The Cortland News, Friday, December 1, 1882.
CORTLAND AND VICINITY.
Excellent sleighing since last Saturday, and
the village streets full of life and business. Snug winter weather.
Mr. and Mrs. John D. Benton have arrived
from Fargo, Dakota, with the intention of making Cortland their future home.
M. S. Bierce, Esq., on the first of January,
ensuing, commences business as a justice of the peace. He has not yet decided
upon the location of his office.
Mr. Charles P. Snider, one of the finest fellows
we happen to know, has entered the employ of Warren & Tanner. Which is a
good thing for everybody —firm, clerk and customers.
The fall term of the Marathon Union school
and Academy began last Monday, with Miss Ella May Knapp, of Cortland. Normal
graduate, class of 1877, as preceptress in place of Miss Nellie Bevier,
resigned.
The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday morning
visited the Normal school, in response to the invitation of Dr. Hoose and were
welcomed by Dr. Hyde. They evidently enjoyed the visit, as they remained all
the forenoon [probably had a free lunch—CC editor.]
Newkirk & Hulbert will occupy the north
store in the new [Standard] block, comer of Main and Tompkins streets, and J.
C. Carmichael & Co. the third one, as soon as the rooms are ready. The
Singer Sewing Machine Co. have already taken possession of the corner room on
the second floor.
Our readers should not fail to peruse the
interesting Colorado letter in this issue of THE NEWS. The name of the writer will be recognized by
many as that of a young lawyer, formerly a resident of this county. We have the
promise of more communications from the same source.
The next meeting of the Social Circle of the
Universalist Society will be held at the residence of H. J. Messenger, corner
of Union street and Reynolds avenue, next Thursday evening. On this occasion
the assemblage will be entertained by Mrs. Phillips with some choice Scotch
ballads and by other rare musical exhibitions.
The certificate of John Jay Knot, Comptroller
of the Currency, authorizing the "Second National Bank of Cortland” to
transact business, appears in our paper this week in accordance with law. The
Bank has taken possession of its rooms, and as some of the wealthiest and best
business men of this section are officers and stockholders, it would seem as
though its success is a foregone conclusion.
COLORADO LETTER.
The Rocky Mountains—Vegetation--Pike’s
Peak--Crops--Gold and Silver Mining--Colorado Politics.
LEADVIILE, Col., Nov. 20, 1882.
My Dear Editor:
Since the discovery of the carbonate silver deposits
at Leadville so much has been written about the city, the mines and the country
lying near, that one can hardly hope to give much information that will be
entirely new. Still I doubt if many of the readers of your paper have any
accurate idea of either the city which has grown so marvelously up among the
clouds, the mines which have become world famous, or of that immense region
known as the "Rocky Mountains."
As one approaches the mountains from the east
either by way of the Kansas Pacific or Atchison & Santa Fe Railway, he
will, if not already familiar with the route, eagerly watch for a first glimpse
of Pike's Peak whose snowy cap can be seen in clear weather fully eighty miles
away. As he approaches, what has appeared to be an isolated peak is found to be
one of a huge mass of mountains extending north and south as far as the eye can reach, with many peaks rising
above the timber line and crowned with perpetual snow.
The beauty of the scenery is lightened by
the fact that the plains extend to the very base of the mountains, without any
intervening foot-hills—on one side an apparently boundless expanse of undulating
plain, on the other the towering mountains pushing their peaks among the
clouds.
But these are only the outlying sentinels of
the mighty range, and one who has only skirted their base has no adequate
conception of the "Rockies." Leadville is 115 miles west of Denver, and
100 miles of this space is all mountains. Yet Leadville is 20 miles east of the
divide or backbone of the range from which the water flows eastward to the
Atlantic and westward to the Pacific ocean. West of this the Elk mountains
extend about 75 miles, and beyond the mountains still continue though not
generally so high nor rugged as near the crest of the range. A curious feature
is that all the higher peaks reach about the same altitude. In plain view from
Leadville are eight peaks each more than 14,000 feet high, and none exceeding
14,250 feet.
Taken as a whole no more forbidding and
desolate region can be found in the temperate zone than this. In some of the
lower valleys a few hardy vegetables and oats can be raised, but beyond these grass
is the only crop that will mature. Near the streams which flow through every
valley and gulch is a narrow strip of grass land, with scattering bunches of
willows and alders. Back of this, as the ground rises, a vigorous growth of sage
brush generally covers the ground and only disappears at the foot-hills and the
scrub pines with which they are covered. Scattered among the sage is a scant
growth of buffalo grass, and in the lower valleys blue grass also, but there is
not enough of both to cover the ground or make a turf, and 20 acres of such
range would hardly furnish subsistence for one animal. Considerable hay is cut,
but it is taken from the bottoms immediately adjoining the streams or from the
higher lands made productive by irrigation. Most of the sage lands will produce
a fair amount of grass after some years of irrigation and the removal of the
sage brush.
Portions of the parks, of which the South, Middle
and North parks are the principal, are fair grazing lands and in some of the
lower valleys of the Grand and Gunnison rivers are ranches where cattle do well
both summer and winter.
But for the deposits of gold and silver in
the mountains and gulches, this entire region would have been left to the occupancy
of the Indian, the hunters and their game, and I am by no means sure that the
world has been the gainer from the discovery of those minerals here. In an
economic view there has been a loss, as gold and silver mining in Colorado has
never in the aggregate paid expenses. While some large and many smaller
fortunes have been made here, yet the money and labor spent in prospecting for,
developing and working mines in each year, exceed the value of the ore taken
out. Not one mining location in a
hundred ever becomes a paying mine, and in many instances thousands of dollars
are spent in the vain effort to find "pay ore." Money and labor
expended on worthless "locations” are a dead loss, as no increase in value
is made thereby.
In this (Lake) county more than 5,000 mining
locations have been made of which less than 100 have paid expenses, and still
the Leadville district is undoubtedly the most productive in proportion to
expenditure of any in the State. On each of these locations there is each year
expended from one hundred to many thousands of dollars and this will be
continued until each location either becomes a mine, is proven to be worthless
or, which is most probable, the owner becomes too poor to work the property and
is compelled to abandon it.
The business of prospecting for and mining
gold and silver has a strong fascination for those who have once engaged in it.
The possibilities of sudden wealth are always in sight and appeal so strongly
to the imagination that the prospector may be poor, ragged and hungry, but he
is never discouraged. He will incur dangers and endure hardships and privations
for which mere "wages" would be no compensation. He may ruefully contrast
his meager fare and scant comfort with the comparative luxury of some other
mode of life, but he has no inclination to return to the workshop or the farm.
Not till he has "struck it" and made his "stake" does he even
hope to go back to the dull, plodding, comfortable life of civilization. And
even these who have become rich through mining seem to find it impossible to
break away from its fascinations.
The only local questions which are exciting
interest here are whether through unjust discrimination in railroad freights
our smelters shall be compelled to remove to Pueblo or Denver, and the ever
present matter "politics." We, like the Republicans of New York, are
suffering the shame and mortification of a defeat, brought about by a
combination of open enemies and treacherous friends. Not a word was or could be
said, with truth, against the character and fitness of Mr. Campbell, the
Republican candidate for Governor, but, as ex-Senator Chaffee favored his nomination
and worked hard to secure his election, Senator Hill, merely on account of
personal hostility to Chaffee, determined that Campbell should be defeated. With
the aid of and by fostering a local prejudice at Denver he was able to
accomplish his purpose, although the Republicans have elected the balance of the
State ticket and a majority of the Legislature. The feeling against Hill is
very bitter and at the first opportunity he will be retired to private life.
A. B. CAPRON.
WASHINGTON LETTER.
Correspondence of THE NEWS
Washington, D. C. Nov. 27, 1882.
But a few days, full of bustle and preparation,
will intervene before Congress will again put in an appearance at the Capital
of the nation. Shall it be judicious and popular work that will commend a
Republican body, and shame, by contrast, the Democratic House that is to come
after; or will it be fate that the Democracy by a pursuit of their favorite tactics
of obstruction and filibustering will cause the short session to be spent to
little profit to the country, or glory to the Republican party? The country knows
too well the nature and mean instinct of the Democracy for all works of obstruction
to hope that they will refrain from it the coming winter, when to practice it
will throw obloquy on the Republican party, allowing little or nothing to be
done, and so leaving the country, as they fondly hope, clamorous for
"reform." And it is altogether likely that whatever is done in the
way of progress and of good to the country must be done by the Republicans, as
it has been done for the last quarter of a century in the face of the
opposition of the Democratic party.
"Blessings brighten as they take their flight."
When the country once sees a Republican House about to go, and a Democratic one
about to come in, with a strong hint likewise of a probable Democratic Administration
to follow it, with all that the word implies, the people will begin to open
their eyes to the blessings they have received from the two bright decades of
Republican rule and progress and national improvement.
When the Democrats had the House recently,
although they didn't dare to cripple the tariff or disturb the revenue much, they
gave the government a little foretaste of the "staring" process, in refusing
to make appropriations necessary to run the departments. Reflect how little we
have felt the hand of government under the rule of the Republican party from
Lincoln down to Arthur. Think of our free domain only one-fifth smaller than all
Europe, with her struggling republics—her standing armies and her oppressions
of taxation and hardship, and answer whether the mission of Republicanism is
ended—and Democracy ought to have a "restoration."
The sensation of the hour is the Garfield Memorial
Fair, which is now attracting thousands to its beautiful and novel sights in
its novel temple, the Capitol of the nation. It was certainty a graceful act on
the part of the direction to invite specially, along with the "Oldest
Inhabitants," the Mexican war veterans, etc,, those old soldiers of the Army of the
Cumberland, who composed the " Garfield Guard of Honor," while the
dead President lay in state for two days and nights in the rotunda, and mutely
and tenderly piloted the streams of humanity in and out through the Capitol, in
order and decorum, as they came from near and far to see the last of Garfield
in the city of his triumph and his fall. This great fair of the artistic and the
curious will no doubt prove a source of great satisfaction to thousands, and
add to the Monumental Fund of the Society of the Army of the Cumberland many
thousand dollars, enabling them at no very distant day to unveil another
statute here to another distinguished comrade, alongside of that of the sturdy
General George H. Thomas.
REX.
Recommended:
Comstock Lode: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_Lode
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