Local Matters

An elegant stock of lace and embroidered curtains can be found at Wadsworth’s.  Also the largest and best stock of house-keeping goods in the city.

KEROSENE OIL – PRICES REDUCED. – The best quality of Kerosene Oil for sale at 40 cents per gallon, by Dart & Sons, No. 2, Lesslie’s block, Front street.

GAME. – During the last season, there were shipped from Iowa City 114,744, or 9,562 dozen quails.  At this rate it would seem as though the game of our State would soon be thinned out.

PHOTOGRAPHIC ALBUMS. – The largest assortment of Photographic Albums ever seen in this region can be found at Devoe & Crampton’s, Rock Island.  Cloth, leather, turkey, morocco, and velvet binding, for 12, 24, 36, 40, 50 and $1.00.  Card photographs.  Prices from 50 cents to $10.00.

IN these dull days for business, it is refreshing to notice the rush for bargains, which can be daily seen at the dry-goods and carpet establishment of L. Kiesow & Co., Rock Island.  There must be a good reason for their success – the good crossing of the river probably helped them to much of our trade.

THE CAMPBELL MINSTRELS closed their entertainments last evening before a very respectable audience.  Their performances certainly have the merit of being about as laughter-provoking, side-splitting an exhibition as is given by any troupe that travels. – They exhibit in Rock Island this evening.

WEATHER. – Slippy, slushy, muddy, murky, rainy, were all combined yesterday.  The walking was in intensely delicate operation, requiring some practical knowledge of gymnastics, in order to preserve a proper equilibrium.  Pedestrianism therefore was at a discount, and little business was done, farmers not venturing in town.

ANOTHER ARTIST. – Mr. Rouse is not alone as a crayon artist in our city.  We have seen some very good pictures which were executed by Miss B. Johnson, at the Le Claire House, and they promise very much for her future success.  Miss Johnson’s delineations are very accurate and lifelike, as a visit to her studio will attest.

SINGULAR. – We noticed yesterday morning as one of the singular circumstances attendant upon the sudden change of temperature, a number of pigeons in our yard unable to fly from the congealing of the rain of their wings!  They were driven under shelter until ‘thawed out’ when they took wings and left for their cotes.

FREE LECTURE. – Dr. Wagner will give another free lecture at Le Claire Hall this evening.  On Monday evening he gives his great lecture on Matrimony – to ladies and gentlemen.  After the lecture a large number of ladies and gentlemen will be selected from the audience and happily mated.

A NORTHERN SCENE. – The trees and bushes presented a beautiful appearance yesterday morning.  The rain of the previous night had congealed and every limb and twig was coated with ice.  Had the sun shone out brightly the spectacle would have been as brilliant as some of the gorgeous scenes described in the fascinating Arabian Nights.  It was attended with some danger, however, for one to lift his eyes from the pavement before him to look upon the icy scene around him as the bricks were more slippery than holy ground.

ADVERTISING. – ‘There are few people,’ says the Dubuque Times, ‘who understand the law of advertising.’  Truer words were probably never spoken, at least as far as they apply to the business men of our western country.  Whoever will take up an English paper – almost any one – will see how the ‘nation of shopkeepers’ attends to this business.  Page after page is filled with their advertisements.  If any one has a new invoice of dry goods, it must be ‘put in the paper,’ a new bill of groceries must be announced in the same way, each article received being separately mentioned in a business-like manner.  A horse or cow wanted or for sale is told of in the same way.  Many things which some people here go about as if they were afraid the world would know it, are blazoned all abroad by the English business man.  These remarks are particularly applicable to the English country papers.  In some of our Eastern cities, the secret of successful advertising is nearly as correctly understood.  Not the least effective of the causes which have enabled New York to keep so far ahead of Philadelphia in point of population, and far more so in respect to commercial importance and intercourse with the rest of the country has been admitted by Philadelphians to be the far more liberal advertising of New York merchants, which operated to their own benefit by attracting business to themselves, and also by enabling their journals through the liberal support thus rendered, to furnish better papers, to enlarge their correspondence, and to obtain the latest news from every part of the world.  The newspapers thus encouraged gave to New York an increased importance, and continually brought to her markets the merchants of the whole country.  Boston has been helped in the same way and her business probably ahead of any other city in the Union except New York, in proportion to the population.  This is the experience of Eastern cities, and shall it be lost on the cities of Iowa?  The same opportunities are before our merchants to give their respective cities importance in the eyes of the world, and to increase their commercial intercourse with the “rest of mankind.”  Davenport surely cannot afford to throw away the splendid chance of becoming the metropolis of Iowa by a short-sighted economy on the part of her business men.  Truly said the wise king, “There is that scattereth, yet increaseth; there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.”

THE RIVER, we hear, is open as far up as Keokuk.  At this point the ice is still firm for footmen, but no teams have crossed for two days.  The St. Louis Democrat says that a steamer has arrived at Peoria, and boats are regularly leaving St. Louis for that place.

The Northern Line packets, we see by their advertisement intend to run only three boats a week the coming season.  The Minnesota Packet Company has withdrawn its boats from that line; while the Northern Line company will send two of its boats on the route between here and Galena.  These will be the Bill Henderson, and, the favorite steamer Fred. Lorenz.  The Belfast, Capt. Carlton, owned in this county, will run regularly between here and St. Louis, on the opening of navigation.  We now look longingly for the re-opening of the river, hoping to witness in consequence a reanimation of business, such as we have not seen in Iowa for years, if ever.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Saturday Morning, March 15, 1862, p. 1