Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1869-02-04
For the Herald
The SOUTH SEEN THROUGH NORTH
ERM SPECTACLES.
Editors Fayetie County Herald.

having just returned from q tou
in the South, and having seen mucE
of that interesting country and it,
people, I feel it my duty to say
something in regard to both MY
observations being more particular.
ly confined to the Gulf States, it is
of those that shall principally
speak.
have paid an annual visit to the
South for three consecutive years.
have been thus enabled to note
whatever change has been made,
whether favorable or unfavorable,
in that time, which embraces the
principal time that has elapsed since
the close of the War; or, as they
like to term it, the "Surrender.
And first in regard to the natural
condition of the country at the
present time, If a person that has
never seen the South should go
there to-day, imbued with the no.
tion that he would find a literal
paradise of beauty and enjoyment,
! need not say that he would soon
be undeceived. Dilapidated plan
tations, with buildings and fencing
going to decay, would meet him on
every hand. bitches filled up from
the neglect of half a decade of
years, and water standing on all the
low-lands, when the cane is again
claiming its former lost domain; 4;
and in many instances relapsing
into its old savag condition of
forest and canebrake, and from
whose sta gnant waters, Malaria,
in its most venimous form, poisons
the atmosphere, and brings disease
and death into many households,
1t is fact, that the last year, at
least in many localities, has been
the most sickly, and fatal to life, of
any since the war, When life is
not destroyed, or the disease com
pletelY arrested, there is a chronic
condition produced, called "Chron-
ic Chills," characterize6 by great
pallor, listlessness and emaciation,
with occasional chiIls, that remain
from year to year; and in children
gives rise to morbid appetite for
chalk, einders and clay; hence, the
origin Of CLAY eaters" that has so
often called down the ridicule of ig-
norant and superficial travellers,
who, ignoring the great fact Of
mans dependence upon his sur
roundings or conditions for what
he is, sees no great Biologic law at
work, but only a theme of ridicule
and contempt. But, happily, these
last observations apply only to the
low-lands of the South, while a vast
majority Of the country is as salu-
brious as any Of the Western States
similarly situated in regard to drain
age, with a climate and soil unsur-
passed in the world.
During the old regime of Sla-
very, the planter estimated his
wealth by the number of slaves he
called his own. In other words,
5he slaves were the real estate, and
.ands, DC. the chattels. The con-
sequence was, that the most un-
heard of system Of agriculture was
adopted that has been the misfor-
iune Of any people of ancient or
modern times to adopt Land, the
source of wealth in that
country, and one of the chief ele-
nents Of wealth in all countries,
vas sacrificed in half a dozen years !
If careless and wasteful farming,
md new plantations opened for the
slow, as the old ones wore out or
washed away. When the son of
planter in one of the older Slave {
States-the Carelinas or Georgia
,ame to mans estate, he was pre- |
'ented with a certain number OF
ilaves and a few thousand dollars,
md the advice: $50, my son, to /
he rich prairies of Alabama, or to q
he fertile aluvia Of the Mississippi,
vhere lands are worth only a dollar s
nd a quarter per acre; buy you a 4
ouple Of thousand acres, clear up b