THE COUNTRY VISITOR.

He Is Here With His Wife, Sweetheart and Other Relatives.

Minneapolis yesterday morning woke up to the fact that the convention was upon her.

During the past 24 hours a large contingent of visitors has arrived from all parts of the country, and the streets have already a thronged appearance. Decorations sprang to life in the night, and have continued to unfold during the day. Private houses are gorgeous with flags and flowers and on the business streets bunting is lavishly displayed on many stores. Everybody who can spare the time is decorating.

And everybody in a desperate hurry. There is no disguising the fact that the city as a whole was not prepared for the rush so early in the week. The crowds were expected to begin pouring in by Saturday night and Sunday morning, but the stream is already in motion. So the final preparations must be made in a rush. Help is in great demand and hard to get. The employers are more numerous than those who care to be employed. The working man holds the balance of power and will till the great gathering is a thing of the past.

This early rush was no doubt induced to a great extent by the stories that have been circulated about the prospective difficulty of finding accomodations. All classes seem to be represented already. On the corner of Nicollet and Third this morning stood an aged couple looking about in a bewildered way.

"Where are the accomodation headquarters?" asked the old gentleman as the TRIBUNE man walked by.

"On the corner of Hennepin and Third." The reporter walked with them to the place. On the way the stranger told all about himself.

"We live out in South Dakota," he said. We have been in the West for 30 years and never near a convention before. We have worked hard, and though we haven't laid up much, I said to my wife we would go to this convention if we landed in the poor house for it. She thought it would be a reckless extravagance, but I told her to get ready, and here we are. What's the use in living in the world if you don't see some of the things going. There are thousands and thousands of people who live in the world and then die and go to heaven, or-or-well, who die without knowing half so much about this globe as they think they do about Heaven. Now, I have seen much of wild life; have fought Indians; have been whirled about in a cyclone; have fought hand to hand with a blizzard, and now I want to see a national convention and ___"

"But, do you think you can get into the hall?"

"Why, of course. I have voted the Republican ticket for-for-ever since the Republican party was born, and I guess I can get into a convention of my own party."

The reporter left them at the doors of the headquarters with that pleasing delusion undisturbed.

The sharks and the suckers are here. The former with all the outward appearance of respectable prosperity and the latter in open mouthed wonder, ready to fall into any act that may be spread for them.

The country swain, with his buxom lass, go up and down the streets hand in hand.