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Show (Editorial correspondence.) <br><br> SUNDAY SCHOOL MISSION <br><br> (continued from last week.) <br><br> We left Weston on Tuesday morning, Jan. 25th, and traveled to Five Mile, where we had sent an appointment for that forenoon. But the letter had miscarried, the local authorities were away from home, and there was no prospect of a turn out if we attempted a meeting. We therefore drove on to Clifton, and made ourselves at home at the residence of Bishop Harvey Dixon. Deer hunting was the absorbing occupation here. The deer were very numerous, even in the immediate vicinity of the settlement, and were being killed in considerable numbers by hunters. One party killed ten during the day. We held meeting in the evening, and addressed a full house. After meeting we drove six miles to Oxford, where we arrived at about ten o'clock. That pattern of hospitality, Bishop W. T. Fisher, received us very cordially, and before retiring laid before us the condition of things political in Oneida county, in a very interesting manner. Next day, Wednesday, at 10 o'clock, a well attended meeting was held. <br><br> The rain storm of three weeks ago was very severe in Oxford. A heavy rain driven by a south wind, fell almost incessantly for six days and nights, flooding the county, and doing great damage to buildings. On the south side of Bishop Fisher's large and handsome adobe house, the adobies are ??? washed, as deep as two inches in some places, and the chimneys were nearly dissolved. Other buildings in the place were more or less injured by the rain, and much of the meadow land in the settlement is now an ice pond. After a pleasant day spent in Oxford the writer left there on Wednesday evening, arriving some hours later in Logan. <br><br> In all the settlements we visited the crops for two or three years have been short, and as a consequence, improvements have not been as rapid as they otherwise would have been. Still the settlements are all growing, some of them very fast, and the people generally seemed contented and at peace with all the world. <br><br> There is one crop however, that the people of those settlements are raising in tropical profusion - babies. The darlings abound everywhere; in the homes of the people, at social gatherings and at meetings, the cherubs were as numerous as blossoms on a peach tree in full blossom. Big, little, fat, lean, long and short babies, in fact all varieties, except those that were not pretty, might be seen. Bright babies, grave babies, playful babies, dignified babies, precocious babies, thoughtful babies, industrious babies, artistic babies - all sorts, kinds and sizes, and once in a great while, perhaps, once in two weeks, maybe three weeks, a crying baby will be seen - they are never heard - not in Oneida county; they are too well raised. The little dears are ubiquitous, and some of them can with difficulty be kept still. They have a remarkable propensity for creeping around and exploring the nooks and corners of a room, and, in meeting, they would sometimes creep around the speaker's feet and between his legs. But no sinister motives actuated the darlings in such exploits. How the babies are kept, and what is done with them till they become boys and girls is a mystery. We heard it insinuated that, on cold nights, the adults of the family use the babies for pillows. But this seems incredible. <br><br> Bless the babies, one and all, and all honor to the parents who are rearing them! |