The Correspondent Called Spokane Poor and Dull. The Local Paper Fired Back.

Those wandering newspaper correspondents who deem themselves competent to pass judgment upon everything within range of their pen, and from whose decision there is no appeal, have been able to make a run over the Northern Pacific, and one of them slings together a column-ulation for a Portland paper, in which he has the effrontery to write of Spokane Falls as follows:

"We look with an anxious eye for Spokane Falls, as from far in the East and through the middle States the name is familiar to every person, and, of course, we must stop and look at the great water falls and country around. So far as the water power is concerned, it is all that can be desired, and may in time be utilized, but it will be many a day before this becomes a manufacturing city. To make a manufacturing city requires a country to furnish the raw material, and as the country closely around this city is poor, it will afford but little grain for the mills of Spokane, and in case the company should continue to place branch feeders into the interior, of course, grain, when once loaded, would be sent directly to the East, and soon to European markets. Yet many people who have made money in Spokane have confidence in the place and are spending large sums in improvements. It certainly has every prospect to make quite a city. Property is high, and many speculators are wild over the future prospects. The hotels are full to overflowing with sight-seers and prospectors. Business is dull, and many shop-keepers and business men now acknowledge they never saw such dull times and money so scarce. Aside from the men employed in the erection of the numerous business houses, it is quiet. Large bills for lumber have been sent in to the mills, and it seems as if the building boom would never cease."

The great observer signs himself "Burkeye," when it should have been "Blind-eye." It is evident that the extent of his observations, anxious as he may have been, were limited to a few minutes' view of the city, or that some unaccountable prejudice has induced him to make statements that the facts will not support him in. When he says that the country is poor, he gives himself away. He did not go out and look at the country tributary to the Falls, or take notice of the large amount of grain coming into the city, even in this unpropitious season. The mill owners here have no fears that the country will not produce grain sufficient to run the mills. If such was the case two of the oldest settlers in the county would not have hoarded thousands of dollars in the largest flouring mill in the Territory. His further statement that business is dull is one of the most absurd absurdities in the letter. It does look that way when the city is daily full of vehicles, when every merchant and laborer has about all that they can conveniently attend to; when stocks of goods are arriving from the East and West larger than ever before opened here, and new firms are going into business almost every week. If these are symptoms of dullness then Spokane has it worse than any city on the coast. A little adhesion to facts by correspondents would greatly improve their standing for veracity, and would, at the same time, make their productions just as readable, if not more so. We do not object to just criticism, but mistakes of the calibre as quoted are too heavy to pass unnoticed.