Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1870-09-23
THE FLOATING POPULATION.
Our Reporter Among the FIatboats
nj he Mouth OF woIf River.

on as resistless as the tide to witness {
grand, solemn marriage. The soul-stir
ring music reaches every heart, the all
is laden with perfume, and every eye anc
ear is strained TO catch sight and
sound of the beautiful ceremony. Being
human and OF ordinary mold, he catches
the contagion, and fer the moment does
and feels as everybody else. An hour
later he is at coroner's inquest, held on
some wretch who blew his brains out to
keep from starving TO death or working
for living. Then he walks side by side
with undertakers, counts the silver nails
in gorgeous coffin which bears the re-
mains of one who leaves helpless
family, but nevertheless must be
buried in state. He ogles with pol
iticians; hears both sides of all ques-
tons; walks through millinery stores
whers the goddess of fashion dazzles the
eyes Of the silly multitude; attends wine
suppers where he is invited to report
Mr. Chinmusic's impromptu speech
written week before, but badly memoir
lied, and to make sense and melody out
of nonsense and bad grammar; he goes
to the opera, attends the brilliant fash
ionable balls, drinks to the health of the
reigning BELLE and goes off without any
supper. A curious life this, and unless
the man has fixed ideas and principles,
he will find himself sympathizing and
fraternizing with so many kinds of peo-
pie that he loses sight Of his own iden-
tity and forgets what church he belongs
to or prefers.
Yesterday a reporter connected with
this paper started out to find something
new and little out of the common run
of people and events. Having heard of
the floating population of Memphis, he
(we) supposed it must be on water, like
portions of Chinese cities, and accord
ingly visited the mouth Of Wolf river.
The floating population live in aatboats,
nearly two dozen of which are moored
to either bank between the present mouth
of the river and saw mill two hundred
yards above. This little community is o
part of Memphis, and yet not of it.
They have their technicalities and cour-
tesies of life adapted to their situation
A number of the inhabitants make a
living by fishing. One of them, Mr..
Dan Spore, very intelligent man, who
has been in Memphis thirty-seven years,
is quite large dealer in fish. On the
bank stands handsome wagon, which
visits the markets and his nu-
merous regular customers every day.
He lives in aatboat, divided into four
apartments and well furnished with
articles not only of comfort but ele-
gance. He owns handsome place in
Chelsea, but says he could never have
any health there, and so he leased out
his nice residence and grounds, and
moved his family back to the river for
their health. In Chelsea they were al
ways sick; on the river they have not
been sick for three years until this fall.
He remembers when the Mississippi
river ran strong where the old navy yard
is now situated. The shore then was
above where the saw-mill stands, and is
getting back in that direction every
year.
Two or three of these boats are en-
gagged in trading, and will proceed down
the river when satisfied with this market.
Some of them are occupied by ship
builders engaged at work on the new
boats building at the dock yard. All are
well supplied with yawls and ropes and
extra boards for the roof, and with chill
dren, clothes lines, fish nets and the va
rious paraphernalia which accumulates
about such places. All seem cheerful
anu Couichttui anu inc hOot VI thcm say
they enjoy better health there than on
land. They pay no ground rent, no
wharfage, little or no taxes, and proba-
bly, get along as well as any class of peo-
pie who make a living by daily labor.
They are certainly as peaceable and
pleasant and sociable as any we have
seen. we came away from there with
better opinion Of human nature, i'm
pressed with the conviction that all men
are near Of kin, and that the distinctions
of society" are often fictitious or i'm
agnary, and that such lines oftener il
lustrate the vanity of the human race
than any goodness or superior virture.
We certainly learned as much there in
one hour as could be learned in the first
two hours on any street corner or at the
gable end of Whisky Chute"