San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1882-01-05

/ urc ScHSOn UTMOST US Ncll utIHtu uS tue
summer pleasure season OF the north
ern seacoast and lakes aud mountains,
II starts III the middle of the present
month, rises To its full tide soon after
the Christmas and New Year holidays,
and does not ebb till near April. Flori-
da and South Carolina are it's chief re-
sorts among the States which border
upon the Atlantic, and Louisiana
among those upon the Gulf of Mexico,
and it is growing definite in South
western Georgia and among thesprings
in Arkansas. Visitors from the North,
following the chief lines of travel
through these districts after the middle
of December, now find comfortable,
aud on many routes (such as the st,
Johns River, in Florida) luxurious nc
commodation from landlords who are
familiar with the most artificial wants
of such guests. Especially in Florida
class of innkeepers is developing it.
self who own or lease and manage sum-
mer hotels in the North from June into
September and winter hotels in the
South from December into April. The
railroad and steamboat accommodations
on these main routes during the winter
pleasure season also are as comfortable
as the most exacting travellers can rea-
sonably desire. Earlier or later in the
year the same cannot be said, but that
is equally true in respect to access to
summer pleasure resorts in the North
out of season.
We hope for time, at no very great
distance, when all along the coast and
through the uplands of the Gulf States
there may be as extensive end as COM
Portable provision for transient visitors
during the winter as can be found in
summer among the Catskills or in the
little towns upon the shores of Long
Island, and when pleasure travel and
holiday soiourning in the South may
become convenient to Northern people
of every condition, instead of being
limited, as now it practically is, to the
wealthy. Every excursion by a North
ern tourist, aside from the present
beaten paths of travel in the South,
helps to bring this nearer.
There are thousands of Northern
families-not only the wealthy, but
means-who will choose the winter in
stead of the summer for their pleasure
journeys whenever the South will afford
them suitable facilities. We do not be-
lieve that we are fanciful in pointing
the Southern people to the opportunity
of etfecting this change in the usages of
Northern social life as a source of great
profit to themselves and in urging them
to hasten it by providing such facilities.
Not to speak of great centers of popu-
lation like New York and Philadelphia
and Boston, there are lesser Northern
cities and large towns which can be
numbered by the hundred where scores
of families habitually close their houses
and move into the country for several
weeks during the summer under no
: compulsion from the climate, but mere
ly for the sake of variety, who would
, obtain much greater benefit by doing
so in the winter, and would gladly
choose that time in preference if the
; Southern Gulf coast offered them even
such opportunities as are afforded, for
example, to English families of cores
ponding rank in life all along the Med
, iterranean shores of France and Italy
The "new South South which
has ceased moaning over the ruins OF
it's ancient social fabric and is setting
itself vigorously at work to build a
sound structure on surer foundations
is showing itself hospitable to novel and
enterprising ideas. The Atlanta Exhi
bition is full of proofs of such hospi
tality. Let it think seriously of this
} suggestion of attracting Northern win
ter residents by tens of thousands as 6
practical possibility.
Since the Roman empire no such ex
!, panse of contiguous territory in the
temperate and sub-tropic zones as thai
of the United States ever has been in
? cluded in one political dominion within
which the inhabitants were able to re-
side under the protection of q common
) government. The prevalence of one
!, language North and South, and the
substantial agreement of Northern ant
Southern social theories and practices
since the abolition of slavery, combine
with this community of government
and with the modern miracles in the
means and the cost of locomotion t.
cause a greater freedom and extent o.
E social intercourse among American:
than has happened among any Other
people in history. 1t was frequent
occurrence for Roman citizens to divide
the year between Italy and Africa, oil
Southern France, or Spain, or Sicily
|, or the Grecian Archipelago, or the
Asiatic coast Of the Mediterranean
We believe that it will soon become
> much more frequent for Americans tC
divide the year between their North and
! their South, and that to countless
Northern households the level land
scape, the luxuriant vegetation and the
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