and fea-
lures which, in the eyes of many, more
than atone for the lack of picturesque
qualities. Pictnresqueness, some humor-
Gus philosopher has remarked, is mot
very film as ali article of diet, and for
many people quarter section of open
prairie land, rich and mellow is more at
tractive with all its monotony than
rocky, stumpy, WORKOUT little farm back
among the beautiful hills and mountains
of the east. While an eastern landscape
is suggestive Of the poetry of life-of
beauty, grandeur, sublimitv, and all
that, the Kansas prairie speaks to the
eye of material things, of bounteous har-
vests, bursting corn cribs, fat cattle,
generous larders and solid creature COM
forts all around. Perhaps my own boy
ish recollections of life on side-hill farm
in an eastern state, where every foot of
soil had to be conquered from matted
roots and cobble-stones, may have some
thing to do with the matter, but it seems
to me that if / were able to take up the
pursuit of agriculture as means of live
lihood, | would prefer one of these prairie
farms to the same amount of land in
most sections of the east. with all the ac-
cessories in the shape of fine scenery
thrown in. | have seen scarcely enough
stones since came to shis state, outside
of the cities, to fill wheelbarrow, and
no timber except along the margins of
the streams. | have seen q plowed fur
row that appeared to be mile long,
with never pebble turned to view. The
cultivation of such a soil. so far as the
labor goes. must be comparatively hol-
iday task.
Among the towns visited and men,
toned in the article from which the
foregoing is taken was Olathe, of which
its situation, surroundings, local inter-
ests, the state asylum for the blind, etc.
he spoke at considerable length. In
the article he gives in brief
his impressions touching the prohibition
question and its operations in the state,
in the following terse manner:
Prohibition has not and will not bring
the millennium to Kansas; the country
Is far yet from being a paradise re-
gained. but whatever vices and tempta-
tons TO evil may exist here, and no one
denies that they abound, / am certain of
one thing, that as q man of family, if
the choice of 3 home were open before
me of place where | might hope to
train my children up TO lives of honor
and Christian usefulness, ] would choose
the Kansas country of today thousand
times before / would cast my lot and
that of those dependent upon me in the
midst of rum-Sodden. saloou-cursed
eastern town. Better fifty years OF pro-
hibition Kansas, say, than a cycle Of
any state in the whole of hquordom.