The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1872-03-30
Life i'm the Kansas Bottoms.

A Kansas magazinist, who evident
" paints from life, depicts the inhab-
liant of the low bottom lands of his
State in the following spirited man-
ner:
+" In the neighborhood saloon, with
few boon companions gathered
around the rusty stove choked with
the soggy driftwood, he drinks sod
corn from tin cup, plays old sledge
upon the head of an empty keg, and
reels home at nightfall, yelling through
the timber, to his squalid cabin. A
score of lean, hungry ours pour in a
canine cataract over the worm fence
by the horse-block, as their master ap-
proaches, baying deep-mouthed well
come, filling the chambers of the for
est with hoarse reverberations, min
gled with an explosion of oaths and
frantic imprecations. Snoring the
night away in drunken slumber under
heap of gray blankets, he crawls in
to his muddy jeans at sunup, takes,
a gurgling drink from fiat, black
bottle stoppered with cob, goes to
the g-pile by the front door, and with
dull axe slabs off an armftll of green
cottonwood to make fire for breakfast,
which consists of the inevitable meat
and bread, and decoction of coffee
burned to charcoal and drank with
out milk or sugar. Another pull at
the bottle, few grains of quinine, if
it is ager day, a chaw of navy, and
the repast is finished. The sweet de-
lights of home have been enjoyed,
and the spiritual creature goes forth,
invigorated for the struggle of life, to
repeal the exploits of every yesterday
of mis- existence
The leading politician and Beau
Brummel of the locality is described
as fellows: .ssf,
'' 70 the most minute observer his
age was q question of the grayest
doubt. He might have been 30; he
might have been century, with no
violation of the probabilities. His
hair was q sandy .sorref, something
like a Rembrant interior, and strayed
around his freckled scalp like the top
layer of a hayrick in tornado. His
eyes were two ulcers half filled with
pale-blue starch. A thin, sharp nose
projected above a lipless mouth that
seemed always upon the point of
breaking into the most grievous
lamentations, and never opened save
to take whisky and tobacco in, and
let oaths and saliva out. A low,
slender neck, yellow and wrinkled after
the manner of lizards belly, bore
this dome of thought upon its summit,
itself projecting from miscellaneous
assortment of gents furnishing goods,
which covered a frame of unearthly
longitude. and unspeakable emacia-
ton. Thorns and thongs supplied
the place of buttons upon the costume
of this Brummel of the bottom, coarse
ly patched beyond recognition of the
original fabric. The coat had been
constructed for a giant, the pants for
q pigmy. They were too long in the !
waist, and too short in the leg, and
tapped loosely around his shrunk
shanks high above the point where |
his fearful feet were partially con-
cealed by mismated shoes that per-
mitted his great toes to peer from
their gaping integuments like the |
heads of two snakes of a novel species |
and uncommon fetor. This princely |
phenomenon was topped with a |
hat which had neither band, nor |
brim, nor crown. His voice was
shrill and querulous; his manner an
odd admixture of fawning servility |
and apprehensive etfrontery, at the |
sight of id Yankee. whom he
hated and feared next to negro"