Republican vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1857, 1857-07-25
TIle Old "piantati0nS,"

| The London Times has sent over cor
respondent to do up the United States -
After some glimpses at The Northern States,
he has turned his course South, and from
Norfolk writes Of the Old Virginia .Planta-
tons in the style of the following extracts :
What is now called the 1dewatcr Dis
triet of Virginia, Or the whole of the sea-
! board westward to where the rivers that
rise in the chain Of the Alleghanies cease to
be nayigable, includes the tract first settled,
and celebrated, commercially and political
| ", for century and half, as 'the Planta-
tons Though cotton has since dethroned
tobacco from its ancient supremacy as 4 pro-
duet and an export. the ZANE this region so
long retained in history indicates the esti-
mate in which the weed was held there
were other plants, but the tobacco fields a.
lone were distinguished as the Plantations
At the present day the past Importance
Of this region seems to be out of proportion
to its extent A belt of land on the coast
about 200 miles long by 100 wide covers
the whole area of the once famous 'planta-
tons It is not a very large part Of the
State Of Virginia, with her existing boun-
daries, and it was very small fraction in
deed of the territory once included in them,
supposing those old limits were ever aeeu-
rately known. This small belt Of soil was
once actually the whole of British America,
and continued to be so till the New Eiag-
land settlements rose more slowly. Zen
times the extent of territory are now added
i to the American Union every year without
exciting the least notice as anything extra
ordinary Congress thinks nothing of yot-
ing as much land to a single railroad com
pany, the company thinks nothing it, and
it strikes no one as remarkable.
Considering the past celebrity of this to.
bacco- producing district, il is singular how
little the wealth it must have created has
done for the country itself 1t has not pco
pied it +; it has not created town or city o.
any magnitude and, descending the rivers
! the banks show scarcely village, and no
many scattered dwellings. From Washing.
ton to the sea, and from Richmond down II
this place, the Potomac and the James ap-
pear equally destitute Of life. Passing freH
the north to the south is like the transition
fron the rapids to still water; the popula.
ton of the south is not only more sparse hui
it is more fixed TO the soil. Ia the nor.l
every thru man Is going somewhere with {
earpet-bag between any two points al
kials Of eonyeyanees, by land or by water
are always full to their extreme eapacit,
aild often beyond it. There is perpetual
rushing to and fro by train and steamer
throughout the north and west at this mo
inentit is said the western trains cannot b
made large enough to convey the stream o
travel i'll that direction. But at Washing.
ton this rush ceases. The crowds who have
business ut the Federal capital, or make it
go no further, and the steps of the capital
are like a breakwater, against which the hui
man current dashes and is stayed. South
ward everything is easier. The sudden de-
crease in the number of travellers is at once
apparent, the change being far more per-
ceptible than anything in the aspect of the
country. Southern arrangements are gen
orally less hurried the people have more
time in the small towns some of them look
as if they had almost too much of it, and 4
visitor without what are called internal re-
sources would be very likely to feel the
same sensation.