Jeffersonian Republican. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1840-1853, 1851-03-27
Life in North Carolina.

Life in North Carolina.
Rev. William S. BalcI Of New York, has been
down in North Carolina, preaching, and has writ
ten home to the Christian Messenger some notes
of his travels The following is the account ofhis
first days wheeling through the heart of the state,
after leaving the railroad at Goldsborough:
"After breakfast | started in an open buggy for
Kinston | saw by the map that it lay in the
line to this place. No body at Goldsborougy nor
the conductor Or superintedent of the railroad who
was along could tell me the distance or the way
to get there. So had to start at hazard, with
a /" boy" which means here slave, and a small
miserable looking horse. Goldsborough has a
little courthouse, and dozen or two dwellings
and slave-huts scattered among the pine-trees in
the widest imaginable confusion. A little way
out saw a small dingy building, the "boy' said
was school-house. We passed on, and such a
road and such q country, and such houses, and
such people, and such day! Oh! heavens |
did not expect to see all this in the ''sunny and
chiyalrous South These scattered plantations,
with a few wretched log huts dropped down in
the edge of the woods, all open, and dirty, and COM
fortress cabins Ireland why Irish mud-hovels
are palaces of comfort compared with many of
them, for they are dry and warm. Their thick
walls and thatched roofs, protect the starved in
mates from the chill night and drenching rains
These do neither. But these are negroes! No
not all of them for | saw some whites in as
wretched plight as ever saw in Ireland or Italy
one family a few miles out of Godsborough,
which for destitution surpassed anything | ever
behed or dreamed of in my life. The "boy' stop
4 ped to water his horse. For an excuse | stepped
to the door to borrow a cup for some drink Two
laxen-haired boys, about the door, one, it might
be FIVE the other three, with what were shirts once,
hanging on their shoulders, and strnging in rags
down to their hips, constituted all their clothing,
and the day was chill and wet. Inside was an IN
fant. eight or nine months old, dressed as the 9TH
ers, and lying on the floor. On the bench of
loom, standing near the fire, was sitting the tall
/ figure, or rather the shadow of woman. She
left her loom, and took down the only tea cup, and
handed it to me. | regarded her pale, cadaverous
visage, as she lifted her sunken eyes to me for an
unexpectedly human skeleton stand up before
him: and shrunk from her with similar feelings.
I could not speak. | took the cup from her atten-
uated fingers, and went to the well-a hole dug in
the ground, six or eight feet deep, with no stick or
stone to curb it, except above the ground As |
returned it, noticed young woman sitting IN the
corner of the fireplace, close down to the tre, as
if shaking with the ague. Such picture OF des-
titutjon and misery did not see in Kerry, Clare,
or Galway. The nearest approach to it | saw in
Tivoli, near Rome.
I have not time to describe other scenes, but
mass on through holes of shallow mud, from one to
fen rods long, ford small streams meeting once in
long distance some pale, siekly, ragged, wretch
ed looking man, and now and then negro, some
on the backs of small poor horses, which are har-
messed into old CARTS botched up of round pine
sticks, on which are single barrels of picth. In
some cases met similar carts with single OK
!, harnessed in--not cows as are seen IN Germany
In a few cases | saw men on horseback but met
but two earriges and the stage with one passen-
ger in it, in all day, and journey of thlrty-iour
miles.
/ An eccentric parson in the Old Dominion who
is known by the somewhat unique name Of Ser
f want Jones. once dined with Mr.. Owl. Mr.. Owl
Al