Morning journal and courier., 1882-01-28

NeFAuS FIAces EICs
 HAYWOOD, Fayette Co.,, ". Va,
 Jan 20, 1882.
 To the Editor of tse JOURNAL AND couRIKR:
 My previous letter on storskeeping has brought me so many letters inquiring as to details that few more words on the same subject will probably be of public interest
 In the spring of 1879 man named H., Jerseyman, rented store at RussellviIle, 6 little hamlet ten miles from this place. H-'s capital was $1 1000 and 8 very ca pablo wife; but both he and his wife had the misfortune to be very unpopular among their customers The house rented for S30 year and it contained two bedrooms, a kitchen and the store. The couple kept one servant, who received, presume, about s1 9 week Eighteen months after his start in business H- died and the stock of goods was sold an account of stock had shown it's value to be $2, 100. Unpaid bills amounted to something less than S2OO. In this case it will be seen that H- had, in eighteen moaths, all but doubled his capital invested, while his own time behind the counter represented rent and household expenses and clothing during the time do net know whether further profits were represented by cash in the bank at the time of our friends death but rumor has it so.
 One thing should particularly be borne in mind: The importance of small business is not so much in proportion to the amount of profits as in the suficiency of these profits to
 4 young college graduate who 'tgoes into business as 8 pis aller Is fortunate if he obtain a subordinate position with a salary of five hundred dollars a year. If be has a thousand dollars invested, say another hundred are added to his yearly in- come. Six hundred dollars are barely enough, with the strictest economy, to board and clothe him respectfully, not to say hand somely. Were he to invest his S1 900 down here in some such business as I have de- scribed, he would derive from his invest ment, together with his own time, an income at least equal to what he had before. His board would cost him from s150 to S25o year. Say he spends S75 Ia thing which can hardly conceive) for clothes, he has left the price of Q good saddle horse (SIo0) and the cost of his keep and shoeing for one year (S75) and something over for the bank know will be pardoned for this going into
 
 settlers Glittering generalities about 8 new country and its opportunities interest every body, if you will, but they do not appeal di- rectly to the senses of those who are or ought to be most concerned
 There is one matter in which a northern man doing business in the South is at dis advantage with his less energetic southern confrere He is without that s,EduteT fH naodo unaccompanied by the .Jortiter iH rs which distinguishes the southern merchant. And while the southerner Is, perhaps, & little too much interested in the private mat ters ot his customers to suit the dictates of good taste, the little inquiries are hattering to the hot p0lt0i and the consequence Is that an oily tongue and an insinuatirg familiarity are often a very good offset to better goo@s~ and cheaper prices across the way. recol- Iect piece of genuine politeness of so extra ordinary a nature that I am constrained to record it. In the year of grace 1879 there occurred e hegira of our domestics. My brother in-law forthwith installed himself chef de csnSHe, and 0 very good tAsf he was About Christmas time came the annual sickfy hankering for mince pies, but there were no building materials G. bethonght him of Mir. Sydenstrieker, the druggist in Lewisburg. thirty miles away. Now G. had never seen Sydenstricker, and I am safe in saying that had never spent five dollars at his counter since had been in West Virginia But B. was appealed to by letter and he forthwith secured the town in person for the articles on the list, and after packing them neatly in box sent them out to us by the mail carrier. And he never made charge for his trouble.
 Summer hotels or boarding houses are needed at Ansted and Haywood, in Fayette county, and at the Blue Sulphur Springs and on Little Sewen Mountain, in Gresnbr1er county say at Ansted, but summer boarding house ought to be. situated mile k1lE al arz< Hawks Nest. While Ansted has not some of the advantages preferred by situations among the mountain tops it is uaequalied in the State for the beauty and picturesQueness of its scenery and the accessibility of it's walks and drives A hotel at which bacon, corn pons and coffee were not the permanent bill of fare morning. noon and night fer seven days in the week, and~where the warm joke of feather bed would not be perpetrated on the guests, would be sure to draw every summer a crowd of patrons from Charleston, Hunt ington, Gallipolis, Cincinnati and thelwealthy districts of Kentucky. Maywocd has the at fractions of iron and sulphur springs, and good trout fishing, and ruffed grouse and deer in their seasons, and quiet loveliness peculiarly it's own From its heights the eye reaches far away to the southvard, across the War Ridge and over the wild New River canyon and even seems to pierce the secret recesses of the Shades of Death. At 3,2Q0 feet above the sea- the benign fairy of the mountain has banished mosquitoes, and a substantial blanket is indispensable on the warmest nights of summer.
 On the very top of Little Sewel Mountain is an old worn-out farm known as the "Alex- ander place" Here powerfully impregna- ted alum spring pours out from & valuable seam of coal from which comes the fuel for the surrounding country. Standing at the old farmhouse your eye lights first on beauti- fNnA~r, six miles away-in ante 6elsum days the seat of affiuence and the scene of baundless hos pitality, and now an oasis of culture and re- finement in the middle of the wilderness Turning fully to the east, across sea of un dulating hills studded with farn1s and clear ings, you see the pine fringed ridge of the Allegheny dividing the old from the new. Circling to the south you see the graceful outlines of the Blue Sulphur Mountain and further of the towering mass of Keeney's Knob where the Coast Survey has 8 station. and further still is the misty ssmokiness which hangs over the waters whicb come from North Carolina. And then, but seen through glass, the escarped cliffs of New River, and near by the venerable pile of Big Sewen. Beauty, poetry and peace La peace so abso- lute as to suggest desolation and cause won der until a remembrance of the ravages of war changes wonder into pity. But the signs of the times are full of meaning and 1t cannot be long before these grand forests will give place to waving grain and these mountains be pierced for their hidden but in exhaustible riches, and from tais very spot the denizens of summer wtstering place will listen to the rhythmic strokes of the To- comotive dragging its freight across these glades to the distant tidewater.
 Nine miles from the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad is the Blue Sulphur Springs, famous before the war as sanitarium, and its waters still swelling to heaven as they flow from un. der their succeed covering ae ence ex- tensive buildings are now in ruinss Of the main hotel nothing but the weed-eovered foundations mark the spot. Nome adven- turous darkies occupy one brick ruin, which. although all standing, has it's hulging walls propped on all sides with poles and pieces of timber. long line of onee white cottages, windowless, doorless and tepansless, still main to attest the former grandeur of the main establishment. The estate is owned by a family too much impoverished. by the war to undertake the work of reorg anization and too eminently Yirginiau to best1r themselves properly to find purchaser. Perhaps, with the march of events, ssThe Blus" will once more start into life and add it's color to the rainbow of sulphurs which are every year thronged to overhowing. J. w.