Minnesota and Dacotah | Page 5

the will of their patrons. But the evil can be
remedied by the proprietors and superintendents of the roads, and the
public will look for a reformation in dinners and suppers at their hands.
I might say that from Benwood, near Wheeling-- where I arrived at
about four in the afternoon, having been nearly twenty-four hours
coming 875 miles-- I passed on to Zanesville to spend the night;
thinking it more convenient, as it surely was, to go to bed at eleven at
night and start the next morning at eight, than to go to bed at Wheeling
at nine, or when I chose, and start again at two in the morning. The ride
that evening was pleasant. The cars were filled with lusty yeomen, all
gabbling politics. There was an overwhelming majority for Fremont.
Under such circumstances it was a virtue for a Buchanan man to show
his colors. There was a solid old Virginian aboard; and his open and
intelligent countenance-- peculiar, it seems to me, to Virginia-- denoted
that he was a good-hearted man. I was glad to see him defend his side
of politics with so much zeal against the Fremonters. He argued against
half a dozen of them with great spirit and sense. In spite of the fervor of
his opponents, however, they treated him with proper respect and
kindness. It was between eleven and twelve when I arrived at
Zanesville. I hastened to the Stacy House with my friend, J. E B. (a
young gentleman on his way to Iowa, whose acquaintance I regard it as
good luck to have made). The Stacy House could give us lodgings, but
not a mouthful of refreshments. As the next best thing, we descended to
a restaurant, which seemed to be in a very drowsy condition, where we
soon got some oyster and broiled chicken, not however without paying
for it an exorbitant price. I rather think, however, I shall go to the Stacy
House again when next I visit Zanesville, for, on the whole, I have no
fault to find with it. Starting at eight the next morning, we were four
hours making the distance (59 miles) from Zanesville to Columbus.
The road passes through a country of unsurpassed loveliness. Harvest
fields, the most luxuriant, were everywhere in view. At nearly every
stopping-place the boys besieged us with delicious apples and grapes,
too tempting to be resisted. We had an hour to spend at Columbus,
which, after booking our names at the Neil House for dinner-- and

which is a capital house-- we partly spent in a walk about the city. It is
the capital of the state, delightfully situated on the Scioto river, and has
a population in the neighborhood of 20,000. The new Capitol there is
being built on a scale of great magnificence. Though the heat beat
down intensely, and the streets were dusty, we were "bent on seeing the
town." We-- my friend B. and myself-- had walked nearly half a mile
down one of the fashionable streets for dwellings, when we came to a
line which was drawn across the sidewalk in front of a residence, which,
from the appearance, might have belonged to one of the upper-ten. The
line was in charge of two or three little girls, the eldest of whom was
not over twelve. She was a bright-eyed little miss, and had in her face a
good share of that metal which the vulgar think is indispensable to
young lawyers. We came to a gradual pause at sight of this novel
obstruction. "Buchanan, Fillmore, or Fremont?" said she, in a tone of
dogmatical interrogatory. B. was a fervid Fremonter-- he probably
thought she was-- so he exclaimed, "Vermont for ever!" I awaited the
sequel in silence. "Then you may go round," said the little female
politician. "You may go round," and round we went, not a little amused
at such an exhibition of enthusiasm. I remember very well the
excitement during the campaign of 1840; and I did my share with the
New Hampshire boys in getting up decoy cider barrels to humbug the
Whigs as they passed in their barouches to attend some great
convention or hear Daniel Webster. But it seems to me there is much
more political excitement during this campaign than there was in 1840.
Flagstaffs and banners abound in the greatest profusion in every village.
Every farm-house has some token of its polities spread to the breeze.
At twenty minutes past one-- less or more-- we left Columbus, and
after travelling 158 miles, via Dayton, we came to Indianapolis, the
great "Railroad City," as it is called, of the west. It was half past nine
when we arrived there. I did not have time to go up to the Bates House,
where I once