The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1874-03-26
A Granhic Picture of Life in Texas.


Mai. E. G. Mcclure, formerly editor of the
Chester Reporter, is writing series of letters
to that paper from his new home in the Lone
Star State. We make an extract herewith from
one Of his letters, which portrays domestic life
in that region:
"Texas is a good place for men, but is hell
on women and oxen," is remark that [ had
very often heard before came here, and one,
also, that the readers of the Reporter have no
doubt very often heard. After an experience
of near three months am prepared to pro-
nounce it, in many respects, remark worthy
of all acceptation. AS the oxen come dragging
their slow lengths along through the deep and an 4
sticky mud, with so measured tread that the
wagon behind them can scarcely be seen to
move, it requires nothing more than sight OF
their necks bowed by the heavy yokes and their
bodies covered with the splashings OF the road
to realize the truth of the saying so far as these
| patient, dumb creatures are concerned. And
| the women, too, are bowed beneath the yoke OF
domestic servitude. Servants are not here, and
| cannot be had. This portion of Texas, being
| only grain producing country prior to the
war, did not contain great many negroes and
| since the war the immigration of the nations
! pets has, very wisely, not been encouraged.
| What negroes are here are, if possible, more
worthless and unreliable than the negroes OF
South Carolina. This is owing to the fact that
their scarcity makes great demand for them,
and enables them to be just as trit1ing and lazy
as their nature prompts them to be without any
fear of not being able to get employment at
any time they may want it. A great many
families are not able to get domestic servants
at all, and a great many others do without
altogether rather than be annoyed with such
as can be got. The result of which is that
the ladies here have the burden of all their
household work on their own hands; and this
applies as we'll to the rich as to the poor.
know good many ladies whose husbands are
in very easy circumstances and making money
| that do all their own cooking and house-clean-
| ing. This necessitates considerable labor on
| the part of the head of the house in the way
of carrying wood making fires, fetching
water, etc., etc. that is if he is a man with
any soul in him and disposed to relieve his
wife of all the drudgery he can. Such being
the case, this is the very country for men to
come to who have once been rich and who arc
struggling along under load of poverty
striving to keep up appearances and to present
to the world hollow show of prosperity
| How many men there are in all the Southern
States who are being prematurely aged by the
harassing cares and anxeties consequent upon
trying to support their families in the same
style they once fourished in, lest, perchance
their neighbors may think they are going down
in the world This is the country for all such
| Here man can feed and curry his own horse
black his own boots, make the fire in the stove
for his wife to cook their breakfast by, and
still be "a man for a. that" He won't have
some rich neighbor (who probably stole his
money! to turn up his nose and sneer at him
for having been doing menal tasks; for the
probability is that his rich neighbor here has
been doing the same things before he left his
house. This difficulty about getting domestic
servants, coupled with the fact that, on account
| of the nature of the soil here, women are
absolutely prisoners in their houses during the
prevalence of bad weather, are the postulates
upon which the remark above quoted is based
| in so far as it relates to women.