Winter in Marietta

The Marietta Times, December 29, 1864

The holidays, so far as we know, are passing off pleasantly and agreeably to all.  Fine dinners and social gatherings are numerous among the older persons, while urchins throng the streets with their Jackson crackers, torpedoes, and other articles of amusement.  A good many country folks have come into the city during the week, and they all seem to partake of the general good feeling and hilarity which the annual return of the holidays is sure to bring.

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There was fine skating for a few days, last week, on the ice which had formed over the back water on Second street, between the Court House and the new Methodist Church.  The sudden change of weather and the moderating rays of Old Sol, however, soon put a stop to that healthful exercise.

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Mud! Mud! Mud! wherever you go, is found dirty, sloppy mud.  A city of as much pretension as Marietta should be kept clean and neat.  If it can be done in no other way, let the streets be Macadamized.  The authorities should be ashamed to see the streets in the condition they are, looking as they do, like highways through marshy places.  We trust something will be done to abate the nuisance.

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"Light, more light," is needed in Marietta.  For a week past, the street lamps have not been lighted at nights and pedestrians have been compelled to pick their way through slushy mud and midnight darkness as best they could.  On Christmas eve, business houses were lighted up with common candles - a source of great annoyance to merchants and grocerymen, as on that evening, they were unusually thronged, and the fine things they had fitted up for the holidays showed to very little advantage. We know not the cause of these things.  If it be the fault of the gas company, we hope they may soon be able to supply the city with sufficient gas; but if the contract for supplying the city is ended, by virtue of limitations, then it should be renewed without further delay.