The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1880-09-11
Judge Tourgee and His Wife.
The Sort Of Life Led by the Author of the
FOOLS Errand in North Carolina.

Although ga FOOLS Frrand" was published
last Winter it is still selling at the rate of $500
copies week. They even read it in the Solid
South. A gentleman some time ago went into
doctors office in Greensboro N. c., SO unex-
pectedly that the medical gentleman tried to
hide book he was reading. 1t was the
Fools Errand." Being rather pushed into a
corner by inquistive questions, the doctor con-
fessed that he was intensely interested in it,
and that he was really reading it for the third
time. The strangest part of all is that the
North Carolinians do not fly into rage over
the book, but on the whole are said rather to
enjoy it. They take the stories of the Kuklux
fendishness and other atrocities as compli-
ment 10 the uncomfortable spirit of tue South
The "Verdenton"of the book is Greensboro N
=. Warrington" is the plantation upon
which Judge Tourgee Settled. He went t.
stay. He was in no sense of the word
carpet-bagger. He went, as he says, "forget-
full OF the TACT hat the social conditions of BOO
years are not to be- overthrow III a moment"
bis wife, refined, accom- plls he'd woman, &C
companied him, like himself full OF hope and
courage.
Tnis is how they lived after they got there.
When Mrs. Tourgee went along the streets of
Greensboro, the women Of thai town made
wide circuit around her, and gathered back
their clothes as If they were afraid of touching
her. All that impotent female spite could dc
to poison her existence was done. Socially.
she lived III an isolation as terrible as if she
had been the old Indian woman on he Santa
Barbara Island. Southern ladies often come
North, nowadays, to visit here in Cincinnati
and elsewhere. They are made as welco me.
and made the recipients OF many grace full
social attentions as ii there never had been a
war between the North and South, and as if,
Indeed, the North mad never beaten the South
in fair fight But Mrs. rourgee, a lady as
refined, as delicately bred as any woman in the
land, went among the Southern people: an
only because she was from the North was put
upon level with "niggers." Perhaps, howey-
or, this is proper manifestation of the 'sun-
conquerable spirit" Carolinians glory in
The domestic happiness the "Fool" and his
wife enjoyed may be inferred from the fact
that whenever Judge Tourgee started out to
attend court Mrs. Tourgee never dared feel
any confidence that he would come back alive.
he was Northern man, and Republican
VINO dared to say SO in what is supposed to be a
free country For this reason he was uniyer
sally hated. Attempts were made to kill him.
A plIt to assass nate him was formed much in
the same manner as described in the story. He
escaped it by following the road his horse
chose.
A man who knew him well at Green's
boro, and who lived there when he did,
says he received stacks of anonymous
letters from he Regulators threat
ening his life. They were profusely
decorated with collins. skulls and cross-bones.
Black men, and white ones too, used fire.
quently to creep secretly TO his house with
their backs bleeding from the Ku-Klux bull
whip They had been dragged from their beds
IN the dead OF night, and thus cruelty dashed.