and every printer in the city was notified
to be in readiness for the approaching typographical struggle. One
year one of the proprietors of the Minnesotian thought he would
surprise the other offices, and he procured the fastest livery team In
the city and went down the river as far as Red Wing to intercept the
mail coach, and expected to return to St. Paul three or four hours in
advance of the regular mail, which would give him that much advantage
over his competitors. Owing to some miscalculation as to the time the
stage left Chicago the message was delivered in St. Paul twenty-four
hours earlier than was expected, and the proprietor of the Minnesotian
had the pleasure of receiving a copy of his own paper, containing the
complete message, long before he returned to St. Paul. The management
always provided an oyster supper for the employes of the paper first
out with the message, and it generally required a week for the typos
to fully recover from its effect.

* * * * *

As an evidence of what was uppermost in the minds of most people at
this time, and is probably still true to-day, it may be related that
in the spring of 1860, when the great prize fight between Heenan and
Sayers was to occur in England, and the meeting of the Democratic
national convention in Charleston, in which the Minnesota Democrats
were in hopes that their idol, Stephen A. Douglas, would be nominated
for president, the first question asked by the people I would meet on
the way from the boat landing to the office would be: "Anything from
the prize fight? What is the news from the Charleston convention?"

* * * * *

"The good old times" printers often talk about were evidently not the
years between the great panic of 1857 and the breaking out of the
Civil war in 1861. Wages were low and there was absolutely no money to
speak of. When a man did occasionally get a dollar he was not sure it
would be worth its face value when the next boat would arrive with
a new Bank Note Reporter. Married men considered themselves very
fortunate when they could get, on Saturday night, an order on a
grocery or dry goods store for four or five dollars, and the single
men seldom received more than $2 or $3 cash. That was not more than
half enough to pay their board bill. This state of affairs continued
until the Press was started in 1861, when Gov. Marshall inaugurated
the custom, which still prevails,