The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1879-08-28
A Truthful Man Tells the Truth About
Texas.

A Truthful Man Tells the Truth About
Texas.
The following is an exact copy of g
private letter from an intelligent gentle
man of Lee County, Mississippi, now pros
pectiug in Texas. Though not intended
for publication, it contains much
that would interest our readers. 1t eX-
plains itself. The letter was written to a
niece of Prof. Deupree, of Starkville,
Miss, and We take the letter from the
Stock Journal in which it was first pub
lished:
ONION CREEK, ELLIS Co., TEXAS,
June %, 1879.
My DEAR CHILD AS I hare leisure
this evening, I will write to you and
send it to p. O. first chance. You have
no idea how difficult it is in many parts
of Texas to find time and material and
opportunity for writing and mailing let
tiers. I don't know what to say about
Texas. 1t is hard country to form an
opinion about. Though have been in
the State about a month, and have tra-
versed all the northern, central and wes-
tern parts of the State, | have yet found
no modern paradise. The land is rich,
cheap aud boundless, butsubject to vista
tions of grasshoppers and drouth. 1t is
very dry here now. The ground has
cracked everywhere two to six inches wide
and several feet deep. Crops, of course,
are suffering greatly. People haul their
water from creeks and rivers and ponds
for miles. A good drink of water is a
rare thing here, and in most parts Of
Texas. Timber is very scarce and con-
sequently houses are small and incon-
venient. Outhouses, fences, &C., are
Yery poor. These Inconvenience would
be but temporary, provided grasshop-
pers and the drouth did not prevent the
production of good crops; for two or
three good crops in succession would
make good houses and improvements,
since building and fencing, notwithstand-
ing the scarcity of timber, is compartive-
ly as cheap in Texas as in Mississippi.
Stock raising, to any extent, requires
capital, and to be successful, must be
carried on in the frontier counties, away
| from society and in wild country. But
what troubles me more in making up my
mind 10 move you all to Texas. is the
people Texas is full of poor folks, and
most of them have remarkable poor ways.
a heterogeneous admiXture of people
from all States and countries, nothing
that we could call good, or even tolera-
bic society; no churches and no schools
worth the name; all these things would
be hard to endure. Yet every one here
is not only satisfied, but delighted with
its condition. A tanned, lank, slab.sided
Texan, with slouched hat and dirty shirt
will sit on rock, wall his eyes, and ex.
patiate for hours upon the grandeur and
beauty of this country, its pleasures and
its wealth, though at the same time he
lives in a dirty hut infested with feas,
bed-bugs and lizards, and his only furni-
ture few raw-hide chairs, greasy table,
and bedstead made by boring holes in the
logs of his hut, and inserting poles, the
ends of which are supported by forked
sticks, and two black, sleek bed quilts.
His horse lot and stable is long rope,
his crib, the prairie, his only stock, a
sore back pony. His wife and children
live on fat bacon and corn-bread; dress,
if at all, in rags and dirt, and do all the
work that is done. This you may think
an extreme case, but there are many like
it here. Women become as triaing as
the men. I have met some whom l
knew in Mississippi as good housekeep-
ers, aud fond of dress and society, but
out here they have fallen into the slo-
venly habits characteristic of the ma
tives. There must be something in Tex
as atmosphere that makes the men lazy
and the women ugly. l have not seen
pretty woman in the State. AS to the
men raised in Texas, have yet to meet
one worth nickel 80 far as industry,
moral character, ETC., are concerned.
Their conversation is exclusively about
breaking ponies, and rubbing hair off
the COWS to find the brand, killing men
and running races. / have had several
illusions dispelled since coming here.
The wild Texan horse, which imagined
to be so admirable is but lean pony.
mean and contrary. I wouldn't give q
dollar for pasture full of them. The
cowboy, that gay and rollicking youth
YOU have read so much about, is the
most contemplate specimen of humanity
in the world. 1 have seen many of them,
and notwithstanding my predictions in
their favor, l now have more respect for
their steers than themselves. This is all
a rough hard country, and if we come
here, you must make up your mind to a
hard life for many years. / cannot, in a
letter, describe all the privations to which
you would be subjected here. II people in
Mississippi would live as hard as they do
here they would get rich in a few years;
Judging from the others, when we all
get to be like them, we would like Texas
and the ways of her people