The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1881-08-23


The Nashville At.viods recent as
oontaina letter from corr pondent %
Orlando. Orange oount1. VII justly dsp-
rscatea the g ilowert talss" sold 81 Flori'
de- BY Stand agents. I'D ~ undsrt= kes
himself to give iItonnasion, which be
no doubt considers 9 perfsctly reliable y,
about Florida, /" not knowing or caring
whether his remarks are understood to ap-
ply 70 particnlar portion of tl1e ptsts.
but rather giving the Impression that he
has seen the entire State and = compe-
tent to speak for every portion Of 4,
when in fact he has only seen . portion,
and avery small portion ct that, and not
the best portion either. What he says
may or may not be true Of the sections be
has visited; we cannot believe it to be 90;
butt certainly il not true Of many other
sections, among them, Middle Florida.
Here he goes;
tnd that the average correspondent gets bis
Information from some land agent or some man
who wants % sell out, 90 you can account for
the hOWery tales. After spending the winter
and this much Ofthe summer In Florida, testing
the climate and health. must say that the win-
tiers are most delightful and healthy and that
the summers are not any warmer than In Ten
nessee or Kentucky. and much cooler at night
than there. IS ss
But then comes one and all-important thing in
the summer, and that lie health, which is hardly
% Oe found in Florida 10 the summer. Every
thing and every place Is full Of malaria. II is 30
bad on the 81. Johns and iis tributaries that
they can't get men 10 work their orange groves
unless they pay extOrtiOnate prices-as high as
$50 and $40 per month for laboring men to work
ON grovea and can't hardly keep them At that
Rrlce' Wills the mortality OF Florida Is quite
light the sickness is very heavy. They have
those miserable diseases which do not kill but
make man hate himself For instance, chills
and lever. intermittent fever, typhoid and malari-
al fever, with cOngestive chills and all connect
ing diseases, with heavy sprinkling of bowel
diseases from bad wafer. We used 10 think the
Cumberland and the Dean engines were bad
but the Cumberland is ice cream to Florida
water. II ls all warm, most of it warm as
milk. Wells run from two to twenty feet deep
ana mostly seepage water and full Of decayed
vegetable matter.
Orange county ia considered one of the health
lest IN the state, and ten houses out of every
twelve have from one TO three sick in it, have
seen families of eight and ten all down with some
kind OF maIarial disease and not able to help one
another. The average Floridian looks like q
dried pumpkin Ia the summer time and as full
OF malaria as cucumber is of cramps, and the
main topic Is, Areyou going North this summer
or wish could go and, may be, would get
better. find that those who blow so much
about the health of Florida last winter, when
they were trying to sell out, are complaining on
the other side now as there are no buyers about
and they are sick and not afraid to talk among
themselves. / went with couple of gentlemen
in Putnam county TO look at place one them
was very particular about, there being no chills
there, and was assured by the owner that he
and his brother had lived there for fifteen years
and never had chill in the family. On getting
to the house the other brother was out in the
grove, 80 his wife said. We went out and found
him under tree with a hard chill and the first
thing ne said was give the d-n place away if
you can't sell it."
While at the hotel in Sanford, Orange county,
1met preacher from Kentucky and doctor from
Tennessee looking for places 10 settle. ! went
by the owner that they never had had chills on
his place in ten years got to the place and
his little boy ran down and said his mother and
his two sisters were sick in bed with the chilIs.
No wonder. There was swamp before him
and one at his back. At Orlando, the noted
cross-road town, We find four cases in one house.
with quite number of others around, and 90 it
goes all over the State. Jacksonville, q town of
5000 whites and 5000 blacks, has 40 regular resi-
dent doctors through the summer, with four
times that many 10 the winter. / have seen
three different weekly newspapers come out with
half sheet this summer, and the editors said
the printers were all sick and they could do no
better.