Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1876-03-30

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: yard Of calico brooght forty dollars in
Confederate currency, a spool Of sewing
cotton twenty dollars, and other dry
goods werepioportionately dear. Flour
rose to twelve hundred dollars a barrel;
a ham of bacon cost . hundred and
fifty dollars; sugar was seventy five dol
lars pound, and black-pepper three
hundred dollars. Money was plenty,
it is true, but it took 80 much to buy
so little! The caricature in q South
ern illustrated journal of 1868 which
represented lady going to market at
tended by servant with her money in
a wheelbarrow, and returning with the
barrow empty and her purchases in a
small hand bag on her arm, was less
exaggerated than are many of the best
cartoons in the comic papers to-day.
Thrown on their own resources, the
Southern people were forced to provide
for themselves. Ingenuity. economy,
and what New EnglanIers call '.facul.
ty" were taxed to the utmost. Every
household became a nest of domestic
manufactures, every farm had its cot
ton patch and its sorghum-feld. Spin
ning-wheels and looms, which in form
er days had been used for clothing the
slaves on large plantations, but which
during the era of cheap ry-goods were
comparatively idle, were again set 60
ing. Ladies whose white hands were
all unused 70 such labor learned to
card, to spin and to weave. Knitting
became as fashionable in Southern par
lors as it is in German homes. Home
spun dresses were worn by the first
ladies of the land, and she who was
clevcrest to contrive and deftest to exc
cute had highest praise from her asso-
ciates. Foreign dyes were well-nigh
unattainable, and the woods at home
were ransacked for the means of COL
oring the home grown fax wool, and
cotton. Black.walnut bark furnished
a rich brown, varying in intensity with
strength of the dye; swamp-manle. q
clear purple; pokebef1jgs ino,
bright, but not durabl;e eiAiss5 adigo
gave a tolerable blue, and eiderberries
an unsatisfactory black. Indeed. TO
experiment with bark, root, leaf or ber-
ry ever resulted in any substitute for
logwood; and as black was the dye most
needed for Southern garments III those
dark days, the blockade runners learned
to make it part Of their regular car
go.
AT one time in some sections Of the
South there was fearful destitution of
salt. Spectators held it at enormous
prices. Even the rich were forced to
useitsparingly. The poor seemed likely
to suffer for lack of it, and live stock
were in many cases denied it altogeth-
er. Barrels and boxes which had been
used for packing salt fish or pork were
soaked III water afterward, which was
boiled down and evaporated for the sake
of the salt thus extracted. The earth
en- floors of smoke houses, into which
the precious mineral had been trodden
year after year, were dug up, and the
earth given to cattle, or treated with
water after the same manner as the
sait-seasoned boards. The Government
at Richmond came to the rescue, and,
selzing the sait-works throughout the
country. issued regular rations to each
family at nominal prices for the rest of
the war. By this high-handed measure
the people were saved from salt fam
Inc.
Coffee was luxury seldom enjoyed,
and for which rye or wheat, toasted and
ground, was the usual miserable substi-
tute. Some quick-witted person con-
ceived the idea of using sweet potato
chips instead. These made more pal
atable drink, but were, after all, only
q hollow mockery. Dried rasberry
leaves were used for tea, and some peo-
pie fell back upon sassafras, the North
beverage, grimlv assuring
those who scorned ii that it was good
for the blood and would save doctors
bills. Not few eschewed all these
transparent deceptions-if that NAV be
called deception which deceived nobody
and when unable to afford milk drank
cold water with patient heroism.
Prominent among the problems with
which Confederate families were forced
to grapple was that of lights. The
gasworks in the principal cities were
kept in operation, but the gas furnished
was Of the poorest quality and exorbi-
family dear. Many private families
were unable to afford its use, and the
few who could ray for it were not al
ways sure of getting it. On more than
one occasion. in crowded churches, pas
tor and people were given practical
of Egypt darkness; and on
one memorable night the gas in Rich
mond gave out simultaneously all over
the city, in all buildings, public and
private, leaving those who depended
upon it's Illuminating powers in total