Five and a half columns on page 5 were devoted to local news. One local feature, "At the County Jail," reads as follows:
Jailer Chamberlain has over 100 prisoners in his charge now at the county bastile, and they represent about all the crimes in the catalogue. Some kind Christian ladies gave a song and prayer service for the benefit of the inmates yesterday afternoon, and as their sweet voices rang through the history-haunted corrider many a wayward heart must have been touched and softened by sacred recollections, and perhaps, purified and exalted by the soft glow of awakened hope. Could they have seen it, what a contrast the warmer glamour of the afternoon sun, resting like a golden benediction on the pensive autumnal beauty of the world outside, would have been to those charged with the darker crimes! But it is still necessary for the jailer to see that the locks are secure.
A chatty, leisurely interview with a pioneer was a feature of this first number of the Sun. It is reproduced here for the sake of contrast with the interviewing of a later day:
"Speaking of the Sayers murder," said an old Portlander to a representative of the Sun, as the two were walking along First street yesterday afternoon engaged in a general conversation, during which the recent mysterious tragedy was brought up, "I have something to tell you. Come with me.'"
Accompanying the kindly and loquacious old gentleman as requested, the reporter and his escort went south on First street to Taylor, and thence east on Taylor toward Front, on the south side.
"Did you ever hear of the Balch murder case?" asked the old man.
"Only in a general way," answered the reporter; "it was long before my advent in Portland, you understand." (1857.)
(Here follows 2-3 of a column of the Balch-Stump murder story.)
The reporter, letting the reader see the wheels of the interview turning throughout, ends the story thus:
Then the old gentleman, suddenly taking out his watch, exclaimed: "Jemminy! I have talked until it is too late for church, and now let us go and. . ." Perhaps they did.
The story as a whole reinforces the probability that they "did."
The paper had hard sledding throughout its brief career. It was fairly readable and in easier times it might have had a measure of success. But this was 1894, the nadir of the depression. Money was
