Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1874-04-08
WHAT A MEMPHIS MAN SAYS.
Rocy Letter written from Knoxville.

Racy Letter Written from Knoxville.
Col. L. j. .Dupre, who was here few
weeks ago, has written letter to the
Memphis Appeal, from which we make
extracts:
GOOD EATING HOUSES.
! assembled the lofty hight ON which the
University buildings stand, and from this
point could measure the growth of the
fortunate capital of Eastern. Tennessee.
How wonderful the changes since 1923
when this Gibraltar of the Confederacy was
abandoned! The white customhouse,
white as parian stone, and as tasteful in
outlines as creations of architectural art
chat looked down upon the Bay of Athens,
first attracts attention. The great dry
goods house of Cowan, McClung d Co.
lifts its stately proportions even above the
summit of the customhouse, on which fed
eral generosity to Senator Brownlow law
ished half q million dollars. The direct
trade with Europe of this great mercantile
tirm, amounting to more than three mil
lions per annum, furnished the Senator
with basis of facts on which to found his
application for these extraordinary appro-
priations. Two tasteful church buildings
Methodist and Presbyterian, lift up
-.a'peStng, lofty spires not far from the mar
BILE monument to the genius Of commerce
which federal power upreared.
SENATOR BRowNLow.
Speaking of Senator Brownlow, whom
ne visited, he says:
The old editor and radical Unionist, in
he midst of men who have gathered great
fortunes and are growing rich with a ra-
pidity never known before, still dwells in
the modest old house in which he was
guarded by Confederate soldier in lS6l-
81. / visited him then, when a brawny
guardsman was stationed in every room,
and muskets glittered by moonlight on
every side of his residence. Even then, rs
to-day, he was bed ridden; and then, as
to-day, he was as good-humored and
genial, in private social intercourse, as
Violent in his public speeches and extraor-
binary newspaper articles. Very certainly
the poor loved and honored him, and no
cot was so lowly, and no wretched man or
woman so depraved, that "Parson
Brownlow did not enter the abode of pow
erty to bless its inmates. Such were stories
[ used to hear, and it is only Just to tell the
truth of one whose public fife has been so
stormy, and whose virtues have been rare
ly recognized.
When / entered his room he rose up to
meet me. | feared he would fall, but he
walked toward me, and went back to his
lounge, holding my hand, while he ex-
pressed gratitude for forgotten little kind
nesses done when men were mad and war
shake violently and constantly, and his
voice is low and weak, but his eyes glow
with animation, his features are full and
natural, and he said smilingly:
"You see Pm not yet dead or dying
New England and Northern people deem
the climate Of Washington delightful.
They have never been in East Tennessee.
This is Gods most blessed land. The sun
is brighter, the heaven more blue, the stars
shine more gloriously, and the air we
breathe is purer than elsewhere in the
world. at came home" he continued, "to
get well. to enjoy the luxury of breathing,
and when have rested propose to return
20 serve my State. j have done It, and es-
pecially my own division of Tennessee,
when Governor ana as Senator, as eftec-
tually as any former Governor or Senator"
[ could almost feel the cold shadows of five
hundred thousand dollars of gold trans
muted into q great pile of colder white
marble resting upon his white face while
he spoke in slow, cold, tremulous, measur-
ed accents. l heard the roaring of railroad
trains moving toward Louisville and
Charleston, and Chattanooga and Bristol
and the sea, and remembered that these
agencies and sources of wealth sprang from
Brownlow's extravaganza expenditures OF
public wealth, lavished upon the land he
loved. No one has denied that Brownlow
and Andrew Johnson, unlike in all else,
are alike in public and private honesty,
and if there be virtue that the age we live
in should laud above all others, it is illus.
trated in the simple, honest lives of these
Two extraordinary East Tennesseeans.
COMPLIMENTARY
These East Tennessee people have a
thorough appreciation of the value of rail-
vyays, and it must be confessed that they
eyince, in habits of industrial life, infinite
Nv greater energy than one discovers in the
appearance of villages and farms in West
.ern Tennessee or in the gulf States. Every
acre of each farm from Dalton to Knox
willie is cultivated. The fields are robed in
green, and promise rich harvests of wheat.
Fences are good, and houses freshly paint
ed, There were no idlers at village whis-
XIV shops, and travellers on railways from
the gulf States and cities starve, or bring
their own food till they enter East Tennes.
see. At Mouse Creek, at Morristown end
at other villages further north, the best
tables are spread for starved wanderers TO
be found on the continent. Il. j. Aydlett,
formerly of Memphis, will succeed, after q
time, in making the migratory world
believe that proper feast for civilized men
may be prepared in Tuscumbia, but such
dreary memories of dishwater coffee and
yillainous grub rise up before
each dust be grimmed traveller when
aroused by the exclamation, l." Twen'
ty minutes for dinner" that
his stomach is suspicious of
coming calamites, and digestion mills re-
fuse to grind. Aydlett will reform all this
and Tuscumbia win the epicurean fame oil
Mouse Creek. and of the famous railway
,otin,, bouSa IF Vast Nirpinia which has