140 years ago

november 18, 1881

The Record begins its eleventh year with this issue. We had hoped to reach the enlargement upon which we had determined some time since, with this number, but found it impossible to do so. The first of the year is about as appropriate a time, however.

Succeeding ten years ago, to the ownership and good will of the Little Giant and Western News, the Record is legitimately entitled to their age, and is therefore really eleven years old instead of ten, but we will not quarrel about that.

Do our law-loving, peace preferring fellow citizens ever stop to note the difference between Marion Centre today without saloons and Marion Centre in those days when several saloons were in full blast here? Then, night was made hideous with the drunken orgies of men, and daylight revealed many evidences of the previous night’s debauch. Now, you never, or scarcely ever, see a man under the influence of liquor. And then there never was a worse fallacy than the old notion that saloons make a town prosperous. When did Marion Centre ever before enjoy such solid, substantial prosperity as at present?

The new coal yard which we announced a few weeks ago as about to be opened, has begun business, but is not run by the gentlemen whom we were informed by someone would manage it.

Several weeks ago we published an item stating that the second growth of sorghum is fatal to stock. Had Mr. Newton, of Clear Creek, been a subscriber to the Record he would have saved a valuable cow which recently wandered into a field of second growth sorghum for about ten minutes, and died soon afterwards.

Owing to the failure of some of the material to arrive in time, the new court room was not ready for occupancy as it was expected it would be and the commissioners rented Rogers Hall for this term.

A visit to the Marion Centre Marble Works would surprise you, if you have not been there lately. Mr. Bramley has on hand about four thousand dollars worth of Italian marble, and he and his men are busy all the time working it up.