‘The Undying Head’ is a rather long tale, but it makes up in weird conceits,
fairy-tale prodigies, variety of incident, and energy of movement,
for what it lacks in brevity.
Chapter 60
Speculations and Conclusions
WE reached St. Paul, at the head of navigation of the Mississippi,
and there our voyage of two thousand miles from New Orleans ended. It is
about a ten-day trip by steamer. It can probably be done quicker by rail.
I judge so because I know that one may go by rail from St. Louis to Hannibal–
a distance of at least a hundred and twenty miles–in seven hours.
This is better than walking; unless one is in a hurry.
The season being far advanced when we were in New Orleans, the roses
and magnolia blossoms were falling; but here in St. Paul it was the snow,
In New Orleans we had caught an occasional withering breath from over
a crater, apparently; here in St. Paul we caught a frequent benumbing
one from over a glacier, apparently.
But I wander from my theme. St. Paul is a wonderful town.
It is put together in solid blocks of honest brick and stone,
and has the air of intending to stay. Its post-office was established
thirty-six years ago; and by and by, when the postmaster received
a letter, he carried it to Washington, horseback, to inquire what
was to be done with it. Such is the legend. Two frame houses were
built that year, and several persons were added to the population.
A recent number of the leading St. Paul paper, the ‘Pioneer Press,’
gives some statistics which furnish a vivid contrast to that old
state of things, to wit: Population, autumn of the present year
(1882), 71,000; number of letters handled, first half of
the year, 1,209,387; number of houses built during three-quarters
of the year, 989; their cost, $3,186,000. The increase of letters
over the corresponding six months of last year was fifty per cent.
Last year the new buildings added to the city cost above $4,500,000.
St. Paul’s strength lies in her commerce–I mean his commerce.
He is a manufacturing city, of course–all the cities of that
region are–but he is peculiarly strong in the matter of commerce.
Last year his jobbing trade amounted to upwards of $52,000,000.
He has a custom-house, and is building a costly capitol to replace
the one recently burned–for he is the capital of the State.
He has churches without end; and not the cheap poor kind,
but the kind that the rich Protestant puts up, the kind that
the poor Irish ‘hired-girl’ delights to erect. What a passion
for building majestic churches the Irish hired-girl has.
It is a fine thing for our architecture but too often we enjoy
her stately fanes without giving her a grateful thought.
In fact, instead of reflecting that ‘every brick and every stone
in this beautiful edifice represents an ache or a pain, and a handful
of sweat, and hours of heavy fatigue, contributed by the back
and forehead and bones of poverty,’ it is our habit to forget
these things entirely, and merely glorify the mighty temple itself,
without vouchsafing one praiseful thought to its humble builder,
whose rich heart and withered purse it symbolizes.
This is a land of libraries and schools. St. Paul has three public libraries,
and they contain, in the aggregate, some forty thousand books.
He has one hundred and sixteen school-houses, and pays out more than
seventy thousand dollars a year in teachers’ salaries.
There is an unusually fine railway station; so large is it,
in fact, that it seemed somewhat overdone, in the matter
of size, at first; but at the end of a few months it was
perceived that the mistake was distinctly the other way.
The error is to be corrected.
The town stands on high ground; it is about seven hundred feet
above the sea level. It is so high that a wide view of river
and lowland is offered from its streets.
It is a very wonderful town indeed, and is not finished yet.
All the streets are obstructed with building material,
and this is being compacted into houses as fast as possible,