The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-20
THE NOVEMBER MAGAZINES.
,sLIPPINCOTr,s."


LSppincOtt'S Magazine are as follows
Crackers" by j. H. Bradford; eek
County" poem; 1.-THE Victims of Dreams"
story, by Margaret Hosmer; ga Polyglot
Empire" by Stephen Powers; ga Yankee on
the Throne of France" by Arthur Fleming;
'Irene," tale, part ii; 'Three Triumphs,"
by Schele de We're; "The Stone Annals of the
Past" by Charles Morris; SIN Love with
Shadow" story, by I. A. Janvier; "The
CalvertFamily, by EugeneL Didier; ''Violets
in Autumn, poem, by Howard Glyndon;
''Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite,
novel, part vii, by Anthony Trollope; "Gos-
sip;" Literature of the Day"
From the paper entitled Crackers" by J.
ii. Bradford, which gives a very entertaining
account of the ''poor whites" of the Southern
States who go under that designation, we
take the following
The Crackers language is of peculiar con-
struction. He always 'reckons;" calls the
earth ''the yeath," and ears ''years;" utterly
disregards the in corn, and adds
the letter h to the pronoun 'it."
His father is his ''dad," his mother
his "mam." A friend is usually addressed
as ''hoss." A turkey is a "tuckey;" hornet,
q sthonet" For our friend drops his rs as
an Englishman his rs, and puts them in
where, according to popular prejudice, they
do not belong. A worm is ''wum; flask
is "tickler0 To go over a hill is to go
''over the top;" stone, whether small or
great, is crock" and women are generally
spoken of as ''heifers." To these peculiari-
ties of pronunciation and nomenclature add
q sort of lazy drawl, and you may obtain
some sort of notion of the Cracker mode Of
speech.
The Cracker is independent in his ideas
of dress or costume. A felt hat of non
descript color, but once probably white;
cotton shirt, innocent of plated bosom,
starch, or washing; and pair of homespun
or hickory" trousers stuck into his boots,
or, more generally, rolled up about half
foot above ow-quartered brogans, and show
ing an expanse of dirty ankle, complete the
attire of the man. The woman wears a
homespun gown: 1 cannot positively aver
that she does not wear anything else, but, to
the best of my knowledge and belief, she
does not. Children wear anything Or
nothing.
In fact, children among the Crackers have
but poor chance. Nature has her will with
them in SO far as a disregard of the appliances
of art is concerned, but she does not, after
all, seem to be SO good mother as some of
our modern philosophers would have us sup
pose. Only the hardest of the children
survive. And no wonder. So soon as the
infant has teeth to chew Gf he does not die
before they Gomez, he is fed with fat pork
is little else to feed him on, and often not
enough of them. The poor baby is thus
early familiar with the pangs of hunger.
To be sure, hunger is natural emotion, but
one not easy to get accustomed to. AS
consequence of this difficulty, the Cracker
child eats dirt to satisfy the continual cravings
of his stomach. This unsatisfactory diet gives
him whitewashy complexion, and plead
ing, wistful look about the eyes (Which seem
to have lost whatever light they once had).
Their Irregularities of feeding make Cracker
children almost uniformity pot-bellied. Thus
if they live to manhood, it is owing more to
the original strength of their constitutions
than to the effects of natures nursing or
any hygienic precautions taken by thsir
parents. If they do live, they grow to be
thin, wiry, strong and enduring men, with a
strong appetite for loafng, fighting, courting
the girls and drinking whisky.
The best proof l can adduce that they
make good fighting men is the fact that they
composed the mass of the Confederate army
in the late Rebellion. What kind of fighters
they are let those say who met them on the
Peninsula, at Antietam and Gettysburg, at
Chantilly and Chattanooga.
The Cracker possesses the virtue of hospi-
tality in a large degree. He will turn himself
and his wife out of the single four-poster to
give it to his transient guest with such genu-
inc, whole-souled generosity, aud will press
him to accept it with such an air of deer
anxiety, that doubts as to cleanliness of sheets
and hesitation from fear of the cinatG lectula
7iuS vanish at once; and one feels one sell
obliged to sacrifice ones personal feelings or
the great altar of true courtesy and genuine
hospitality.
He is, above all things, fond of a dance
Let him get niger fiddler and plenty OF
baldface whisky, and give forth the news thai
he expects his friends, and men and girls viii
come from acircuit of twenty miles. AnG
how he dances / can give no idea of i
unless some of my readers have seen fisher
mans hop on the coast of Maine. In tina
case they will be able to form some concep
tion of the style and character of Cracker
dance. Such shuffling aud double shuffiing
such pigeon wings, such tortuous and devi
GUS windiugs, as are there executed, truly
entitle the favorite measures to the Swivel
lerian appellation of ''the mazy" In NY
opinion man must get drunk in orde
to bear himself properly through suci
ter it.
But what a contempt the Cracker has 70
the 'rudimans,' When | was last so
journer in the Land of Flowers Cracke
who could read and write was consi dered al
extraordinary creature-a kind of woolly
horse or two-headed calf. once came acros
plantation, near the centre Of the peninsul
of Florida, belonging to a man who wa
worth, at the lowest calculation thirt,
thousand dollars. He had twenty ne
groes, made good crop of cotton, dabbet
IN sugar and indigo, and was growing richie
every year. He had four sons and two daugh
ters. The family dressed exactly as whel
dad" had first settled, lived in the same one