Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1870-06-27

We are permitted to make the fol-
lowing extracts from a private letter
to one of the editors of the APPEAL,
dated Kemper county, Mississippi,
June 10Th.
81 get the APPEAL tolerably regu-
larry now. / see that Mississippi and
her affairs are very much canvassed
in it. Let me see if it (the APPEAL)
has any influence in urging upon the
people to give something more than
a passive attention to the raScality of
the present tax gathering in this
region. 1t is one more item in the
long list Of oppression and rObberies
that we are grooming under. The tax
collector comes to us to collect a poll
tax of 1915 and brings to u next
%neighbor a charge of 81 10
for the same, accompanied with
a threat that if it is
not paid Immediately he will seize
his uhe neighbor's) hogs, which are
his sole dependence for meat; that he
collects $40 on a tract Of 100 acres of
| barren land; that his collections are
Everywhere varied and outrageous,
and that he is collecting from poor
country physicians, whose practice
does not pay them 500 a year; that
this same noble official, meantime on
his rounds, turns his hand to peddling
\ patent medicines; is agent for q petty
lottery, and takes subscriptions 20 a
book for which he is canvassing-dbi
wiutOua paying a cent Of license to do
the same.
"Yet we have a quiet time-no dis
turbances between the whites and ne
groes, and no sign of ill feeling among
them. Everybody, of both cOlors,
seems intent on only n thing
making a good crop. The negroes
are remarkably web behaved.
1--WE live near the public road,
and numbers as passing at all hours
of the day, and whenever / meet one
salutation.' = = =
Another letter, from the same Sec
ton, written, like the former, with no
view of publication, contains an ac-
count of the following
THRILLING INCIDENT,
written with no view Of publication,
however. The 6 Massie" is an in
FAINT some two years Old.)
g [ wonder that I've written half a
page without telling you of a small
break in the mOnOtOny of Our lives by
a visit from a panther, and no baby
of its Kind. Last Sunday afternoon,
about four o'clock, the weather being
quite warm, and the stiffness SC in
tense, Massie and l stretched out Tor
a nap. /, 1t seems, was the brewster
of the two, for, unknown to me, Mas
| sic slipped down and WentOu to play
j alone, around the back of the house
and kitchen. To understand what
peril the child was in, you must know
there is a pig-pen, containing two
pet pigs, occupying the space between
/ the smoke house and the fence (which
is of pickets). Idon't think she had
I been out Over five minutes when |
missed her from my side and brought
her in the house, walked to the front
window, not owe twenty steps from
she same fence, and just as l looked out
Saw my chickens scattering, and an
animal bounding along to the road
fence, thirty or forty feet of. l first
thought it was a large brindle dog OF
| one ofmy n%eighbOrs, but as it mounted
the fence l saw it was a huge var
mint of some kind. He crossed the
road, carrying one of my biggest
! chickens, clambered another fence,
went through a sand bottom, the con-
dition of the soil of which is such that
the tracks are there now, went over
another fence, a hundred yards from
my post, and disappeared in a willow
thicket. Five minutes more, and my
baby would have been the victim OF
the horrible creatures rapacity.
Everybody, white and black, who
have passed here since, have been
asked to stop and examine the tracks,
and the universal judgment is that
''that panther was no baby" I went
out and traced him where he had
come down the broad, open road, III
front Of the gate, which must have
been while l was trying to cOax Mas
sic to sleep, went up around the
field, got Over and came down back of
the kitchen, to the pig-pen, but seeing
a more convenient prey he made of
with it."