The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1871-09-07
Letter from Dallas.
To the Editor of the Democratic Statesman.
DALLAS, August 81, 1871

There is little to communicate
from the city of the three forks of
Trinity-this central, fiourishing and
well grounded town of Dallas. The
location is too generally known to
need description; but of improve.
ments a word may not be amiss.
From the bluff on the river back for
two and half miles through the
timber, the whole land is already a
suburban, rural village. New houses,
completed and under way, are pros
miscously scattered hither and yon.
More than half of our present pops
ulation have settled within the past
two years. Till this summer, not
since the war, drouth has not dimin>
lshed the yield in crops; but this
season the lack of one good rain at
the right time, has caused a light
yield. Still, enough is made to meet
ordinary wants. A court house to
cost $50, 500, has just been commenced
on the site of the old one, to be built
of hard stone, and probably to be-
come the finest county house in the
late Republican province of Texas.
The people are to pay for 1.-THE
people of Dallas-a Democratic peo-
ple-and we protest in advance
against the usurpers at Austin
claiming any credit for it. So, too,
of our iron bridge over the Trinity
river, within two hundred yards of
the court house. 1t will cost about
$4,000 and will be a splendid
structure. On the town side it con-
meets directly with the bluff, on which
the young city stands. On the West
it is connected with the highlands by
an embarked road three fourths of a
mile long, covered with stone and
gravel. The pensioned tyrants at
Austin, who Independently claim
every improvement made by any of
our people in any part of the State,
as their work, or the result of their
possession of power, have no hand
in these fine improvements. On the
contrary, their plundering taxation of
the people for schemes designed to
perpetuate their power, constituted
the only objections on the part of
the people to these honest and legiti-
mate expenditures. Indeed, go
where you will, you will find i'm
proVements retarded and the people
fearful to assume such burthens for
local or county development, because
of the enormous taxation fastened
upon them by the corrupt Radical
gang who rule over them. With an
undoubted majority of thirty to forty
thousand of the real citizens of Tex
as Counting both white and black
opposed to their enthroned despot,
ism; the people disarmed, and ats
hiyed and mercenary minions (pald
with money forced from the honest
yeomanry of the State scattered all
over the country, loaded down with
arms, bearing secret instructions and
fulfilling the mission of irresponsible
espionage, it is but natural that men
are indisposed to do more than is re-
quired of them. They prefer to await
a better day, until they can elect
honest citizens of the country to
make and to administer the laws.
May God, in his mercy, hasten the
day; and to this end, it becomes the
solemn duty of every man, worthy to
live in a free state, to labor, to regis
ter and to vote-not once, but every
time, till the people regain the right
to self-gOVernment.
The canvass in this district for
Congress is progressing earnestly and