The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1881-09-01
A GENEROUS DEFENSE

The Houston Age makes a most
generous defense Of Austin, in re-
ply to the attacks of Messrs. Finley
and Wilkes, representing Tyler and
Lampasas. The Age says:
If we had given full faith and
credit TO their charges we would
have been compelled to believe that
very large per centage of all the
wickednrss of this world was con-
centrate,l within the limits of the
city of a ustin, the capital of Texas.
But we had been to Austin, and
knew something of its manners and
customs and people, and we were
suspicious that Messrs. Wilkes aud
Finley, in their pictures of Austin
sinfulness, had considerably over
painted-had colored altogether too
highly.
We had heard that Mr.. +. ID.
Wilkes was candidate at the last
general election for the state senate.
He was badly beaten by the Demo-
cratic nominee, it is true. But by
the mere act of becoming candi-
date, and candidate, too, of his own
making, he s;gnilied willingness,
and something more than a mere
willingness, anxiety in fact, to go to
Austin and attend the Legislature.
and il looked little unreasonable
that an innocent young man like
him should be anxious to place him
self for sixty days or more in the
midst of all the pollution that he said
Austin was reeking with. We had
learned, in fact, that though not
chosen by the people of the district
in which he has his home to repre-
sent them in the senate, Mr.. Wilkes
liked Austin so well, that of his own
free will and at his own expense, he
went there and remained there
nearly all the time the legislature
was in session. And that too SEEM
ed irreconcilable with the idea
that Mr.. Wilkes regarded Austin as
the fOulest hole on the continent.
We conld hardly believe that Mr..
Wilkes would leave his home and
go and stay for two months volun-
tarily, and without any business. in
a place that was full of vice and cor
ruption and obscenity, profanity,
drunkenness, gambling and Gcen-
tiousness.
Well, we have just returned from
visit TO Austin, and here ia our ac-
count of the place:
Austin has not got ninety saloons.
II has no more saloons in proportion
TO its population than Waco, LAM
pasas, or any other town or city in
the state.
Austin has gambling places, so has
Waco, Lampasas and Tyler. But its
gambling places are not kept open on
Sunday, and one can walk down the
Avenue on the Sabbath day without
hearing the cry of "keno" ringing in
the mir.
Austin saloons, like the saloons in
most other Texas cities, are some
times kept open until nine in the
morning, and after four in the even
ing ON Sunday; but it is an unusual
thing to see state officials, heads of
departments, swagger into the sa-
looms and stand at the bar and "tip-
pie beer and whisky" 1t does not
by any means follow, because a gen.
tleman is elected to q state Office,
that he is necessarily "total alb
stinence" man; but, as we learn
from those who are tolerably close
observers at Austin, Mr. Wilkes is
badly mistaken when he says that
heads of departments at Austin go
into drinking saloons on Sunday and
drink toddies, or go into gambling
houses on Sunday and bet at keno.
Austin has nineteen churches, and
ON each Sabbath day the adult pop
ulation in large numbers repair to
their respective churches and en-
gage in worship, and the children
attend Sabbath school.
Austin has a magnificent graded
free school building. A handsome
three-story building in which the
higher branches are taught every
year to six hundred children.
The citizens of Austin, by an i'm
mense majority voted that the city
should take the control of the pub
lie free schools,and voted tax upon
themselves to support those schools.
The Female Collegiate Institute,
by Professor b. j. Smith, and the
Alta Vista Institute, by Mrs. Helen
Kirby, are as good female high
schools as any community need
want; and they are both Austin in
stituhons and are both well patron
lied.
There are A l private schools in
nearly every ward in the city of
Austin; and her public free schools
are thoroughly systematised, largely
attended, and well sustained.
Schools and churches are very
good indications of the moral tone
and sentiment of community, and
| judged by her schools and churches,
Austin need not fear comparison
with any other city or town in
Texas.
The Age is not the partisan of
Austin. 1t is not the opponent of
Waco, Lampasas, Tyler or Thorp
Springs (; and we should probably
have said very little about the
merits of either place. But we are
frequently at Austin. We know the
people there. We know them to be
social, genial, enterprising, liberal
and intellectual. We think they
have been unjustly and unreasona-
bly, assailed, and we have deemed il
proper to say this much in their be-
half.