Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/214

 church, save the Catholic church, the inhabitants being principally French Canadians, and the rest the refuse of the east, whose crimes have driven them hither, or dissipated young men unable to live at home. Hence Sunday is only a day of frolic and recreation, which commences on the Saturday evening, when every preparation is devoutly made for the Sabbath, and off they start in large parties on foot and on horseback, all riflemen and cunning hunters, into the deep recesses of the forest, camping out all night in readiness for sabbath sacrifices, the bucks, the bears, the squirrels, and the turkeys, ready to be offered up by peep of day. This holy day is consequently ushered in by guns, which continue to roar in and around the town all day until sunset. The stranger might think it was closely besieged, or that an enemy was approaching. The steam flour-mill, a large grinding establishment of extortion, giving only 30 lbs. of flour for one bushel of wheat, weighing {215} 60 lbs. is in operation all this day, and on other days, day and night, and blacksmiths' shops are in high bustle, blazing, blowing, and hammering in direct opposition to a law against Sunday business and pleasure, but which is never feared, because never enforced. The refuse, rather than the flower of the east, seems, with some exceptions, to be here. But still good is coming out of evil. The east is thus disencumbered, and the west is peopled. Posterity will shew a better face. Such is the process of empire.

I rambled round the town to the court-house, or shire-*hall, really externally an elegant building, but decaying before finished, as though the state were unable to finish what it had so well begun before counting the cost. The State Seminary, a very respectable edifice, but in little better plight, was built by Uncle Sam, and endowed with