notices of committee meetings are splashed about the towns. By reason
of their closeness to the Stages they have caught the contagion of
foul-mouthedness, and accusations of bribery, corruption, and
evil-living are many. It is sweet to find a little baby-city, with only
three men in it who can handle type, cursing and swearing across the
illimitable levels for all the world as though it were a grown-up
Christian centre.

All the new towns have their own wants to consider, and the first of
these is a railway. If the town is on a line already, then a new line to
tap the back country; but at all costs a line. For this it will sell its
corrupted soul, and then be very indignant because the railway before
which it has grovelled rides rough-shod over the place.

Each new town believes itself to be a possible Winnipeg until the
glamour of the thing is a little worn off, and the local paper, sliding
down the pole of Pride with the hind legs of despair, says defiantly:
'At least, a veterinary surgeon and a drug store would meet with
encouragement in our midst, and it is a fact that five new buildings
have been erected in our midst since the spring.' From a distance
nothing is easier than to smile at this sort of thing, but he must have
a cool head who can keep his pulse level when just such a wildcat
town--ten houses, two churches, and a line of rails--gets 'on the boom,'
The reader at home says, 'Yes, but it's all a lie.' It may be, but--did
men lie about Denver, Leadville, Ballarat, Broken Hill, Portland, or
Winnipeg twenty years ago--or Adelaide when town lots went begging
within the memory of middle-aged men? Did they lie about Vancouver six
years since, or Creede not twenty months gone? Hardly; and it is just
this knowledge that leads the passer-by to give ear to the wildest
statements of the wildest towns. Anything is possible, especially among