Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1879-05-31
to be almost entirely counted out of the race.
ALMOST EVERY SOUTHERN STATE Is TO-DAY

10 pc almost entlrely counted out or the race.
ALMOST EVERY SOUTHERN STATE IS TO-DAY
FINANCIALLY BANKRUPT;
almost all of them have been engaged In
compromising with their creditors at the rate
of a few cents on the dollar; nearly all of
them have defaulted upon their January IN
terest, and many of them have adopted
schemes for refunding little more creditable
than open reputation itself. The cities and
municipalities of the south are, If possible,
worse off than the States. Not one in twenty
of them ever intends to pay cent on their
Indebtedness, for the good and sufficient
reason that they cannot, and some of them,
like the city of Memphis, for example, pro-
pose to wipe out their Indebtedness by very
simple and unique process-abolish the city
government, burn the city charter, and 90
back to the humble and inexpensive town
ship form of organization. We do not stop
here to raise the question of the legality of
such proceeding, nor to discuss the practi-
cability of this new way to pay old debts, but
merely to mention the alternative adopted,
after others have failed. Turning from the
States and municipal organizations to
THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES,
and we speak of them in the mass, we find
where there is one thrifty, solvent, well. to do
person there is a score of idle, shlftkess, ire.
sponslble persons who do not earn the poor
living that they somehow manage to get; pay
their own current phrases, "are of no sort of
account nohow." Of course there are many
notable and praiseworthy exceptions to this
broad and sweeping assertion, but they do
not alter the general rule, nor weaken the
generally recognized fact. This statement
finds confederation in the national revenue
receipts, which show that out of total of
two hundred and thirty FIVE million dollars
paid into the treasury only fourteen million
dallara wa aOllpoknd N thA Sfatoa lafalU in
rebellion, and If we could obtain a correct
list of the losses sustained by northern cred
itors on account of non-payment by southern
debtors, and compare it with the money col
lected In other and more prosperous portions
of the country, the discrepancy would be
shown to be as great as appears IN the reve.
nue. returns. Before the great rebellion the
people of the south had two great and unfail-
ing sources of livelihood,
SLAVE BREEDING AND oFFIcE-eETTINe,
Which that event completely cut off. Sc
cession shut their young men out of the
army and navy and out of all places of profit
under the national government, and threw
them back upon their own resources for a
living. AS long as the south ruled the couu-
try by debating the policy of each successive
administration, and by furnishing occupants
for nearly every Office of any value from the
Presidency down through all grades of for
eign and domestic service, there was a way
open for class of men who had been bred
in the habit of earning their bread by the
sweat of another mans brow. Their revolt
in 1861 cut off their means of gettisg an easy
living, but they did not feel its loss as keenly
as they did the emancipation of their slaves
and the utter extinction of the market value
in peculiar kind of property upon which
they had long mainly depended for support.
THEIR WOMEN,
mora If nossihla than their mon had hean
nurtured In idleness, generation after gen.
Grafton, and when slavery was swept away
the domestic distress that prevailed in the
south was almost indescribable; the Rachels
were not mourning so much the loss of their
children az their slaves, and their helpless
ness was pItiable in the extreme, when the
war robbed the flower of their families with
the edge of the sword, and nanumitted their
servants with one stroke of the pen. With
the war came the destruction of millions OF
other kiRds of property, besides the slaves.
the accumulation of years, and the inherited
fortunes acquired by former generations.
Cotton was king no longer, nor was the
former slave breeder master over the souls
and bodies of others to buy and sell and kill
as he pleased. He was only lord of himself,
and, when he came to take his inventory and
estimate its practical market value, he found
it decidedly poor piece of property. What
could he do?
REARED IN IDLENESS,
he despised the laborer and hated his work
He was utterly helpless and poor, but he was
still proud. He had been conquered Shy su-
perlor numbers" but he was not subdued.
His cause was lost, his slaves free, and his
means of living gone; but he was still wicked
and Maynard. He could make trouble, if he
couldn't make a living, and if he coudn I
available to till The soil and raise crops, on
which he and his family might subsist, be
could at least BULLDOGS, iutimidate and raise
| the devil. So, since the war closed, our south
ern white brother has been spending most Of
his time sitting at the corner grocery, whit
Ting pine sticks, drinking bad whisky, damn
ing the carpetbaggers, and abusing anc
cheating the poor negro. Emerson says thai
OUT OF A PINE STICK A YANKEE WILL WHIT
ajudgeship, seat In congress, and foreign
mission; but the southern Yankee is not o.
that kind. The thrifty northern man does
| not stop to white shingles until his corn il
planted, his fields clear of weeds, and his
sheep washed. After his seed is in the
ground, and the sun, and the dew, and the
rain, and all the silent but mighty forces II
the arena of nature have been sommoned tc
his support, the northern man stops long
enough to settle his accounts, attend the re-
ligious anniversaries, and incidentally dis
cuss the congressional proceedings, and the
last Interpretation of the fall of man. Anc
it really seems as if the misiortunes of the
south would never end. 1t was thought thai
the capacity of the arithmetic was exhausted
in the effort to compute the money value o.
her losses sustained In the progress of hel
wicked and desperate attempt to tear herself
out of the Federal Union; but her recupera-
ton had hardly commenced when the yellow
fever fell like blight upon her feeble indus
tries, and caused a mortality among her citi'
zens In the sections visited ten times more
destructive to life than
sHERMAN's FAMOUS MARCH FROM ATLANTA
TO THE SEA.
Good authority is cited for the opinion thai
It will require twenty years for the trade o.
the south to rally from the injury it received
during the prevalence of the terrible plague
of last summer, provided there is no return o.
that desolating scourge; and the much de-
sired exemption Is by no means assured az
long as the sanitary condition of the southern
cities remain as they are. And close on thC
heels of the dread epidemic follows anothel
drawback-the colored exodus, though the
black plague is less fatal than the yellow
but bad enough from a material point o.
view, because 1t paralyzes business, disturbs
socisty and makes the only real producers in
the south restless and nomadic. Those thai
have already emisrated would not be missed
perhaps, but they have set the prairie grass
ablaze IN
KANSAS
and other free States of the peaceful and in
vItlng vest that will serve as beacon-ighI
to those they have left behind. In the con-
dition of comparative poverty, the intelligent
men of the southern States are devotinR
nearly all their time and attention to Office.
seeking and the discussion of political affairs,
It seems as if their old habit, nurtured under
the old regime until it has become second ma
ture to them to manage public business, il
bound to assert itself and maintain its su.
premacy, no matter at what sacrifice o.
trade, commerce, prosperity, or domestic
tranquility. Politics is indeed trade with
them, and they are determined to ply it tC
the neglect of all besides. The yellow-fevel
may devastate their cities, the neg1o exodus
may threaten the next cotton crop, war, pes
thence and famine may invade their territory,
States may default on the payment of the
interest on their bonds, and cities may be-
come bankrupt; no matter, SO they are mas
tiers of the political situation at home and
their State rights heresies are in the ascend.
encY in congress.