tell the story for what it is worth; and do not
pretend to guarantee its exact truth.

Doolittle, a Southern editor, held his post for
six months, and in that time was stabbed
twice, shot three times, belaboured with a
bludgeon once, thrown into a pond once, but
was never kicked. During his six months'
experience he killed two of his adversaries. All
these are absolute facts. When Isaac Disraeli
wrote the Quarrels and Calamities of Authors,
he must assuredly have known nothing of
western newspaper life, otherwise a chapter ought
to have been added to both books. As a set-off,
the "local" of the Memphis Bulletin jestingly
sums up his year's experience as follows:

* In Sacramento the streets are named A to B
and First, Second, Third, and so on; monotonous,
no doubt, but still a relief to the everlasting
Washington, Jackson, Fremont, Kearney, &c., streets
† Money.

"Opposition is the life of business!
" Work for nothing and find yourself, Mr. R.,
and I am with you, you d——- d old rascal.
Horses kept to hay per night . . . . .   $ 1 00
Saddle horses per day . . . . . . . . . .     1 00
Two horses for buggy per day  . . . .     2 50
Oats per pound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .         5
Call any time, day or night!"

"A new era! Wool mattresses in Grande
Ronde Valley, Oregon. Prices reduced. The
cheapest house in the ' burg.' All the creature
comforts to be had at ' our house ' as they can
be had anywhere on the sunny side of the Blue
Mountains.

' Are you hungry? Come to our house.
' Are you thirsty? Take a drink.
' Are you weary? Try one of my mattresses.
' Are you sad? I will condole with you.
' Are you glad? I will rejoice with you.
' If you are mad I will go out and—spar with
you.
"Come and see me!"

Roadside hotel-keepers are every now and
then calling the miners' attention to their
"square meals:" by which is meant full meals,
in contradistinction to the imperfect dinner a
man has to put up with on the mountains.
Men who wish to buy timber are referred to
this solemn announcement of the fact of some
timber being for sale:

"Grand benefit of Salem, Marion County,
Oregon. From and after this date we propose
to sell lumber laths and slabs as cheap as any
other high-toned mill in the country. Times
are changed, and we have changed the credit
of one year, and return to ready pay, without
which no Webfoot† need apply. Book-keeping
is most effectually played out. You that owe
come to our office, there's the place, and settle
now. We cannot afford to wait, and when we
commence to dun, we never get done. Be wise
to day, 'tis folly to delay!"

Queer people follow all sorts of queer
businesses out west. A classical scholar was
keeping a hotel in Victoria, Vancouver Island,
as might be inferred from his advertisements,
which used to be interlarded with Greek
and Latin quotations from Æschylus, Plato,
Horace, Oppian, and Ovid. Sometimes the
newspapers contain an ominous warning from
the "city marshal" to certain suspicious
characters " to get up and dust," or an
announcement of some indignant individual
who has been paid in greenbacks instead
of gold, as is customary all over the Pacific
still, notwithstanding the depreciated currency,

* June 13, 1865.
† A slang phrase for an inhabitant of the rainy
valley of the Williamette.