“Of course, the festive season brought with it regrets that would not be repressed, and longings that could not be satisfied, when processions of absent loved ones and severed friends followed the funerals of other Christmas-days through thoughts that would wander over snow, and ice, and land, and sea, to the happy firesides where we knew they were gathered. But every one looked on the bright side of things, and extracted as much comfort and pleasure as possible under the circumstances; we even knew one sordid individual who congratulated himself on the immunity of his exchequer from the heavy drafts generally entailed by the purchase of Christmas presents. We have not space to enter into a detailed account of all the happy features of the holiday. Altogether, our Christmas was a great success.”
By way of showing that there was nothing very frigid in the hearts of the explorers, another editorial is submitted, on the New Year:
“Christmas is gone, with all its pleasant associations, and we find ourselves on the threshold of a new year. What thoughts the day recalls to a reflective mind! the exodus of the old, the advent of the new year; the past and the future, history and prophecy, the ceaseless alternation of life and death, the eternity of nature.
“The day is suggestive in another way. Where were we a year ago? what doing? what looking forward to? Where shall we be a year from now? what will be our surroundings, and what shall we look back upon? How distant seemed this day a year ago! how short now seems the time that has since elapsed!
“The new year of 1882 finds us a community of twenty-five men, living through the cold and darkness of an Arctic winter, in a small house near the north pole, thousands of miles beyond any civilized habitation. A year ago saw us scattered—some in the cities, some on the plains of the far West, some occupied in quiet routine, some in the ceaseless changes and activity of the field. Will the next year find us here with our surroundings as satisfactory and auspicious? We trust so, and this day is eminently a day for making good resolutions. We are free agents, and the future depends, in great part, on ourselves. Let us, then, determine that, so far as lies within our power, we shall have no cause to look back with regret on the year just ushered in. The phrase is hackneyed, but none the less true:
‘Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these—it might have been.’”
And now we come to a contribution addressed to the editor of the “Arctic Moon,” as follows:
“As Grinnell Land is a recognized Territory of the United States, and has a territorial form of government, a delegate from this Territory is to be elected who is to take his seat at the opening of the Forty-seventh Congress. The undersigned offers himself as a candidate for the office, on the following platform: I am in favor of reaching the north pole by balloon, a liberal appropriation for the purchase of lime-juice, compulsory education, unlimited emigration, a homestead and sixty acres of land, one musk-ox and two Esquimaux dogs to each actual settler. I am also a strong advocate of woman’s rights, but there is no good in rights without the woman. I am prepared to ‘chaw’ the points on the above platform; I think it is ‘plump,’ and will stand without being propped up.
(Signed) “Connell.”
And now, under the general heading of “Moon-Beams,” we come to the following paragraphs, which are not only spicy, but characteristic of the time and place with which they are identified: