Just At Present
There Is An Epidemic Of Politics In Manitoba, And Brass Bands And
Notices Of Committee Meetings Are Splashed About The Towns.
By reason
of their closeness to the Stages they have caught the contagion of
foul-mouthedness, and accusations of bribery, corruption, and
evil-living are many.
It is sweet to find a little baby-city, with only
three men in it who can handle type, cursing and swearing across the
illimitable levels for all the world as though it were a grown-up
Christian centre.
All the new towns have their own wants to consider, and the first of
these is a railway. If the town is on a line already, then a new line to
tap the back country; but at all costs a line. For this it will sell its
corrupted soul, and then be very indignant because the railway before
which it has grovelled rides rough-shod over the place.
Each new town believes itself to be a possible Winnipeg until the
glamour of the thing is a little worn off, and the local paper, sliding
down the pole of Pride with the hind legs of despair, says defiantly:
'At least, a veterinary surgeon and a drug store would meet with
encouragement in our midst, and it is a fact that five new buildings
have been erected in our midst since the spring.' From a distance
nothing is easier than to smile at this sort of thing, but he must have
a cool head who can keep his pulse level when just such a wildcat
town - ten houses, two churches, and a line of rails - gets 'on the boom,'
The reader at home says, 'Yes, but it's all a lie.' It may be, but - did
men lie about Denver, Leadville, Ballarat, Broken Hill, Portland, or
Winnipeg twenty years ago - or Adelaide when town lots went begging
within the memory of middle-aged men?
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 77 of 264
Words from 20867 to 21189
of 71314
