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Show THK Sl'TLKK MI ST GO. A bill intended to abolish post traderships was favorably reported yesterday from the senate committee on xnilitary affairs. There arc plenty of officer! in the army, still young men in the thirties, who well remember the time when the sutler store was their only resort for pleasure or purchase : where in a private room they could enjoy a quiet game of whist or poker, or buy certain luxuries that the commissary department did not furnish; where in a sequestered nook they ! could alwa3s find liquid refreshments which were otherwise forbidden to be sold on a military or Indian reservation; where they received their love letters by irregular mail, and where in brief they whiled away the ennui of a dull garrison life. And now the post trader must go. Well, his occupation is gone, because the whilom frontier front-ier post is gone. Instead of the log house that served as the one center of attraition and bazaar and postofflce combined, for a hundred miles arouud, there are haudsome rows of storehouses, public buildings, railroads rail-roads and all other modern facilities within easy reach of almost every military station in the country. To be sure they are not all as favorably and conveniently situated as Fort Douglas, because there is only one Salt Lake City in this country, but compared with a few years ago, they are all right. Therefore the post trader must go. How-fast How-fast civilization follows in the wake of the army, to be sure! How irresistible is the conquest of the pioneer in the western wilds ! Nor storms nor savages can stay his on-niarch on-niarch which clears the way for the iron horse and all the marvelous developments that go with it. Indeed the age of the post trader is past in this country. |