Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1872-08-21
EAST TENNESSEE.
Sublime Mountain Fastnesses-Adven.
lures in Search Of Health.

r KNoxvILLE, August Is, 1872.
Last week the people of this city
thought that PlantamOur had certainly
q and truly presaged the immediate ruin
d of all things. They were preparing TO
fuse into one indistinguishable mass of
amalgamated humanity, when the heav-
ems relented. The bowelsOf thesky were
moved compassionately, and tears fell.
1t rained for twenty-seven consecutive
hours, at the end of which gasping hui
man nature, in common with ducks and
geese, walked forth, and padded and
: waddled delightedly in the rushing
S floods, and all were cleansed, cooled and
/ refreshed. The weather has been COM
= Portable since, with no prospect Of the
return this season of the ealOrific terrOrs
4 Of the past month.
FEW RAILROAD WRINKLES.
AS you have a vast numbered railroad
. men Of all sorts among your subscrib-
ers, l have Yentured for their benefit to
= inquire into the particulars and details
: of what seems to me a wonderful econ
Omy in railway management. | re-
q ferred slightly TO this subject before, but
every days observation increases my as
1 constituent. Yesterday l visited the
shops here in company with Captain
( \ SUkHaG-f III LDOh BAGA1N4C III ca = Z
I ing things for me, as did also the gentle
men who run the various departments.
i The roads, remember for which these
shop do all the work, are three hundred
and twenty-five miles in length, being
, the combined East Tennessee and Vir-
ginia, and the East Tennessee and
Georgia, with their various branches,
? having forty-three engines in all, forty
one of which are in running order. This
shOp-an oblOng structure of wood is
full OF machinery, in fact the machines
are packed close in it. The building is
not much larger than that of Cubbins &
Gum, and there are no more men
working in it. Here is done all the
work of all that vast stretch ofroad with
its countless number of cars of all sorts,
and its fOrty-three engines. New wheels
and new trucks even are put in, broken
down engines are taken apart and re-
built as good as new, and old cars are
refitted up in a style eXcelling the origi-
nal. The iron used is rolled in the neigh
borhoOd, and the wheels are made right
here. 1t may be said that, owing to the
great facilities in procuring all classes of
iron-and each the best of its sort-and
Of procuring cheap coal and cheap and
efficient labor, railroad work can be |
done more ad-vantageously here than
anywhere outside of Pittsburg or Harris
burg. There are only two chiefs in those
shops-the principal mechanic and the
principal car-builder. l found both men
up to their eyes in work, and besmeared
with SCOT and paint. They work as hard
rs the veriest r~Oustabout. Nearly all the
men employed have been servants of the
company since the road started, are set
tied here, and have their WI neat cot
tages to live in, 50 that they get along
most happily. Jaques is like a father to
them. At present there are several new
cars in course of construction. 1t is ex-
pected that in a short time all the ears,
both freight and passenger, required on
these roads will be built here.
BTTUBLINOUs FACTS.
l learned a few dry facts about the
coal of Coal creek, in this county, which
[ think may be of value to the con-
| sumers of Memphis. This coal mine is
situated on the Knoxville and Kentucky
road, a few miles from the city, and is
vigorously worked by Wiley McEwen
K Co., of this city. The quality of the
coal taken out is not inferior to Pitts
burg. 1t is laid down at the depot here
for nine cents per bushelfOr blacksmitn's
coal and thirteen cents for coarse coal. /
find, and it is the only data 1 have to go
on, that this coarse coal is transported to
Dalton, Georgia, and laid down there at
nineteen cents per bushel. / don't see
why some profitable arrangement could
not be made by the consumers of Mem
phis, with the Charleston road, by which
coal could be landed with you for
twenty or twenty-one cents per busheL.
As the route is clear all the winter, and /
a great number of empty freight cars {
will be constantly returning over this
route, from Norfolk, Memphis could q
at least be kept from ever expe- c
riencing a want of fuel when i
the frosts of winter pinch the toes of q
the impoverished. The beneficial re- l
suits of an arrangement, such as l have c
limited at, are not to be questioned. |
After a time, when things would run I
more smoothly, an extensive business i
might spring from this beginning. l 9
confidently prognOsticate that the man c
who starts the business-gets up a ward \
for the exclusive sale of the coal-wiH 7
make a fortune. |
ARIsTOCRACY OF THE HILLS AND HoL- t
LOWS. d
Conventions everywhere develop pc q
culiar features once in a while. The l
general outlines are much the same. 1t {
is only after scraping off the cuticle and t
coming at the epidermis that East Ten C
nessee conventions appear to be different q
rom conventions anywhere else. The l
choice of candidates up here is Almighty
difficult thing. They do not go in on
their merits. How could they where all o
hands are alike, as much alike as beans s
in a sack. The same political and con- v
stitutional acumen (all derived from 5
Andy Johnson) is found from Sullivan fl
county down to Hamilton. Then, as to a
social or ancestral superiority, such a G.
thing is preposterous. They are all re- Il
and lineally descendants from Il
Watauga colonists, everyone of e.
whose ancestors were heroes, and either I
a "bar" or shot an Indian. This II
is the patent of East Tennessee nobility.
You thought, down in Shelby, that you .
had done pretty well at meetings, eau A
cuses, conventions and squabbles in the II
political line this year, and that you had u
IabOred, shouted, sweated and voted Il
nObly in the caus of the country. The as
0rilliancy of your patriotic efforts is as OF
the glimmer of the smallest star to the e
effulgence of the sun, in COM Il
with the efforts of East Tennessee OF
politicians. They met, caucussed and u
eonyentioned necessarily, all over the u
since summer commenced. Their A
persistence, in this respect, is a phe-
nomenOn. This place must have been q,
The birthplace, these mountains must n,
have been the very creators, of Ameri- a,
can politics. The people grow fat and .,
in the storm of conventions. 1t is r.
and drink to them. Frogs in az
ponds hOney-bees on flowers and butter En-
disporting in the sunbeams do not Ie
eel more blissfully at home thar a gen. h.
line East Tennesseeans when he is in M
he prolonged act OF saving the country I
It a convention. They step over one IN
hundred and fifty miles of rugged ter 70
itOry, going to a caucus, with the light M
Dotted alacrity of a petrOleUSe going to o.
he guillotine, willing, nay, anxious, to or
lie in the cause of the country, M
nd thus become immortal. The bc
Vest Tennessee pleasures of the bran i'm
lance, the barbecue, the picnic, the ball, ms
he frolic, and s'the shooting scrape, are y,
II combined in a political convention ET
p here. What the Olympian games tb
we're to the Greek, Gladiatorial exhibit or
ions to the Romans, Donybrook to Dub IN
n Jacknees, a ~bull-baiting to the Mex he
or an execution to the denizens of sa
be Faubourg st. Antoine, a political no
aucus is to an East Tennesseean. The -
excitement, the wire pulling, the trans
endant Importance of the thing, in his
stimation, are of equal gravity with to-
be events at Sedan. Every man in a in
istrict has aspirations. Why not? His hi
laims are exactly equal, if not superior, OF
every other mans. His ancestor TIC
rossed the mountain the day before I'll
very other mans ancestor did: and he ca
not the same Indian that every other er'
lan's progeniter shot, if not that In no
it was his father, which is as good, tn,
not better. The difference in the tn,
of getting nominated in the two en-
is curious. The Radical COM ev.
go. a. -ae..4 - cid