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Show THE OLD CROWD. The announcement of the death of the old freighter, J. N. Irwin, brings back a world of memories. It is a reminder of a past generation and of the work of that generation, which seems now to have been in another age. The days of the bull team, the whip with the long lash and a revolver at its end; the days of the savages and the buffaloes;- the days when a hundred days journey from the Muddy Missouri was a quick trip. The days of the overland stage and the pony express; the days when animals were sacrificed sacri-ficed with impunity and when strong lives were worn out in brave and consuming work and made no sign. But what creatures of habit we are. Take a man who was a passenger in that overland coach, where for days and nights he was pounded into a jelly and where he suffered all the tortures of the damned, put him in a Pullman coach, give him the drawing-room and attach a diner to the train; then watch him if the train is delayed for an hour and a half. His growls are continuous and the burden of his wail is that under such a system, only young people should ever take passage, pas-sage, for they only will live to the end of the journey. The mule and ox teamBters are all gone. ' i life; M They swore when they drove the oxen and mules, j wwtf tt fak they swore when the locomotive took from them j1 WftijfB their occupation, they finally swore themselves to , rji .vB death. But they were trail-blazers and path- 4 l-fB finders, they were the connecting link between PcLii'fBK the savagery that was and the civilization that i Ijcr pB was to be, in their rougher moods the could give , .liB savages kindergarten lessons in barbarity: when K "IraM their hearts were appealed to or their charities lis- ,f JB invoked they could shame the modern ostcnta- , m I - ffB tious gift-maker. Their coming was a vastly , fa .' ) -H greater event than the coming of a dozen Pull- ' M tJH man trains. It was natural, too. Those trains iiH 1 JH were mines of treasures. Many a would-be bride ' t ft $' V PIH waited for that train to bring the muslin for the I wriiB dress in which on a certain day she was to look ! tj (f h ftM her best; many a would-be groom had to wait for &' ' :wB that train before he could sport a new necktie $i 1'$JB and a pair of calf shoes. Then, tea and coffee U ff 'wm and sugar had to be waited for; then many a man fi. i yfjH and family had to learn how little they could get i I if v$fM along with, how much they could do without, "aifiiH when that train was overdue. And the old stage ' j . fj 11 tJljl and later the pony express what blessings were ', JijMfaB they? j ' 1 1 jffjB They brought letters and little keepsakes, ' , " 3 4;jwfH they placed the people in close touch with the ' 1 $tifjiM friends they had left behind the East no longer iffH '1IH seemed so awfully far away. lit 'Mllw It was a great old race that lived then, a great ' ,h Yjm work that they performed and their memories j'l f ',; (B will be sacred as the hills remain over which they , jig 4, i wM trod and through which they brought the first ' IfCijiifM lights of redemption. - Sif; jH |