Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/39

32 clipping from the Baltimore American advocating an Indian state, we might attribute to shortage of space the short shrift given the following two items:


 * 1) Duncan McLean was committed to jail on Friday last (17th inst.) on suspicion of having murdered a Mr. Owens.
 * 2) The Rt. Rev. Norbert Blanchett was consecrated bishop of Oregon Territory on the 15th of July, 1845, in the Roman Catholic cathedral, at Montreal, Canada.

The curious reader is left stranded high and dry with his further detail on these items, on which nothing further was revealed by diligent search.

Before any reader rushes to the conclusion that Protestant in fluence accounts for the brevity of the Bishop Blanchett item, let him note here what the Spectator, friendly as it probably was to the Methodists, did with a big Methodist story right on its very door step. The news tip appeared in the form of a notice reading as follows:

"The Methodist Quarterly Meeting will commence at the Methodist Episcopal church, in Oregon City, on the first Sunday in April next."

Now, what was done with this quarterly meeting when held? Careful search of the files of the Spectator fails to reveal any further reference to this event. Perhaps the Spectator group reasoned the way that old German reporter in a small Pennsylvania town accounted for his failure to write anything about a fire which destroyed the German Evangelical church: "All the good Germans were out at the fire, and nobody else cared anything about it." Anyhow, the meeting received no further attention in the press of Oregon.

More likely, however, the parallel is with the treatment given two stories of some interest—a meeting to organize a military company and the results of the Oregon legislative elections.

Here is the election story, with the explanation of why it is so in complete:

We have not been favored with the official returns of the election at present, but presume the following will be found correct:

For Clackamas County—Hiram Straight, A. L. Lovejoy, W. G. T'Vault