The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-04-19

| oAS AA14 VI o%St1018A anu 6OCldl UxtuC | but of all the colonies to which England ever gave birth, North Carolina was in its origin probably the most essentially plebian, and moreover, remained plebian and rude to very late date. South Car olina, on the other hand, which was only semi-English in origin, rapidly developed small and well-to- do upper class with conner ial and urban as well as mere planting interests. In Virginia a major ity, should say, of those families who claim and receive the appellation of good" who hug to themselves the magic but elastic title of F. F. Would not care to go back much beyond the revolutionary war in the work of investi- gation, and would shrink from the horny hands of the honest settler whom they would in all probability find axe in hand barring the genealogical path to the tra- ditional cavalier.
 l will take an average county in the centre of Virginia as fair type of south ern rural life. It will be about the size of one of the smaller English shires, say
 Huntingdon. l, will not be a recently sur veyed parallelogram, like Canadian or
 western county. but will have natural
 boundaries of streams and ridges which
 were assigned to II early in the last cen tury within which il has had time to ac- quire certain amount of individuality. to cherish a certain amour. Of local ,ra- ditIon, and to eonnec, itself by degrees
 with the names of certain influential fam ilies. All classes, however, have been
 more or less stationary upon the soil old tombstones in fence corners and in
 fors1ken brier grown graveyards bear for the most part on Their weather worn
 faces the same names as those witii yiiit |,
 the eross-road storcs and .he school
 houses of the cay are most familiar. tn. ] like rural New En anu. em.g grafton west
 ward has been ,rltiln.. and local prela- dicf.s and m ignorance ot netaaboring j uistuCts have developed to an extent that 1 would almost put some of our English i Arcadtas to shame Before the war sent every abie-bodIed man here. there and everywhere, the parallel in tn t sense would, m ali probability. have been com i p.ete. 4 New York friend of mine who like myself. has lived for many years in Virginia. IS fond oi declaring. by way of Illustrating this focal patriotism. that no man would have chance with d lury of ' AphAtty IT HIS ODDODeHI were pa,ive of it's soil This is extreme. no doubt, but II Is quite certain that 10 the mass of the people settler from the neigh boring state of Pennsylvania would be quite as much stranger and his mode of conducting himself and his affairs quite as much nine days wonder. as If hs came from Engiand or Scotland
 In ths particular country, which coa- sIder to be quite representative enough ior ordinary purposes of comparison, there will be population of about 5o eco ceeoiei entirely ta agricultural pursuits; ,.oCso oi these are negroes. Here accuracy of statistics ends Ui the IS,coo whites no blue book, or red book. or enterDrisIng individual. ever ven,ured to step IT. and say who were gentlemen and who were not: who were good stock anu who were .' bad r; who were mean whites and were mighty respectable people but for all that the divisions were there strong enough, though marked by lines that grew faint and uncertain, as class touched class
 The word gentleman" though very freely used in the south. as elsewhere in America, has no social sisnifica ance what NsNtt ohASsS "uCu dSCu OCCASIONALLY DE people answering to that description, in European sense. convcrsing among themselves. Even then it Is uttered with pointed significance, and sort of consciousness that such language would not do for the street, the office, or the court house. It was necessary that the middle and lower classes of the south should for several generations before the war be hamored in the presence of the negro with harmless terms. so the old sense of the words gentleman and lady which in colonial days still sui vived. became lost in their general appl,- cation 10 nearly ali the white population. and came 10 mean nothing: whlie their place IS occupied by other and less bald definitions. not calculated 10 offend the demsoratic ear. Good people ]" irst families. people of refinement" are all awkward makeshifts of social description for the old definition which has been dis carded. not only for the reason already gwen. but pro oably from an instinct that 1 the lerm Tn an exclusive sense would l have been too marked for d state of society that blended the aristocratio and l the democratic feeling so bewllderingly ! together.
 The English traveller or settler in America often comes home disgusted by | -'ha, he imagiaes are the social preten- sions of the common farming folk, in the ! wes, or elsewhere. in calling themselves | ladies and gentlemen. The fact is. the ! term to them conveys no distinct idea i whatever 1; I; has little or no social siguifi- ! canoe, for they snare it with almost every f neighbor for hi,y miles around. bu, { society adj us,s itself. in spite oi that by | the irresistible Laws of like to like and | yoar plain republican armer acquiesces without mufn.ur in such disposition. | When he has said. :" l don't set up 10 be [ a 'ris;oe.a;," he has said in the American tongue. as plaialy as words can say 1t, :" don't pretend to be gentlemen" but such phraseology as the latter would be revolting and degrading on American soil, and doesn't indeed sound pretty anywhere.
 From personal aequaintanee sf |