The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1880-02-11
down IN VIRGINIA.

his own paper the Louaoh Telegraph,
some admirable pen pictures Of
scenes, incidents and characters
winch he has observed during bis
sojourn in the "Oid Dominion" Did
our space permit, we would be glad
to lay before our readers his letters
in full, but we shall have to be con
tent to make such extracts as will
exhibit the light in which this very
keen observer has noted the charac-
teristic features of things with which
we are all familiar. The particular
character he describes in the sub
Joined extract is one not wholly un
known hereabouts:
The age of trimness and neatness is
not come yet. Every thing for the
present is in the rough. The ordinary
accessories to the roadside shanties are
dwarf vegetables, broken fences stem
cilled over with advertisements of
nostrums for coughs and indigestions,
and the cross road lonnger who in Yir-
ginia ia black. What is he Iikei Well,
take Don Caesar de BaSan in the guise
in which he makes his first appearance
in "Ruy Bias" Then out of Callot's
"Habits and Beggars" select the most
hopelessly battered and villainous
looking meudicant to be found in that
astonishing gallery of ragamuffins.-
Add the wardrobe of a London rough
as he infests Fleet street on Lord
Mayors w-day, or Hyde Park on
some Sunday when there is a political
meeting at the Reformers' Tree
Sprinkle in an admixture Of Partisan
rodeur des barriers, and complete yonr
amalgam OF raggedness and wretcl,ed-
ness with the costumes OF Tipperary
bog-trotter newly landed in England
and Just setting ont on his first hop
picking expedition in the county of
Kent. Having by dint Of great perse-
verance gotten together such miscel-
lany of rags and tatters, it might be as
we'll to shred them all somewhat fine
in sausage machine and then to
piece them together again with pins,
or skewers, or crooked nails, or frag-
ments of tape or string, or indeed any,
thing that comes handy, and then,
having rolled the mass in the mud and
roughly dried it, the whole might be
shaped into the rude semblance of q
coat, vest and pantaloons. About the
shirt there is no need to be very par.
ticular-almost anything will do-a
scrap of canvas sailing or couple of
discarded dishclou.s. The boots should
be of the "canoe" pattern, several sizes
too large for any pair of human feet,
smaller than those of the Colossus of
Rhodes. They should be quite inno-
cent of backing and destitute Of
strings. and there should be decided
solution Of continuity between the
soles and the upper leather. The hat,
the cross road lounger always wears a
hat and disdains cap quite as much
as an Eton hoy would do-utterly baf-
firs MY feeble powers of description.
1t is something like an inverted coal
scuttle without handles and pierced
by many holes. 1t is sometimes like
the bonnet of Brobdisnaggian Qua
keress, surprising that there were any
female members of the Society Of
Friends in Brobdignag. tits huge and
Tapped and battered and fearful to
Look upon; that is the most that can
say about it. Bang all this equipment
on the limbs of a tall negro of any age
between sixteen aud sixty, and then
let him stand close to the scnffold- like
platform of tile depot shanty and then
let him loaf. His attitude Is one oi
complete and apathetic imnObility; lie
does not grin; he may be chewing, but
he does not smoke; he dues not beg, a,
least in SO far as observed him; he
stood in no pasture and assumed nc
gesture belong ing to the mendicant;
+ he locke. at you with dull, stony, pre-
occupied gaze as though, his thoughts
were thousands of miles away in the
Unknown Land, while once in every
quarter of an hour or 40 he woke up to
the mOmentary consciousness that he
was a thing neither rich nor rare, and
so wondered how the devil he got
there. He is derelict-a fragment Of
flotsam and jetsam cast up on the moi
: too hospitable shore of civilization at
ter the great storm had dashed the
Southern sea to frenzy and the ship Of
slavery went to pieces forever. Pos.
sibly he is great deal more human
, than he looks, and, it he chose to be.
stir himself and to address himself te
articulate discourse, could tell you 8
great many things about his wants and
his wishes, his views AID feelings or
things in general, which to you might
prove little less than amazing. Al
things 60 he prefers to do nothing ani
to proffer no kind of explanation as tt
why lie is standing there in meta.
phorical mill pond very much "longel
e than he oughter," And SO l shall fini
him standing, l am told, all the way
down South. Sir John Falstaff wouli
have clapped him on the shoulder ant
enlisted bin at once as a full privat,
in the Ragged Regiment. A Londor
police constable would have bidder
!. him to move on, and in default of hi,
so moving would have run him in
He runs himself in voluntarily, the,
tell me, sometimes. When he is tirel
: of standing at the cross-road or at til,
e street corner, and wondering how til,
! devil he got there; when he begins t,
feel the wintry weather somewhat to,
keen to suit his looped and windowel
e laggedness, he drifts into o grocer,
9 store and pliers something. Tbel
they lock him up in the penitentiar,
u for a while; but he lies too warm AM
: snng in Jail, he is well fed and not to-
hnrdlv wnrLod ord Ia d>xo ,~A 49,.