The Caledonian

The West.

Upon our first page is commenced a second article from the Portland Advertiser, upon the "going west" mania, so prevalent in New England. This important matter, we are glad to perceive, is eliciting the attention of the people of the East, and it cannot but result, if it be thoroughly investigated, in a blessing to the thousands among us, who, hearing the exaggerated, in many cases false rumors of glorious things of the West, and in connection with that restless desire to keep moving, which is the foundation of the temporal ruin of so many, are seriously thinking of leaving their fire-sides, their schools, their churches, and the abundance which invariably is the reward of well-directed industry here, for the regions of the West.

The late pecuniary disasters of the country among other causes, have tended to awaken public attention to the prospects of the West over other parts of the country; and so, also, has the appalling fatality of that region to New Englanders during the last season served to bring the subject before the public. This mortality was produced by the uncommon dryness of the summer and autumn—a cause which is as likely to exist next or the year after, as the present. It will occur unquestionably at alternate periods for half if not for a century—till the country shall be thickly peopled. The effect of a dry season is to stagnate the waters, the atmosphere becomes impure, and produces diseases and death.

Another reason has tended to produce the agitation of the subject—many who went out there have returned impoverished and broken in spirit. The people of the East must soon learn that their homes are the pleasantest, the sweetest, the most desirable of any they can find in the wide world.