In 1878 there were raised in the state 295,000 hogs, and in 1879 a total of 700,000, an increase of nearly 250 per cent. There are raised annually at the present time in Nebraska over 300,000 cattle and 250,000 sheep.
The high license liquor law was passed in Nebraska in 1883, requiring the paying of $1,000 for license to sell liquor in a town of 1,000 inhabitants or more, and $500 elsewhere, all of which is thrown into the common school fund and must be paid before a drink is sold. Liquor dealers and saloon keepers are responsible for all damages or harm done by or to those to whom they have sold liquor while under its influence.
During my stay of almost three months in the state, I saw but seven intoxicated men and I looked sharp and counted every one who showed the least signs of having been drinking. There are but few hotels in the state that keep a bar. I did not learn of one. Lincoln has 18,000 of a population and but twelve saloons. Drinking is not popular in Nebraska.
I will add section 1 of Nebraska's laws on the rights of married women.
"The property, real and personal, which any woman in this state may own at the time of her marriage, and the rents, issues, profits, or proceeds thereof, and any real, personal, or mixed property which shall come to her by descent, devise, or the gift of any person except her husband, or which she shall acquire by purchase or otherwise, shall remain her sole and separate property, notwithstanding her marriage, and shall not be subject to the disposal of her husband, or liable for his debts.
"The property of the husband shall not be liable for any debt contracted by the wife before marriage."
The overland pony express, which was the first regular mail transportation across the state, was started in 1860 and lasted two years. The distance from St. Joseph, Missouri, to San Francisco was about 2,000 miles and was run in thirteen days. The principal stations were St. Joseph and Marysville, Mo.; Ft. Kearney, Neb.; Laramie and Ft. Bridger, Wy. T.; Salt Lake, Utah; Camp Floyd and Carson City, Nev.; Placerville, Sacramento, and San Francisco, Cal. Express messengers left once a week with ten pounds of matter; salary $1,200 per month; carriage on one-fourth ounce was five dollars in gold. But in the two years the company's loss was $200,000. Election news was carried from St. Joseph, Mo., to Denver City, Col., a distance of 628 miles in sixty-nine hours. A telegraph line was erected in Nebraska, 1862; now Nebraska can boast of nearly 3,000 miles of railroad.
I want to say that I find it is the truly energetic and enterprising people who come west. People who have the energy and enterprise that enable them to leave the old home and endure the privations of a new country for a few years that they may live much better in the "after while," than they could hope to do in the old home, and are a people of ambition and true worth. The first lesson taught to those who come west by those who have gone before and know what it is to be strangers in a strange land, is true kindness and hospitality, and but few fail to learn it well and profit by it, and are ready to teach it by precept and example to those who follow. It is the same lesson our dear great-grandfathers and mothers learned when they helped to fell the forests and make a grand good state out of "Penn's Woods." But their children's children are forgetting it. Yet I find that Pennsylvania has furnished Nebraska with some of her best people. Would it not be a good idea for the Pennamites of Nebraska to each year hold Pennsylvania day, and every one who come from the dear old hills, meet and have a general hand-shaking and talk with old neighbors and friends. I know Nebraska could not but be proud of her Pennsylvanian children.
LINCOLN.
In 1867 an act was passed by the state legislature, then in session at Omaha, appointing a commission consisting of Gov. Butler, Secretary of State T. P. Kennard, and Auditor of State J. Gillespie to select and locate a new capital out on the frontier. After some search the present capital site was chosen—then a wild waste of grasses, where a few scattered settlers gathered at a log cabin to receive the mail that once a week was carried to them on horseback to the Lancaster post-office of Lancaster county. The site is 65 miles west of the Missouri river, and 1,114 feet above sea level, and on the "divide" between Antelope and Salt Creeks. 900 acres were platted into lots and broad streets, reserving ample ground for all necessary public buildings, and the new capital was named in honor of him for whom Columbia yet mourned. Previous to the founding of Lincoln by the state, a Methodist minister named Young had selected a part of the land, and founded a paper town and called it Lancaster.