Iowa Old Press
Sutherland Courier
Sutherland, O’Brien co. Iowa
March 13, 1885
Auditor BROWN is a “stayer.” At last accounts he
had possession of the office and refused to turn it over to the
governor.
The Des Moines river has been on the rampage for a week past and
bridges and levees have been washed away all along the
line. When the snow melts away in northwestern Iowa look
out for a turbulent Missori (sic).
Col. HENDERSON, Congressman from the Third District, is still in
Washington, being confined to his bed by the breaking out of his
old wounds received during the late war. He is not
considered dangerously ill, though his friends are somewhat
alarmed at his condition. He has worked very hard during
the last session of Congress—too hard for a man in such poor
health.
The whisky men who have been preaching for several months that
prohibition cannot be enforced have met with a severe set-back by
Judge HENDERSON. The Judge has ordered the sheriff of
Marshall county to close all saloons in the county, seize all
liquors and destroy them and sell the furniture and fixtures in
the saloons to pay expenses. This looks as though “prohibition
did prohibit” for a fact. Men who have been openly
violating the law should take warning.
The Church is now making a terrible fight against the skating
rink, and says they must all “go.” When the rinks
were first started they were patronized by churchgoing as well as
worldly people, but now, since the novelty has worn off and the
preachers have skated until they are tired, it is discovered that
it is just awful wicked to skate on wheels, and war on the rinks
is openly declared in the pulpit. The argument used by
ministers against the skating rink is to the effect that it takes
the young people away from their homes and books and induces them
to keep “late hours,” thereby impairing their physical
and “spiritual” health. Preachers favored the
rink a few months ago because the young men who were in the habit
of spending an evening now and then in a saloon or billiard hall
were drawn from their old haunt to the skating rink, where they
were brought in contact with ladies, and as a natural consequence
must observe the laws of ettiquette (sic). Now the same
preachers say the rink must go because it corrupts the morals of
the people who patronize them. It was first used for
advancing the morals of the young men, and now, if the preachers
speak the truth, it is used for degrading young ladies. How
would it work to let the rinks run as before except to keep a
close watch and make the proprietors see to it that none but real
ladies and gentlemen are allowed to participate in the skate.
[transcribed by C.B., June 2005]