Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 June 1881 — Over the County. [ARTICLE]

Over the County.

Barkley Items. A gentle shower would be of great benefit to our wheat, which Is now heading out. The youmz ideas, at Burns’, are being taught how to shoot by Miss Ida Coons, who is giving good satisfaction.

Mr. George Gratner,living one- half mile north of Center, is in a critical condition from the effects of injuries received by his team running away some time since. Mr. G. is one of our best citizens, and we hope he may soon recover.

At Center School House, on last Sunday, Rev. Thompson preached, to a large and intelligent audience, one of the most able, interesting and instructive sermons your correspond ent has ever listened to,

Corn-plowing is now the order of the day, consequently our corn looks fine and our fields are as void of weeds as a reporter’s pocket-book is of money. Why shoujdn t this be, when we have some of the best land in the county, and first class farmers who get up early each day, wotk hard all week, and don’t go to town every Saturday afternoon for a dram of that double-distill’d ? —Just ask Charley Price what the restof the sentence is

We have been permitted to peruse a letter from our old friend, M. C. Banfield, and thinking, as items are scarce, a few extracts from it would not be uninteresting, I give them, in substance, as follows. He says: “I started from Fran »esville on the evening train, Wednesday, April 13th, arrived in Chicago about 12 o’clock p. m., same day, Paid $45 for a thro’ ticket to Liverpool. On the 14th, at 9 a. m., took the train for Boston, and drank in the beauties of American scenery along the route untill reach-

ed tne capital of .the Bay State.— Then bidding farewell to “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” we set sail for England’s tranquil shore, and soon we were being wafted a'ong in a north-easterly direction, by gentle zephyrs from the southwest until after having been at sea eleven days, and sailing on an ave rage at the rate of 275 miles per day. we anchored safely in the harbor of the objective point of my through ticket. There I again took the train, and a journey of seven hundred miles iu a southerly direction brought me to that place said to be the dearest on earth - Home! Here I found friends and relatives all, except my father, enjoying the priceless boon of health.

“Times here are very hard, Wages for farm hands fom $lO to sl2 per month; miners from $lO to sls month. House rem from sls to S7O per year; land from sls to SIOO per acre, and $2 50 per acre for tithes. “So you can see that this government is administered iu the “interest of the rich at the expense of the poor,” who are no more thought of than an American dog, I long to come back to free America, and I will come as soon as circumstances wifi permit me to do so.” May 31,1881. A FARMER.