He is a manufacturing city, of course - all the cities of that
region are - but he is peculiarly strong in the matter of commerce. Last
year his jobbing trade amounted to upwards of $52,000,000.
He has a custom-house, and is building a costly capitol to replace the
one recently burned - for he is the capital of the State. He has churches
without end; and not the cheap poor kind, but the kind that the rich
Protestant puts up, the kind that the poor Irish 'hired-girl' delights
to erect. What a passion for building majestic churches the Irish
hired-girl has. It is a fine thing for our architecture but too often we
enjoy her stately fanes without giving her a grateful thought. In fact,
instead of reflecting that 'every brick and every stone in this
beautiful edifice represents an ache or a pain, and a handful of sweat,
and hours of heavy fatigue, contributed by the back and forehead and
bones of poverty,' it is our habit to forget these things entirely, and
merely glorify the mighty temple itself, without vouchsafing one
praiseful thought to its humble builder, whose rich heart and withered
purse it symbolizes.
This is a land of libraries and schools. St. Paul has three public
libraries, and they contain, in the aggregate, some forty thousand
books. He has one hundred and sixteen school-houses, and pays out more
than seventy thousand dollars a year in teachers' salaries.
There is an unusually fine railway station; so large is it, in fact,
that it seemed somewhat overdone, in the matter of size, at first; but
at the end of a few months it was perceived that the mistake was
distinctly the other way. The error is to be corrected.
The town stands on high ground; it is about seven hundred feet above the
sea level. It is so high that a wide view of river and lowland is
offered from its streets.
It is a very wonderful town indeed, and is not finished yet. All the
streets are obstructed with building material, and this is being
compacted into houses as fast as possible, to make room for more - for
other people are anxious to build, as soon as they can get the use of
the streets to pile up their bricks and stuff in.
How solemn and beautiful is the thought, that the earliest pioneer of
civilization, the van-leader of civilization, is never the steamboat,
never the railroad, never the newspaper, never the Sabbath-school, never
the missionary - but always whiskey! Such is the case. Look history
over; you will see. The missionary comes after the whiskey - I mean he
arrives after the whiskey has arrived; next comes the poor immigrant,
with ax and hoe and rifle; next, the trader; next, the miscellaneous
rush; next, the gambler, the desperado, the highwayman, and all their
kindred in sin of both sexes; and next, the smart chap who has bought up
an old grant that covers all the land; this brings the lawyer tribe; the
vigilance committee brings the undertaker.
