Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1880-09-14
JUDGE ToURGEE AND HIS WIFE.
TuE SORT OF LIFE LED ny rIII AUTHOR Oh
THE Fool : ERRAND IN NoRfH' CAROLINA.
Cincinnati Commercial ]

Although A Fools Erraui' WIS pub
lishcd last winter, it is sill selling Al the
rate OF 500 copies week They even
real il in the Solid South. gentleman
some time ago went into a doctors Office
in Greensboro, y. c., 50 Unexpectedly that
the medical gentleman tried 20 hide a book
he WAS reading. Il was the Fools
ErrLud Being rather pushed into a
corner by iuQuSitiye questions, the doctor
confessed that he WAS intensely Interested
in it, aud that he was really reading it for
the third time. The strangest part of all
i that the North CarolinjanS do not fly in
q rage over the book, but on the whole
are said rather 10 enjoy IT, They take the
stories OF the KukluN fendi>hnc,S and
other atrocities a. compliment 10 the Un-
comparable spirit OF the South. The
-Vcrdeutou" OF the book is Greensboro,
y G. Warrington" Is the plantation up
on which Judge Tourgec Settl, j. He went
To stay. He was in no sense OF the word
"forsrtful of the fact that the social con-
dition> OF 300 years are not 10 be over
thrown in moment" His wife, refined,
accomplished woman; accompanied him,
like himself full of hope and courage.
Til, i how they lived after they got
there When Mrs. Tourgee went along the
streets OF Greensboro, the women of that
town made wide circuit around her, and
gathered back their clothes Is If they were
afraid Of touching her All that impotent
female spite conld DO 10 poison her ex-
i>tencc was done. Socially, she lived in an
isolation a. terrible As il she had been the
old Indian woman on her Santa Barbara
Island. Southern ladies often come North,
nowadays. 10 visit here in Cincinnati and
elsewhere. They are made as welcome,
full, social attentions a. If there never had
been 4 war between the North and South,
and Is If, indeed, the North had never
beaten the South in fair fight. But Mrs.
Tourgec, 4 lady ~ redIed, Is delicately
bred ~ any woman in the land, went
among the Southern people; aud only be-
cause she was from the North, was put up
on 4 level with ''ni.gers." Perhaps, how
ever. this is proper manifestation of the
"unconquerable spirit" Caroliuiaus glory
in.
The domestic happiness the Fool and
his wife enjoyed nay be Inferred from the
fact that whenever Judge Tourgee started
out 10 attend court Mrs. Tourgee never
dared feel any confidence that he would
come back alive. He was Northern man,
aud Republican who dared TO say so in
what is supposed TO be free country.
For this reason he was universally hated.
Attempts were made to kill him. plot
10 assassiuate 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 let
tiers from the Regulators" threat ening his
life. They were profusely decorated with
coffins, skulls and cross-bones. Black men
and white ones too, used frequently to
creep secretly to his house with their
backs bleeding from the Ku-Kluk bull
whip. They had been dragged from their
beds in the dead of night, and thus cruelty
dashed.