Granite State Monthly Volume 16 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894 Excerpt: ... in, it is not his. The press of Lebanon is represented now, as for forty years, by The Granite State Free Press, one of the best of country weeklies. Its editor, through all its years, is the Hon. E. H. Cheney, now in the diplomatic service as United States consul at Matanzas, Cuba. During his absence his son, Harry M. Cheney, occupies the editorial chair, himself a not less vigorous and conscientious writer than his father. In such a town as this the local flavor was very pronounced. I speak in the past tense because, with the growth of manufacturing and an increase of population, there is a tendency to uniformity. Under such conditions the type changes, and the mental characteristics of a place become monotonous, running to this or that idea, just as all the dresses of a season are adorned with berthes or bretelles. Hence I say the local flavor was pronounced. It is by no means gone yet, but the number of those old worthies who hunted foxes and trained in the militia and went to the Hanover Commencement together is growing less. The jury which used to gather nightly in the stable office and settle the fate of real culprits and of suspects, and which passed upon questions of national and personal import, traversing the line of human activity in their scrutiny--that assemblage has dwindled to a membership of one. I sought him out. A kindlier welcome I never received, but of what I wanted I got nothing. A morbid interest was aroused by his story of the only murder the town ever had, at which the old man was the first arrival after the crime; but it was from others that I learned of the days of old. It was another who told me of that eccentric old gentleman who briefly addressed the town-meeting when it was about to vote on the question, Resolved, That only ...