Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-04-13

snapped beneath our ringing steel? Why
| there isn't enough water in it to feed q
| canal! But here is landmark-the old
graveyard-and how broad and fat it has
grown! Beneath those stones doubtless lie
many Of our old playmates, now long for.
gotten. On the other side as we come into
town is the Run, once a wild, babbling
brook, gliding away under the low willows
and in whose shadows and limpid depths
we fshed for sinners, now
A BARE-FACED, DIRTY FRAUD,
carrying away the sewage from long rows
of shops and factories upon its banks. You
repudiate it at sight. And next you resent
the removal Of the railway station to a point
further up. leaving nothing but the old
water tank to mark where the old planked
house stood, about which you used to play.
To be sure, the new station is better, but it
has no interest for you. And then, when
you get off and look about you there is
absolutely nothing familiar in the ap-
proaches. 1t is not until you get into the
middle of the town before you recognize the
place. What is old you now perceive is
quite shabby and never could have been
much. What is new you care nothing
about, except to occasionally sigh that it is
there at all. There is the same old public
square, modified by new court house and
a new iron fence. You go to the same old
hotel, also changed. by wings and balconies
without, by electric lights and modern
service within.
You drive out of town on familiar road,
a road over which you have walked and rid
den and drHen hundreds of times in your
youth. How much the ride brings upi
Dear, dear! How small and Insignificant
these old tarmhouses you once thought so
fine! And how the old farm on which you
were raised has shrunken! You would like
to CLUB the man who chopped down the old
trees and plowed up the rosebushes and
moved the potato patch and pigpens to the
front yard. No, you will not get out. 1t is
too disgusting. You are sorry you came TO
see it, and heartily wish you could have re-
tanned in memory the lovely cottage among
the trees, the broad expanse OF shrubs and
flowers and level green that encompassed it
round about. But you are like the foolish
little boy who pulls his watch to pieces to
see how the wheels 60 round. You've done
it; but you can't put it together again. You
have destroyed that sweet picture of the old
home forever. Even the farm itself, with
its rolling meadows and green fields, seems
to shrink before you. Its hills are nothing
to speak o., there are no trees, no stumps to
show where trees once stood. no fish pond or
stream whereon you used to build mimic
boats and sail them, no wood or water in
sight where once you remember virgin for
ests.
A sHoRT-SIGHTED PEOPLE.
All gone. A single big walnut tree is
worth more to-day than an acre OF that best
land under the pIowl AS you think OF the
heavy labor of deadening timber, cutting
and burning it in the fields year after year
to got at hat for ha MI nd Ii1a
the awful mistake made at the cost of SO
much labor-well, you feel giddy about the
stomach. 1 knew a rich man in nv native
town. met him the first one at the station,
he is not SO rich now-who owned several
hundred acres of black, stony land covered
with walnut and ash timber as thick as the
hair on dogs back. He first cut down and
burned a .ew acres of it on the brow of hill
overlooking the town where he owned a
bank. With hired men year alter year he
gradually cleared up most of the rest. The
stumps are all out now and the land is prob
ably worth 500 an acre, being on the edge
of town. If the timber that was destroyed
was standing it would be worth $1,000 an
acre. There is still considerable timber in
that section, but 1t is being rapidly worked
up.
I found three old playmates, now sub
it into tables most of which go to the biggest
furniture house in New York, and some of
which go to all parts of the world; two more
of 'the BOYS" OF 40 years ago turning it into
pumps Zone from which drank Just outside
the station at Rouen, France, couple OF
years ago while writing foreign letters for
THE DISPATCH and from another little
later in lower Italy.) Both OF these fac
tories are among others on the banks OF the
run where I used to wade after sinners in
boyhood. While Northern Indiana is
swarming with these manu- acturers and fac
tories employing from a dozen to 1,500
hands each, the farmers there remain about
where they were 40 years ago-lucky if they
can make both ends meet. Curiously
enough the factories followed the general
destruction of the timber. We are a very
short-sighted people, for the same wanton
destruction of timber is now going on else
where in the West. I forgot to say that the
banker is still a banker, in small way, but
not so rich as he was when he owned and
burned up that magnificent forest. He
doesn't owe even the land now.
CHICAGO AND THE FAIR.
Speaking OF the great changes out there,
Chicago presents some of the greatest. In
the first place the city is the smokiest, dirt
lest city in the United States, and one in
which il is the least desirable to live.
Pittsburg in its worst days was not q
marker to it. The side-tracks that gridiron
the outskirts are crowded with cars loaded
with iron ore, soft coal and pig iron-some-
thing unknown % years ago, when little
but lumber and live stock encumbered the
rails. In my opinion the Worlds Fair
there will prove financial failure. Why?
Not because Chicago pride and enterprise
will not give US big and creditable show;
but because nobody who is sane and can get
away will want to remain in Chicago day
longer than is necessary. 1t is big, noisy,
filthy city, with no local suburban attrac.
tions to engage the attention, excite the Gu
rioslty or Timber up the tired faculties.
With its present surface railway service it
will be next to impossible to get a large
number of visitors in and out OF the city.
1t takes just nalf an hour at the speed of a
grip train to get into Chicago alter you
strike the corporation line. There are
no tracks and no room for tracks
to double trains and no place
to empty or fill them if there were
tracks. The great city has outgrown
her terminal facilities and circumstances
will require complete revolution in this
respect before the evil is remedied.
The authorities and the press are doing
their best to stimulate such revolution by |
urging viaducts or underground work, but
doubt whether they will achieve the re-
suit Chat must some day surely Gomez in
time for the great Exposition. Independ- |
emily of this vital point the most serious
question remains: What will they do with |
,he visitor when they get him? How en-
ertain him? When he has seen the Expo
'ition and slaughter-house, what will they |
10 with him to keep him there and induce |
1Im to spend his money?
NEW YORK WILL PROFIT MORE.
asked Chicago friends these questions, /
Ind they could not give satisfactory an !
'wer. There is nothing in Chicago to keep
anybody bent on pleasure-on the contrary,
na hot dnv in GhIanOn will i,J