Northern Ohio journal. [volume] (Painesville, Ohio) 1872-1896, 1873-10-11
THE POOR SOUTH.

luS oCtW CCI IuC OOuOii anu ANOi III tbu
understanding of each others true cir
cumstances and sentiments, calculated
to Danish much of the harsh feeling re-
naming from the war. Long before
this such feeling should have been dissi-
pated from either side; and would have
been, too, but for the miserable distract
ing element of newspapers and dema-
gogues holding their existence by the
unwholesome heat of chronic political
warfare. The true heart of the South
has but little dictatfon in the spirit of
implacable alienation and supercilious
self-sufficiency characterizing too many
Southern journals; and the hearty dis
position of the North to let bygones be
bygones, and resume the old brother
hood with unqualified fervor, is as much
misrepresented by the Northern news
paper which can pirate of nothing but
sectional interests. If the war went
against the South, it had also its bitter
experiences and costs for the North;
and if the South has been suffering
ever since the manifold successive woes
of defeated people, there is enough
knowledge i'll the North of what such
suffering may be to induce a sympathy
and a llelpfulness needing only gracious
opportunity to express themselves most
eloquently. AS said before, the troubled
and perilOus times now come to the
whole country may be the means of re-
moving some of the petty intersectional
sense OF grievance which has so long out
lived its reasonable day, and rendering
professional mischief-inakers the less
potent to continue it for their evil profit.
In our own present cares, anxiety, and
adversely, we shall be able to appreciate
more closely than before the trials en-
dured for ten years past by our BROTH
ers of the South, and the latter should
feel no humiliation in allowing those
trials to be shown in the manner best
calculated to unite all pats of the ma
tion in fraternal effort for their relief.
The tender, sympathetic feeling so wide
ly and generously stirred by the piteOus
cry of pest-stricken Shreveport, needs
but further knowledge of the wants
OF the whole South to expand into such
a warmth of kindness as should work the
happiest results. Possibly the stories of
individual calamity that come to us oc-
casiOnally in Southern papers are as
good illustrations as can be Immediately
| utilized to this beneficent end, and the
| many of them that have been heretofore
| rehearsed in this department. of journal
| ism may be prOfitably supplemented by
one of recent publication in the Georg-
| ian press. That it has a vein of conven-
tional romance In its composition is its
cOmmendatiOn for the ordinary story
reader, but that in it which has suggest
ed the above Introduction is the more
worthy OF practical consideration.
About a year before the unhappy days
OF Sumpter wealthy family of Atlanta
Ca, was subjected to not unprecedent-
ed domestic commotiom by what was
considered the misplaced affection of its
only daughter for young man OF some
what humber social caste. In short the
lover was an Irishman of not much
more pecuniary fortune than ordinarily
pertains to his youthful countrymen in
this country, and the parents and friends
of the object of his admiration used all
their authority ami influence to dissolve
the association. Nor was the effort un.
successful. Finding her father inflexi
BILE in his refusal 20 sanction the ad
dresses of the suitor of her choice the
young lady sacrificed the latter to hel
filial duty, and he left the city in dispair
Not only, however, did parental wishes
Danish one lover, but they dictated an
other, who, by force of filial duty again
was ultimately accepted by the Obedien
daughter. According to the laws o
romance this change of heroes shou16
not have been so easily accomplished; o.
if achieved, not felicitious in its conclu
, sion. But the principles of the roman
Ger are not always vindicaJed i'll rea
life, and the heroine who renOunced on,
wooer for another lived very happily a
the wife of the latter at Cuthbert, in tn
same State, for two or three wears
Within that Leriod the war began, will
its immediate evil fruits for the South
and her husbands final departure TO
Savannah to join the Southern force
F was the beginning of misfOrtunes TO
, the young wife. Just as her infant hat
learned to prattle the parental names it
father fell in the futile defense of For
McAllister, and the widowed mothe
knew what it was to have full share o
: the country's horrors of war. AS tn
Atlanta Constitution goes OH with he
story, it was several months before TIN
: dread news of her widowhood reache,
| her-owing to the fearful confusion an,
? severance of all communications causet
by Sherman's famous march to the se
1 and the cruel intelligence found he
t isolated in Cuthbert, cut off from he
, kindred and friends in Atlanta, and no
knowing but that they had lost no les
[ than herself by the desolatiOn of til
e time. "Only those who participated il
I the scenes at the close of the war;" say
t the Atlanta journalist, lean form a tru
/ conception of the suffering and wan
and woe that stalked abroad through tn
South.' The widow was supping deep
t ly of these miseries of her section-an
!, so, for that matter, were her family il
F., Atlanta-when the first lover of he
maidenhood came to the rescue from an
other State. In this, at least, romano
+ was vindicated and had further observ
e ance of standard usage in the ultimat
t marriage of faithful Knight and widowe
lady. Under ordinary circumstance