The Celebration at Farnam

The following is a portion of the report of the celebration at Farnam as told by the Farnam Echo:

At ten o’clock it looked as though Farnam might come short on shade, but right in the midst of the “Indian attack” train No. 151 pulled in with the ball teams, the Eustis Cornet Band, uniformed, and a fine addition to the crowd. This was duly escorted up town, hence to the Athletic Park where a roomy grand stand and spacious “bowery” sheltered all who desired. The sun seemed intent on doing his part (scoring 95 degrees so early) to make the lines come true,

   “Earth, water, air and fire, with feeling glee,
   Exult to celebrate thy festival.”

Then occurred the first change in program, The ball game was moved to afternoon, the Eustis Band was guided to the place of honor, and the “literary” exercises were opened by them. They made music all right. We were next made sensible of the only drawback to the day—too stiff a breeze. That breeze was a hinderance [sic.] to many listeners. Each and every platform artist did their best, but there were spells when no human voice could carry more than 20 feet across that breeze.

The orator of the day, though a Methodist preacher, doesn’t often pose as “shouter,” but he let himself out that time.

And that’s just what Farnam and the crowd did, and so we had the biggest, cleanest, costliest, most enjoyable celebration on record, and it left us independent to do it again.

We hate to say it, but Bro. Hicks surely must have been asleep a major portion of the day. The News editor was in Farnam and observed a great deal more than is included in the above report. We saw various kinds of races, two ball games, various tights [?], dancing, a baloon [sic.] ascension, etc., all of which would have been mentioned in detail in the News had it occurred in Eustis. The Echo is a cute little sheet but more steam should be turned on, and more news given. Such a celebration is usually good for a couple of columns instead of a scant half column. The general verdict of the visitors from Eustis was “Very good, sister Farnam, we will come up again even though both our ball teams were defeated.”