Local Matters

A GOOD IDEA. – Drop letters at our post office are stamped with the hour of the day at which they are mailed.  A very good arrangement and shows the promptness of the postal department here.

THE Muscatine Journal is continually sounding its trumpet that it contains more dispatches than the Davenport papers.  We don’t know that we have ever lost a single subscriber by the huge enterprise of that establishment.

ST. LUKE’S CHURCH FAIR. – Our readers must not forget the fair and festival of St. Luke’s church, at Metropolitan Hall, this evening.  The Episcopal churches of the city of New York make up annually, we are informed, a box of articles for the fairs for presentation to churches ‘in the wilderness,’ and this year St. Luke’s is the favored recipient of the box.  Refreshments and delicacies will be profusely supplied.

SURPRISE PARTIES seem to be very much the fashion this winter in most of the towns of the State, and to a limited extend in this vicinity – and we are glad to know only to a limited extent.  Surprise parties, when all engaged are willing, both surprisors and surprised, are well enough; but there is great danger of the practice being abused by thoughtless people who are not particular as to the persons they honor with such out-of-the-way tokens of remembrance.

WASHINGTON’S BIRTHDAY. – We notice the citizens of Rock Island are moving in the matter of celebrating the birthday of the Father of his country, next Saturday.  Can we not do something over here, inspired by the good tidings of great joy which have crowded on us this week.  We think it might be done; a regular Fourth of July celebration might be got up, regardless of expense.  The glorious success of our arms in the West, indicating as it does the speedy reopening of the river to its mouth, gives us abundant and peculiar cause to rejoice.  Then let us celebrate the victories of our armies, while we commemorate the fame of their first and greatest commander.

SLEIGH RIDING TO LeCLAIRE has been the most frequent mode of improving the sleighing this winter.  Parties have gone there about two or three times a week, partaken of a bountiful supper, and participated in dancing.  Monday afternoon and evening, three of these parties visited the Republic, with the object of enjoyment, and pretty generally succeeded, as all do who sojourn for even so short a time with Squire Horton, who, with the excellent clerk, Mr. Johnson, are extremely attentive to guests.  But then we can’t advise sleigh-riding to LeClaire for the pleasure it imparts.  Thirty miles over the snow, with the thermometer somewhere between freezing point and fifty degrees below zero, may be fun, but we don’t see it; it’s probably better than riding on a rail, but we have seen exercises we like a good deal better than either of them.  But if you want to enjoy a trip to LeClaire, go when the snow is gone and the roads are good; when the leaves are green and the flowers are blooming; when the birds are singing, and the air is balmy and mild; when the early fruits are ripe, and all nature is beautiful; go then, and if there is anything of the poetic in your soul, or any love of the picturesque, you will keenly enjoy a trip through one of the lovelies sections of the country in the whole West. But whoever talks of sleigh riding to LeClaire as a pleasurable pastime, may be looked upon as a gay deceiver, or very much deceived.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday Morning, February 19, 1862, p. 1