The Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1837-1867, 1863-03-27
The Poor Whites.

of class of people called by the slavehol
ders, "poor white folks" and "the tallow
: faced gentry" from their palid complexion
They live in wretched novels dress slatternly
and are exceedingly filthy in their habits.
Many of them are clay or dirt-eaters, which
is said to cause their peculiar complexion.
!, Their children, at very early age, form this
. filthy and disgusting habit, and mere infants
may be found with their mouths filled with
dirt. The mud with which they daub the
interstices between the logs of their rude
domiciles, must be frequently renewed, as
the occupants pick it all out in very short
time, and eat it. This pernicious practice in
duces disease. The complexion becomes
pale, similar to that occasioned by chronic
ague and fever.
Akin to this is the practice of snuff dipping,
which is not confined exclusively to females
of the poor white caste, though scarcely one
in fifty of this class is exempt from the dis
gusting habit The method is this The
female snutf-dipper takes short stick, and
wetting it with her saliva, dips it into her
snuff box. and then rubs the gathered dust
all about her mouth and into the interstices
of her teeth, where she allows it to remain
until its strength has beer fully absorbed
Others hold the stick thus loaded with snuff
in the cheek, q Ia quid of tobacco, and suck
it with a decided relish while engaged in
their ordinary avocations; while others SIM
ply fill tie mouth with the snuff, and initiate
to al intents and purposes, the chewing pro-
pensltIes of the men. In the absence Of
snutf, tobacco in the plug or leaf is invariably
resorted to as a substitute. Oriental betel-
chewing, and the japanese fashion of black
lrg the teeth Of married ladies, are the hight
of elegance compared with snufdipping
The habit leads to a speedy decay of the
teeth, and 10 nervous disorders of every
kind. Those who indulge il it become hao-
gard at a very early age.
The Petersburg (Va.) Express estimates
the number of women in that state as one
hundred ard twenty-five thousand, one hun
dred thousand of them are snuff. d;ppers
Every five of these will use two ounce pa
per Of snuff per day; that is, to the hundred
thousand dippers, two thousand five hundred
pounds day, amounting, in one year, TO the
enormous quantity of nine hundred and
twelve thousand pounds. This practice pre-
walls generally,It says, among the poor whites,
though some females of the higher classes
are guilty of it.
The poor whites obtain their subsistence
as far as practicable, in the primitive abor-
ginal mode viz. by hunting and fishing. When
these methods fail to afford supply, they
cultivate a truchpatch, and some of them
raise bale or two of cotton, which the pro-
ceeds of the sale of which they buy whiskey,
tobacco, and few necessary articles. When
all other methods fail, they resort to stealing,
to which many of them are addicted from
choice, as well as from necessity. They are
exceeding slovenly in their habits, cleanliness
being rare virtue. In lolence is a prevail
ing vice, and its lamen;able effects are every
where visible. They fully obey the scriptu-
raj injunction, take no thought for the NOR
row. a present supply, sufficient to satisfy
natures most urgent demands, being obtain
ed, their care ceases, and they relapse into
listless inactivity. They herd together upon
the poor sand hills the refuse land of the
country, which the rich Shareholder will not
purchase, for which reason they are some
times called sand -hillers, and here they live.
and their children, and their children's chill
dren, through successive generations, in the
same deporable condition of wretchedness
and degradation.
They are exceedingly ignorant; not one
adult in fifty can write; not one in twenty
can read. They can scarcely be said to speak
the English language, using patois which
is scarcely ntellisble. An old lady thus re-
lated an incident of which her daughter
Sal was the heroine. My darter Sal yis
terday sot the lather to the damsel tree, and
elm up, and knocked some of the incest SAT-
test damsels | ever seen in my born days.
| once called to make some inquiry about
the road, at small log tenemeat, inhabited
by a sard-hiiler ard family. A sheet was
h@-sing upon the wall, containing the por-
traits of the Presidents of the United States.
remarked TO the lady of the housc, that
those were, | believed, the pictures of the
Presidents.
: -" Yes she replied; 81 they is, and I've
hearh tell of EN- long time They must
he gittin' mighty DID, ef some of 'em amt
dead. That top one she continued, "is
Gineral Washington. I've hearn tel! of him
ever sence was gal. He must be gittin up
, in years, ef he aint dead. Him and Gineral
Jackson fit the British and Tories at New
Orleans, and whipped EN- too"
She seemed to pride herself greatly on her
. historical knowledge.
: One of these geniuses once informed me
of peculiar kind of book he'd hearn tell
on" that the Yankees had. He had forgotten
lis name, but thus described it: "It told the
day of the week the month come in. 1t told
when we was gwine to have rain, and what
kind of weather we was gwine to have in
gineral. May be they called it rain-book"