Tama County Republican

For the Republican.

"Cincinnatus" Discourseth.

My Dear Local:--You remember the story of Baron Munchausen, the celebrated traveller: and, to enforce the argument of his exploits, I need only relate the simple facts. A bear, devouring the Baron's horse, thrust himself into the harness of the decedent. (as the lawyers would say.) and whirled the sledge of the traveller into unfrequented places, where snow-drifts were lofty, declivities were steep and chasms yawning, to the imminent danger of the rider in the sledge. I should hope that the people of Toledo would take a lesson from this incident and allow no strange untamed beast to usurp the place of the faithful "Dobbin." When you get the railroad, which the carpet-baggers from other states, full of the vinegar of activity, and nerved up to the highest cerebral intensity, are so loudly clamoring for, you will be as badly off as was the veracious traveller and I cannot doubt, that, like him, you will be compelled to slay the beast to save yourselves from certain ruin.

You will allow me, perhaps, to take the most charitable view the case admits of, and presume that you do not appreciate the close run you had with civil destruction when you plead so piteously for the Plug road. I take it for granted that you did the best you knew. and that you considered that the ends you aimed at were God's and your country's. What credulity! What evidence of senectitude! of a softening brain. and decay of mental foresight. The iron horse that drags the railcar within a town drags in a long train of moral woes, material disasters and business disruptions which shall, and do, blight the prosperity of a town as the irruption of the Vandals into Italy brought woe throughout all that beautiful land. It was said that no blade of grass would grow where the horse of Attila had trod, so can no true prosperity spring up where prances the iron horse of modern times.- It you cannot comprehend it now, you will sometime.

I recollect a short time ago, that in Toledo. a house was about to become vacant. Immediately there were a dozen applicants for the to-be-vacant domicile. Three-fourths of the applicants for that house were well able to build dwelling houses for themselves. They did not choose to build. They preferred to rent. In this state of affairs the widow and the orphan, who have houses to rent are enabled to get so much for ordinary dwelling houses that they can get a decent living from the rent of one or two houses. If you bring the cars into Toledo tomorrow the immediate result would be. the men who could build dwelling houses would do so; the extraordinary demand for houses already occupied would materially diminish, and the houses that now rent readily for fifteen dollars a month, cash monthly in advance, would be a drug at ten dollars. What, then would become of those whose existence depends upon the rent of the few houses they own? You can picture to yourself, much better than I can delineate it, the misfortunate condition of those whom the railroad would thus throw upon the charities of a cold, unfeeling world. By what right do you thus call for the performance of deeds that shall injure your neighbors and depreciate what little property they do possess?

There is another special hardship which the introduction of a railroad would work. The land in the immediate vicinity of the town would be so enhanced in. value that farms now worth one hundred dollars per acre would then be worth three hundred dollars per acre. The poor man who owned the farm would thus be subjected to triple taxes. The taxes are now so heavy that he can hardly live Then he would be crushed lifeless.- See how Hall, Lewis, Hollen, and others of Tama City, have had their property appreciate in value there, four or ten times in ante-railroad value, and their taxes correspondingly increased Do you not believe that they would prefer the return of those days when railroads were unknown? There are men in Toledo, whom a railroad hero would injure in the same way. There is Muckler, blind to his own interests. desirous of a railroad, whose burden of taxation would double in one year by the advent of a railroad. There is Phillips, whole souled, large-hearted, liberal, general and public-spirited, but who discovers far ahead the terrible. crushing enginery of taxation which the railroad will prove to be. There is Conant, who is able to see a glimpse of the promised woe, and yet who listens, half-credulous, to the guileful stories of interested parties. I might extend the list, to great advantage, but I fear to make this letter so long as to insure for it oblivion in the waste basket.

But I cannot forbear to again remind you that greater woes than were visited upon Troy will fall upon our devoted town if the ends so devoutly prayed for are consummated. And I make the reminder the more fearlessly as Mrs. C. P., Sr. supports me like a good and faithful "pardner."

Yours, &c.
Cincinnatus Peregrinus, Sr.