There is one drawback which this territory has in common with the greater part of the West, and in fact of the civilized world.  It is not only a drawback, but a nuisance anywhere; I mean drinking or whiskey shops.  The greater proportion of the settlers are temperate men, I am sure; but in almost every village there are places where the meanest kind of intoxicating liquor is sold.  There are some who sell liquor to the Indians.  But such business is universally considered as the most degraded that a mean man can be guilty of.  It is filthy to see men staggering about under the influence of bad whiskey, or of any kind of whiskey.  He who sends a young husband to his new cabin home intoxicated, to mortify and torment his family; or who sells liquor to the uneducated Indians, that they may fight and murder, must have his conscience—­ if he has any at all—­ cased over with sole leather.  Mr. Gough is needed in the West.

Minnesota is not behind in education.  Ever since Governor Slade, of Vermont, brought some bright young school mistresses up to St. Paul (in 1849), common school education has been diffusing its precious influences.  The government wisely sets apart two sections of land—­ the 16th and 36th—­ in every township for school purposes.  A township is six miles square; and the two sections thus reserved in each township comprise 1280 acres.  Other territories have the same provision.  This affords a very good fund for educational uses, or rather it is a great aid to the exertions of the people.  There are some nourishing institutions of learning in the territory.  But the greatest institution after all in the country—­ the surest protection of our liberties and our laws—­ is the free school.

LETTER XIII.

 Crow Wing to st. Cloud.

Pleasant drive in the stage—­ Scenery—­ The past—­ Fort Ripley Ferry—­ Delay at the Post Office—­ Belle Prairie—­ A Catholic priest—­ Dinner at Swan River—­ Potatoes—­ Arrival at Watab—­ St. Cloud.

St. Cloud, October, 1856.

Yesterday morning at seven I took my departure, on the stage, from Crow Wing.  It was a most delightful morning, the air not damp, but bracing; and the welcome rays of the sun shed a mellow lustre upon a scene of “sylvan beauty.”  The first hour’s ride was over a road I had passed in the dark on my upward journey, and this was the first view I had of the country immediately below Crow Wing.  No settlements were to be seen, because the regulations of military reservations preclude their being made except for some purpose connected with the public interests.  A heavy shower the night before had effectually laid the dust, and we bounded along on the easy coach in high spirits.  The view of the prairie stretching “in airy undulations far away,” and of the eddying current of the Mississippi, there as everywhere deep and majestic, with its banks skirted