The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1873-08-14
From the Kansas Magazine for June.
Bndd M'Allister's Partner.
El \. &. Bt ELL.

Brownsville Texas, in 1868 was what
you call a '.hard town" These hard towns
m" indigenous to American society, and
ilcN never grow in any other soil. The
circumstances OF termination MAY be di-
verse. according TO the times or the loca-
tlnn "r the conspiracy of events; but the
characteristics of the product are always
the same. For instance, there were Jules
burg and theVennc and Corinne, and New
ton and Abilene and Gibson; hard towns
bccAusrthr Western Railroad rs civilizine
agent first acts rs 4 conduit through which
arr sIoughtd out the barbaritics Of Chris
tian enlightenment You might say that
those who came along with the Bible and
the yard-stick, and the scalpcl and the
spelling-book in the years hv and by,
lreaiin@ a~ they do upon graves whose
occupants sleep as they fell with their
boots ON, live under a plan of social saliva
ton whose cruciiNions have come in the
shape ot deadly renconters, and whose
sacrifices. spillin@ hot blood out of mad
dcncd bo@omS, died Wnwittin@ly Tor the
common veal IN accordance with some in
~ci"utabic purpose that is manifest only in
it, results But Brownsville was not a
railroad town 1t had none Of the feat
ureS of that ilk The only highway of
commerce that touched its precincts was
the sluggish Rio Grandc, a river whose
water ever had ON its surface Il dry, hot,
parched look and toiled along painfully to
the sea- aS though it hesitatcd between 90
Mg back mp stream to be rolled by the
hooi, of the kiowa caNuSes, and going on
down into the Gulf to be narrowed up by
the kecl> OF revenue cutters and Iampico
c0ntrabandi~tS' Schooners 1t was not built
of canvas and pine boards either, with
thai bare. comiortlcSS and ephemcral look
there ALWAYS j. about the railroad towns
In thi~ respect it bore no resemblance to
the ''hard towns of the Upper Platte or
the Arkansas on the Smoky Hill, the Union
Pacific or the -AtchiSon. Topeka and Santa
Er Ii was an old town. But it could not
he called dilapidated, because that word
implies an anterior ncWness which no one
would suspect Brownsville of having ever
possessed There was nothing to avert the
impression that this town was built old in
the first place. One imagined, rs he picked
his WAY along the streets. that the great,
reiu~c-cramned mud-hoieS had been care
tIll\ dggcl and arranged there; that the
U
set up on end purposcly and with an Isthe-
tic view to the production OF an antique
effect: that the class and sash-bars had
been Studiou~v broken in the windows,
and the moss lastctullv arranged upon the
coruice> by some conslmmate genius in
engineering and architecture whose touch
WAS counterfeit OF Times, Brownsville
had 4 history not 50 much its own rs it
wa, ar,lcction from palo Alto and Resaca,
Point Isabel and Buena Vista, and may be
ii had borrowed something from that llls-
ter whereof san ,Jacinto and Goliad had
enough and to spare. In 1865 it had be-
come again the focus Of attention. The
nation. drawing Il long breath after Apo
mattoN and Bcntonvillc and Shreveport
had cast an eve wherein was no beaming
of lintllnoS~ toward the bedizened plat
toone of the French Foreign Legion that
carried the eagles Of MaXimilian's exotic
empire, and seemed to menace the rein
tr9ratrd republic with a shadow Of disas-
ter.
1t WAS not easy to imagine what danger
there was to be apprehended by the dwell
cr- in Maine and Oregon from the half a
dozen rNcH,ifolS of uniformed eX-convict>
who represented the diadem of the Aus
trinu and the coronet of his Carlotta i'll
MatAmoraS in 500. But the Government
III Washington saw in these tez-capped
brulrs who spent their days in desultory
drilling OF in lazy loaiing about the piazza
and under the palms, and their nights in
the soft dcIl1um OF the iandango and love
making in bad Spanish to black-eved Mes
tlI0~. menace to the integrity of Il Re
public against which Lees iron-sidcd vet
Grams had shattered themselves to pieces
in vain. SO. when the sunlight of thai
peaceful Sprin@-time had sprouted daisies
again on the sod of Antietam, and called
ont The modest clover from its red-soaked
bed in the Gettysburg nill-sides, what still
remained OF War had driIted off to Browns
villc And when its condition during the
summer of 1863 is described us the fag-end
of a lratIic,lal Mar-the stage lumber
room after y toiIract tragedy that had a
continent lor its Scenery-a general idea IS
conveyed. What its population was at that
date would not be easy to say specifically
Its component clements would equally defy
accurate enumeration. If there was a cut
throat or a horSe-thicf on an lndian-hghtel
or Il ~mugglcr or il bandit OF gambler OF
i sporting woman, black, white, red
brown. or taWny, in the whole Southwest
who did not visit Brownsville during that
9uuII,'i,r, At ho~..u.ro ho ehn ,vae
locked up somewhere else and could moi
oct away. 1t was the Universal Ulcer; the
Cancer Of Creation. Its noisomc streets
were thronged with the motliest and indie
~clibable>t crowd that was ever collected
on the face of the earth-cattle ranchers
and ii'eighter> from the back country and
from tamargo Mexican guerrillas from
Chihuahua, and French deserters from
Monterey negro soldiers of the United
States army, and horse thieves from both
side, of the river; miners from Sonora,
and scouts and lndian-iightcrs from Eagle
Pass and Los Pecos; gamblers, outlaws,
@rcasers. prostitutes-thesc were the sub
divisions of the census Of Brownsville in
1863. There was something in the atmOs-
pherc OF the place and its surroundings,
something about its location and the ease
whrrewith the law-if there had been any
could be eluded, that it bred devilment
and deSpcrateness as u morass breeds
miasm or Il garbagc-heap fever. SO, under
the summer sun of the tropics, and famed
by the hot breath Of the Gulf breeze,
Brownsville lay lazily and festered upon
the Face of the earth.
On the second corner us you came up
from the old lerry-landing, and nearly OPP
posite the little old ustom-house-which
the smu@@lcrs might have used for de-
positorN of contraband goods if they had
needed dStorage-room-was an old, reddish
brown, brick house, two stories high, with
gaunt dormer windows and long moss
grown under the caves an odor of depart
ed gcntility about the high front steps, and
Il shadow OF ancient hospitality upon the
old brass bcll-knob. 1t had been a Consu-
lar residence of consequence in that dim
period before the war; In 1865 it was a
favoritc lair of that tiger that purrs upon