, 1886-06-17
IN THE ANTE-BELLUM DAYS.
OId-TiGne Hospitality of southern Plant
,rS-SocfaI Life in virginia.

OId-TiIne Hospitality of Southern Plant
srS-SociaI Life III Virginia.
Persons are still alive who saw the
prodigal style of living and the reckless
hospitality of thc planters in those days,
when III the Charleston and SeG Island
mansions the guests constantly entcf-
tanned We're only outnumbered by Nrrs
swaITns of servants; when it WAS NOT
con"ruouS and scarcely o-tentatiOus that
the courtiy company. which had the fine
and free manner of another age, should
dine OFF gold and silver plate, and when
all that wealth and luxury could suggest
was lavished in princcly magniticence
that was almost barbaric i'll its profusion.
The young men We're educated in En-
gland; the young women Were reared
like helpless prinCeSses. with servant
for every want and whin; it was day
of elegant accomplishments and
deferential manners, but the men gained
like Fox and drank like Sheridan, and
the duel was the ordinary arbiter of any
difference of opinion or of any point of
honor.
The agricultural life of Virginia appeals
with scarcely less attraction to the imagi-
nation of the novelist. Mr.. Thackeray
caught the flavor of it in his "Virginians, ="
from an actual study of it in the old
houses, when it was becoming faded
memory. The vast estates-principal-
tiles in size-with troops of slaves
attached to each plantation; the hospital
ity, less costly but as free as that of
South Carolina; the land in the hands of
few people, politics and society con-
trolled by a small number of historic
families, intermarried until all Nirginians
| of certain grade We're related-a!l this
forms picture as feudal like and foreign
to this age as can be imagined.
The writer recently read the viii of a
country gentleman OF the last century in
Virginia, which raises distinct image
of the landed aristocracy of the time.
1t devised his plantation of 5000 acres
with its slaves attached, his plantation of
1,SO0 acres and slaves, his plantation of
1000 acres and slaves, with ether farms
and outlying property; it II ''tioned all
the cattle, sheep and hogs. the racing
steeds, the several coaches with six
horses that drew them tan acknowledge
ment of the wretched state of the roads,,
and so on in all the details of vast do.
main. All the slaves are called by name,
ali the farming implements were enuIn-
| Grated and all the homely articles of
| furniture down to the beds and kitchen
utensils. This whole structure of a
unique civilization is practically. swept
away now, and with it the peculiar So
cial life it produced.
The family was the fetch. In this
| highly social caste the estates were en-,
tailed to the limit Of the law, for one
| generation. and this entail was com
monty relgiously renewed by the heir
1t was not expected that a widow
would remarry; as 4 rule she did not
| and it was almost matter of course that
| the will of the husband should make the
enjoyment of even the entailed estate de
pendent upon the non-marriage of the
widow. These prohibitions upon hel
| freedom of choice was not considered
! singular or cruel in society whose chief
gospel was the preservation of the family
name.-Charles Dudley Warner II
Princeton Review.