Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 June 1870 — Letters from Mr. A. B. James. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Letters from Mr. A. B. James.

Fayette, Howard Co., Mo., May 28th, 1870. We are camped about one- mile east of Fayette, on the grassy bottom of a creek half as large as the Iroquois at Rensselaer. We are making about twenty miles a day and are all in fine health and heart. Have been in route with six or more other teams all this week. Much of the way this week, has been billy and although there are streams of running, and perhaps living, water in the valleys, farmers depend almost entirely upon cisterns for water for their families. Heavy showers, which in some cases have preceded us and in other cases fallen behind us, have replenished the streams and filled the cisterns and we have had no lack of supply. From Peoria here they have raised the price of corn, oats and meat, but now they begin to cheap-

en again. Corn is here 70 to 80 cents a bushel, oats 50 cents, butter 20 cents a pound, eggs 10 cents a dozen, bacon shoulders 15 cents a pound, bay S2O a ton. Crops look splendidly all the way. Winter wheat and rye are headed, peas and potatoes in bloom, strawberries are ripening, corn is in every stage from planting up to knee high, grass is abundant. We meet many, or rather some, every day, returning from Kansas. They generally bring gloomy accounts, if disgusted, and glowing ones, if satisfied. If any of our friends in Jasper arc coming with teams, they should take their best bedding in a ‘hovered wagon with side boards, or double bed. Some build the upper part of the wagon bed out wider so as to furnish a seat along the whole length of both sides. —They should bo furnished with a feed trough behind, and have a patent lock, as the hills make it desirable. All agree that the lock is better than a breeching harness. The side seats are convenient where there are several children along. For furniture they need a camp kettle, teakettle, frying pan, tin plates, tin cups, a small tin backet for sugar and butter, and one for the remnants of meat and gravy that may be left, a coffee mill, coffee pot, tea pot, spoons, knives, forks, and an ax* As they may need all of these articles when they get there, it may be as well to provide good ones. We buy bread, but some have a Dutch oven, or tin reflector, to bake in, which is much cheaper. A box with cover to pack away these things in, is safer and more convenient. Then they will need water buckets for the hdfses, a gun and a watch dog. We have a tent, and both it and the wagon covers are made of common white drilling and are a complete protection against rains in a strong wind. They will also find it convenint to have two or three sacks to carry oats and corn in, and a small rack attached to the hind part of the wagon, above the feed box, in which to put thirty to eighty pounds of hay. The rack is made of strong lath. But this is not a necessity as ropes or straps will do. We make inquries as we travel and. sometimes carry hay a dozer, miles where the country is settled and fenced up. Crossed the Mississippi at Quincy, Monday, May 23d. Made about 109 mites this week —last week about 150 miles. Expect to cross the Missouri to-morrow, at Booneville, 14 miles from here. It is about 145 miles from here to Fort Scott.

Papinbville.-Mo., June 4th, 1870. After a journey of more than six hundred mile 6 we were welcomed by the babbling waters of a little creek that helps fill the Osage river, on \yhose bank we camped just before sundown last evening.— All the family, who have had a remarkably pleasant journey, are in fine spirits. We near the so-called “land of starvation, drought and thieves,’' so vividly portrayed by returning pilgrims. The late heavy rains have damaged the price of corn from one dollar to a dollar and a quarter down to eighty and seventy-five cents. •* The wheat crop, now turning white, begins to arouse apprehensions among farmers as to the pea*]

sibility of harvesting it, and county public meetings are held to devise the ways and means to secure the necessary laborers. Movers, at least wc and our whilom fellow travelers, have been solicited to stop. Four wagons, of our company of six, have done so. At Sedalia we were offered rent free and two dollars per day for hands and four for teams, with constant work in town or country. We are now about twenty-five or thirty miles from Fort Scott, Kansas. Provisions are as cheap here as anywhere on the route, and as plenty. There is some very good stock through here. Of cattle—full blooded short horns, Texan cattle, with horns nearly large enough to salt their carcasses in, timber scrubs and mongrels of every color. Of hogs—the black Canada Bershire, the Chester white, the Irish graziers, self-providers and their crosses. Of sheep—black, yellow, spotted and white Of horses—the Mustang, Spanish and English breeds. Asses of all nations and races, both men and mules. Finger boards pointing the wrong way, multiplying miles; fancy maps, and paper cities on projected railroads. Early peas are ripe—sec where they have fingered for new potatoes —ripe cherries and mulberries; strawberries plenty; vast prairies of blackberries. We have had gooseberries. There are some peaches and apples west of the Missouri—east of it a great display. Of flowers—wild pansies; wild ptunias; larkspur of very rich cols, ors; blue lillies; stocks; mimosa or sensitive plant; purple and red verbenas; phloxes, equal to any Drum* mondii—■very brilliant, together with others ot unknown varieties.

Lands here are worth from $5 to sls. Teams, Westward, hoi are constantly passing, and teams, Eastward, without a ho, arc passing some. The timber along these creeks is elm, all kinds of oak, redbud, willows, plum, whitewood, black and white walnut, sycamore, persimmon, pawpaw, cherry, yellow birch, soft maple, bay or wild magnolia, mulberry, sumac and wild grape. ,Wefirßt struck or reached the Kansas winds at Booneville, on the Missouri. With us, up to this time, they are Very agreeable. Without them the heated air of the prairies would be nearly suffocating. In Kansas, where they get the original unadulterated, it may be too much. Intend to see. From eight miles east of Sedalia they have suffered lately from drought, but a lute great shower has remedied all that. The creeks are up, the cisterns filled and puddles are overflowing.

Wc publish the proceedings of the judicial convention elswliere.— It was in some respects a remarkable convention. At it was a little boisterous. It was remarkable, in that votes from Tippecanoe county came pledged for Judge Test, and the delegate who said he was instructed to so cast them, declared he wouldn’t obey instructions. It was a little boisterous, in that, another one of the delegates from Tippecanoe, couldn’t see but what he had a right to disobey the voice of his county. So it will be seen that both of the rare features of the convention grew out of the “ingenuity” of two delegates from Tippecanoe. One of these at the opening of the convention, notified it, in all the magnitude of his resources, that they “held the power to nominate, or not, wlioih they pleased,” that “he held votes in his hand instructed forjudge Test,” but if forced now' to vote would throw them for Judge Vinton.— Xvff cedf The convention ruled that if the votes” were pledged to Judge Test, they should be so recorded iu the balloting, and it w as done, and the expressed will of the people of Tippecanoe was carried out. That’s* all. Of course the people of Tippecanoe won’t complain, since the convention simply requited the delegates from that county to obey instructions.— The were counted for Judge Test, and the 28J for Judge Vinton, thus Test received votes, and Judge Vinton 30L If the politicians of Lafayette desire hereafter to act in bad faith, let them select men smart enough for the “out counties,” as they were pleased to term the balance of the circuit —Kentland Gazette.

The Indianapolis Journal has recently changed hands, i. W. Hasseltnan has bought the fivesixths interest of the Douglass brothers, and W. P. Fishback is to have editorial charge of the paper. One of the late issues under the “new dispensation” contains an account of a stabbing affray in one of the southern counties,-in which one of the parties was cut four times, “the first cut entering the throat above the jaw-bone!” How is that for high in anatomy?

*Ve found the following. notice I posted upon the bulletin board at the Court House the other day and think the burlesque to* good to pass unpublished. The spelling and other “ear marks” bear the imprint of the Kentland Democrat office, whos»editor, since the passage of the “Fifteenth Commandment,” has in the person of Mr. Whittlesey, of the New Albany Ledger, a formidable contestant for the championship of the “collud genman” in this Stale:

TO DE PLBLICANH L’B DE 12 DISTRIC. “W hai:ah, At de judicary invention dat seinbled at do little town ub Kentland in de county ub Newton on de 7tli day ub June, in do year ub de Mancipation Exclamation 6, I wus july lected one ub de central niitty ub de 12th judidatry distric, and “Wuaras, After dat nominashuu an leeaion, I wus nominated fur clmrnfan ub dat mittv, by de noble and wirtuous Curnai Tullus (who de copperheads call “Scarrified Jim,’ kase lie is got mo boles in Inin to de squar inch dan a boriey-comb, all ub which holes wus tuck in de great hellion, 4or de good ub de cuntry), an wus july lected churmau ub de mitty by de legation ub Tippecanoe county, dat held de nominatin power in her fist, an “Wiiaras agin, dar wus skulduggery used in dat invention by. de churman darof, dat vided de votes ub Tippecanoe, on me an Wintan and solidated dem on de pesecutin turny; darefore be it “Zolved, Dat £* de churman ub de center mjtty an is gwine to exercise de thority, an be it “Zolved agin , Dat by virtue ub de Fifteenth Commandment, dat don’t let white trash go back on collud genmen, even us dey is de churman ub de invention) an my lawful lection de white trash ub de outside counties ub Newton, Benton, Jasper an White, is hereby demmanded to meet at de Court House ub de T proud vurtus Tippecanoe’ on de lust day ub August in de year ub de Mansipation Exclamation 6, fur de purpose ub settlin de question ub who is de nomination fur judge in dis distric.” “N. B. De rules ub de invention will be as follows, tu-wit: ‘Fust. White trash what ain’t delegations must keep dar mouf shet and not do all de torkin. “Seconcf. No Iri%h nor Duch kin cum in. “Third. Copperhead reporters won’t be let in, kase they will report de invention unharmonacus if de members gits drunk an sites. “In witness whuruf I's sot my pictur at de lied ub dis ExclamaDart’s me.”