It
certainly commands a high premium; but the reason is that there are
such splendid opportunities to make fortunes by building and buying
and selling city lots. A man intends that the rent of a house or store
shall pay for its construction in three years. The profits of
adventure justify a man in paying high interest. If a man has money
enough to buy a pair of horses and a wagon, he can defy the world.
These are illustrations to show why one is induced to pay interest. I
do not think, however, money is "tight." I never saw people so free
with their money, or appear to have it in so great abundance.
There is one drawback which this territory has in common with the
greater part of the West, and in fact of the civilized world. It is
not only a drawback, but a nuisance anywhere; I mean drinking or
whiskey shops. The greater proportion of the settlers are temperate
men, I am sure; but in almost every village there are places where the
meanest kind of intoxicating liquor is sold. There are some who sell
liquor to the Indians. But such business is universally considered as
the most degraded that a mean man can be guilty of. It is filthy to
see men staggering about under the influence of bad whiskey, or of any
kind of whiskey. He who sends a young husband to his new cabin home
intoxicated, to mortify and torment his family; or who sells liquor to
the uneducated Indians, that they may fight and murder, must have his
conscience if he has any at all cased over with sole leather.
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