St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1890-07-24
DR.. BLANCHARD'S LETTER.
He Writes very Interesting Letter
about Washington, Minneapolis and
ST. PauI.
Editor of the CaLedouiau

Please be kind enough to let the
Caledonian be my amanuensis for a
few minutes. You see the case is Just
like this: have a hundred friends in
Caledonia county that l would like
to write to, but haven't the time
Your paper will hit most of them;
so please correct the bad spelling in
this letter and send it out to them
| found Washington a very pleas
ant city in every way, except one:
the drinking water has not an invit-
ing appearance, owing to a small
proportion of clay that it holds in
suspension. l believe it is healthy
enough, but a goblet of it looks as if
the maid had left little dish-water
in it or little milk
Aside from this / have no fault to
find thus far. / went to work for
Uncle Sam almost Immediately after
my arrival there. In the govern
ment Offices the hours of work are
from 9 till f. Outside of those
hours l attend to the wants of the
sick-not a very laborious duty thus
far with me, although now and then
a patient appears. Fourth of July
was a good day for the medical pro-
fession there Broken heads needed
to be mended, and hands and faces
burned in powder explosions needed
oil and cotton. Perhaps the boys
will like to know that there is no
restriction on the fire-crackers, the
squib, the pin-wheel, or the rocket,
and for a week before the Fourth, the
smell of powder is the most notice
able thing on the street.
At a rough guess the population is
about half colored. The darkey
makes a very good patient in some
respects. He is awfully sick when he
is sick, and is very easily cured. He
does not say that he has a pain in
his head or stomach, but he has a
''mis'ry." He pays the doctors bill
in gratitude-a in the future. Alto
gether, one can be a much better
abolitionist and greater lover of
the darkey in Vermont than in Wash
ington.
One who loves temperance work
would find scope for the exercise of
all his powers in Washington. In
| deed, it would be mo end of a job
to shut up the liquor shops. Not
that there is much open drunkenness.
In fact, one would see as great a pro-
portion of real drunkards in Mont
pelier or Rutland; but the people do
absorb vast amount of beer and
whisky, and these commodities are
sold as freely as tea and coffee. But
more of this at some other time.
Well, my Fourth of July patients
were doing well Except one little
fellow who had both eyes put out,
and him | sent to the cIlildrens hos
pitaD when Uncle Sam offered to give
me trip out into the centre of his
domain, and l accepted the offer.
You know Minneapolis was not con-
tent with her enormous growth, but
wanted to make it appear that she
had thousands more of inhabitants
than she really had ST. Paul, the
rival city, didn't like that, and an
investigation was demanded and
ordered, and | was sent to assist at
the investigation of the so-called
census frauds" | had so minutes
to get ready for the trip after receiv-
ing my orders. My outfit consisted
of small grip-sack in which l put a
clean shirt, a celluloid collar-and a
large number of cigars. The ride
was glorious through the valleys of
the Potomac and the Cumberland,
over ground historic and picturesque,
past chasms, mountains, farms, the
oil derricks of Ohio, the miles of
wheat in the shock in Indiana, the
sandy shore of Lake Michigan, into
and through the great and wicked
city of Chicago, through the "Garden
of America" Wisconsin, up to the
capital of the great state of Mime
sofa.
| am not at liberty to tell you what
| have seen in the census schedules; !;
but can say about the country and
the cities that they are a revelation
to me. | thought that st. Paul and
Minneapolis were two wooden villa
d L
They are ten miles apart, have 150,
600 people each, are built in the most
substantial manner of brick and
stone, have hotels finer than Vermont
has yet imagined, private residences
that cost a million apiece, newspaper
offices as fine as the Tribune building
in New York, electric street-cars,
bands of music that rival the crack
bands of the East, and a people
afraid of nothing and who don't
know how to spell can't.
You don't know anything about
this country unless you have been
here. If the residents of the rougher
portions of New England really knew
the facts about the great central
prairie, no fence could be built high
enough to keep them where they are
There is one drawback, and it is one
that | have always insisted upon.
The cyclone is reality, and very
uncomfortable one. Since | came
here have watched the progress of
two of these electric storms. They
seemed to me at distance of few
miles to be just ordinary thunder
showers; but the first killed nearly
900 people and the second demolished
large brick chair-factory. Proba-
blv the Minnesota legislature will
pass law this fall forbidding the
importa ton and distribution of cy-
clones, except in the 'original pack
age" | should mention that this
legislature meets in a building that
defies all the laws of architectural
taste-the worst thing to be seen
here.
Now don't print this lucubration