The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1877-10-23
EMIGRATION TO ARKANSAS.

In Pittsburgh the Workingmen have
organized quite an extensive society, for
the purpose of seeking out homes for
themselves in some new section of coun-
try. Some time ago, this society sent a
committee of inspection to Arkansas TO
examine various parts of that State as to
soil, climate, price of lsRd, etc, and this
committee has now reported. The COM
mittee visited. many counties, and they
report in detail their observations,
and add many interesting incidents.
The report seems to be frank and hon
est statement of the views of an intelli
gent observer. In regard to the health
fulness of the country, which after all is
the great considerst alton, the report says:
Now as to health, which is the great
sine qua non. In all the country over
when we have travelled, chills and fever
prevail to some extent at times. On the
nigh dry ridges there are no local causes
for the production OF malaria, and q per-
son might 1--we to see his great grand
children, as many there have claimed TO
have done, without experiencing shlver
or shake, were 1t not for the tact that
during the hot summer months the
deadly malaria from the swsmps, bayous
and lagoons along the eastern portion OF
the State Is caught up by the winds and
borne to the hills, and these msIarial
winds affect persons more or less
severely, according ss the physical
system Is found more or less healthy.
Again some constitutions are more read
ily affected than others. From conver
sstions held with physicians and intelli-
gent citizens the con clusions arrived At
are that persons coming from the North
to this section may expect to be more or
less troubled with chilis and fever during
the late summer and early fall months.
Persons who anduly expose themselves
during the winter months are liable to
attacks of pneumonia, while those living
in the lowlands are liable TO take swamp
fever and congeshve chills, and these are
often as malignant as yellow lever.
Many of the people here deserve to be
sick all the time. In our travels Col.
Jones and myself ate three meals at the
home OF physician. First meal we had
pork swimming in grease, sour milk,
peach preserves ard hot biscuits, yellow
with soda. Second meal, coffee instead
of milk, other provender same rs first.
Third meal same rs first. Last Monday
night we stopped over night with we'll
to-do-tarmer one Of Bob lngersolls dis
ciples of whom there are good many
down this way, in the Saline river bot
tom. This man wants to sell out and
90 TO Texas, on account OF the health
of himself aud family. His table was
well supplied with meats, but no fruits or
vegetables of any kind; no milk or
butter, while he has thirty head of cattle
running in the woods twelve OF which
are cows. Not potato of any kind
growing, because, as he says, he was too
lazy to plant them. And so they live
with hot biscuit or corn bread, with no
milk, butter and few vegetables, tor 800
days in the year, and three times day.
No wonder sallow or bleached faces and
poor sickly little children, for whom
ones heart goes out in pity, are frequently
seen.
Early last summer, as we were going
from Parkersburg to Cincinnati by rail,
we fell IN company with comparative
" young couple who had left their home
in Lewis county, in this State, and were
on their way to make Arkansas their
future home. They had lived in Upshur
tor time, but more recently the hus-
band had been teaching school in Lewis.
They had with them their only child, a
healthy looking boy of FIVE or six years.
and judging from their dress,
manners and mode of travel,
thelr entire earthly store was contained
IN rather small pocket-book which the
wife carried in her bosom. They stated
that they knew but little Of the country
to which they were emlgrating, neither
of them had ever been there, nor had
they any scqusintsnces there, nor yet
did they know how they would earn
their living, but still they were taking
this leap in the dark with the hope of
bettering their conditionl Leaving
lands as fertile as any within the boun.
dsries Of Arkansas, lands as cheap in
price and lying thousand miles nearer
the great markets of the East, having a
climate as mild and equsble as the eli
mate to which they were going, and
locality as healty ~ the heslthiest on the
continent, this couple went drifting out
into the unknown wilds with the hope
(?) Of bettering their condition.
No complsist of lack of employ
ment in the section they were leaving, no
complaint of the unheslthiness Of cli-
mate; no complaint of the high price OF
the lands about them; no complaint of q
lack of food, or rslment, or any of the
comforts of lie They were simply
drifting, IN spirit of restlessness. No
ties of home or kindred, no pride of State
CT section, were permitted TO bind them
to the locality that gave them birth.
Going among strangers in a strange
land where to have mslsrlsl fevers is the
normal condition of the inhabitants
A Warming 10 the WRyward.
WEST ALEXANDER, Pa, Oct. 22.