The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1878-05-01
ny our W Special Correspondent.
ERECONsTRUCTED SOUTH.

ISL "a I1bo -
again !" and | am back in the classic
Centennial city, dear old Philadel-
phia, and, indeed and truly. am
glad to have returned alive.
While | was still a resident oil The
Sunny South(D did not write any
thing regarding what | saw there,
because, being a woman, ! have a
high regard for nv back halr, aud
also think the beauty of my throat
would not be enhanced by a knoited
rope being drawn around it, and so |
RETAINED; but now that ! am safe
from the tender mercies of the high.
toned chiyalry Of the noble sons OF
the reconstructed South" | feel free
to express my opinions.
Bat where to commence, or what
to cay first, | hardly know, for the
facts come crowding upon nae SO
thickly that they are confusing. To
begin at the beginning, ! was persua-
ded to go South, by a certain man IN
Philadelphia, upon his representations
that it was q beautiful, healthy coun-
try, and only needing development
TO make it the richest and most pro-
ductive place on earth, and on many
promises, among them n was that
| should edit a paper that be would
publish, to be called the Tdlhermoso
| Springs Echo. | went. Ii is needless
to state that he never started the pa
per, and never fulfilled one promise
ia return for the labor and money |
had expended 10 furthering his plan
After a multitude Of personal suffer
ings, to say nothing Of the ehills and
fever contracted BY every member of
my family, | left M child there for
ever, and returned here and, with
the above as q sort Of running pream-
bic, will give you my ideas on the
political. moral add geographical as
poets of the South as | found it in
North Alabama.
Firstly, | was struck by the uni
versal air of extreme decay, visible
in everything there. Houses in ruins,
or fast crumbling to decay fences
down, wagons holding together by
some unknown force of cohesion, and
people as dilapidated and shabby as
all the rest. | looked for those won
derfal, and almost palatial mansions
we read about, and looked in vain,
Even the decayed fragments of those
plantation homes tell that the houses
were very ordinary, i'll looking and
small. Many of them are still stand
lug. invariably of one style of archi-
teciare, low houses, of never more
than " stories, with wide halls
through the centre, with rooms on
each side. All are, or were painted
white, in TIE dim distance of the past,
and the shutters hang loose and bro
ken, even where there are families
living inside the houses. Everything
is marked by an appearance of decay.
No conveniencss such as we consider
necessary, are TO be seen in the h0us-
es; and outside the larger cities,
scarcely enc family in five huuGred
cooks upon a store. | never saw q
clothes liue, even ia towns, unless it
were that some Northern family bad
them stretched. They dry thei: linen
on the shrubs and fences, and seem
to think it q useless laxury to have
lines. It is just so with everything
else; and no one cares Il do anything
that can possibly be avoided u%oless,
indeed, it is snuil-dipping, or chewing
tobacco, or smoking, or drinking
whisky. Ia spite of the universal
poverty aGd destitu:ion. everybody
has their tobacco or whisky.
II is a beautiful and interesting
sight to see lovely aud delicate young
girls with little "sweet-gum" SNUFF
sticks in the corners of their mouths,
and see the graceful meanderings of
the amber juice as it tTickles dawn
their chins; it is pleasant to see little
school children with their wagging
Jaws full Of "wax," but il is the most
ennobling and soul-inspiring sight On
earth to see fair ladies of golden
locks, chewing zine CUT or natural
leaf" and ejecting the spitIle with
uDerripg precision into a particular
"hollow, down by the glare" in the
open ire-places.
In and about Eslhermoso Springs,
the ignorance Of the people is astound-
ing. The men have that utter aud
complete vacuity of expression that |
supposed only existed in the engrav-
ings of Southern character depicted
by Porte Crayon in his Iiarper's
Magazine articles. Sach utter and
complete ignorance | would never
have believed in. had | not seen it
there. The women seem to be a
couple of grades higher 10 the scale
of intelligence than the men, a fact
which exists 10 all countries. but for
which ! could never account, unless
it is by The refining Influence Of suf-
fering.
TIE women work cut in the fields,
blowing, narrowing, planting and
harvesting, and even clearing land
and working side by side with the
men; often having a little nursing
baby along, wrapped in an old quilt
ndiaid on the ground, and sometimes
working up to within q few days of
motherhood. Thus they bling into
the world d feeble, puny bab,, With
out vitality, aud this grows up u a
meagre diet Of "hog meat" and cJrn
bread, to be a lank. miserable crea
tnre, alike mentally and physically
feeble.
50 the Southern people deteriorste
10 every way, like their land, year by
year, until, take them as a class in
comparison with other people, aud
their inferiority would be ~laughable
If it were not so pitiful.
Their poverty is so abject and dread.
fui there that no one can form any
conception of it who has not lived
among the people. Among those
reckoned best of, the furniture Of a
cabin will never be more than one or
two beds, a common board table, a
box nailed up against the wall for a
cupboard, and a few miserable broken
dishes, and a few common iron knives
end forks. q skillet, an iron pot, and
sometimes n Dutch oven. and an old.