Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1888-05-30
COZ aEGHs IN TIE SOUTH.

COZ aEGRS I'm THE SOUTH.
institutions at the Educational Gem
| ter of Georgia - The Unconscious
| EsOlism That Prevails Among South
| erners-Rrag Meets tho Visitor at Ev-
| cry Turn-A Glance at the Several
| Collegiate Establishments of Macon
| MACON, Ga, May %.
| To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
| came to Macon three days ago, impelled
by desire to discover what the average
southerner means when he talks about south
ern colleges, knowing that Macon enjoys the
| reputation of being quite much an educa-
tional center for the whites in Georgia as
Nashville does for the whites in Tennessee
During the three days which have elapsed
since left Atlanta think have patiently
listened to more brag than ever before en-
dured in all my life. Why is it that there
should be more egotism in the South than in
any other section of the eountrya 1t is be-
cause the people are just beginning to do
down here the things which the people of the
North and East and West have been doing
for great many years, and that they are
consequently as tiekled over their new-found
powers as a boy usually is over his first pair
of top.bootss However it may be I am
| sured of one thing: that after the Illogical
quality of the southern mind, the next most
prominent characteristic of the southerner is
| his unconscious egotism. I say unconscious
egotism. for I feel sure that by some inexpli-
cable and inscrutable dispensation of proyi-
dence the southerner himself is kept from
| suspecting that his faculty of self-love is ab-
| normally developed.
The two chief characteristics of the south
erner which have thus been pointed out, l.,
his emotional rather than logical bent, and
| H., his abnormal eg otism, should be set
down side by side. One goes with the other.
| No people anywhere else in Uncle Sans do
| minions are such masters of the language Of
passion and prejudice and pride, and there is
| no other section of the country, not even in
| the new West, where the traveller will hear
| So much braggadocio in given length of
| time.
| This is noticeable even in Atlanta, which
| Ia considerably northern. The Constitution
is forever saying that Peaohtree has not its
| equal as street on the face of the continent;
| that the Kimball House is the finest hotel in
| the country; that the Georgia legislature is
the most brilliant State legislature in the
| land and all such ridiculous things.
| Newspaper fattsry is proYerbially cheap,
but doubt if any northern newspaper ever
drooled all over public occasion as the Con-
| stitution did over the recent kirmess held in
Atlanta. It said again and again that neith-
| er Washington nor New York could have
eclipsed that entertainment. I attended it.
I have often attended as fine local festival
in towns of twenty thousand Inhabitants in
| the North Recently there was quite fire
Thn Esro oF flxv
marked in an interview in the next mornings
paper:
F'If we had had the whole fire department
of New York city at our command we
couldn't have handled that fire better"
Even the society column tells the same
| story. recent issue of the Constitution
had three personals in succession reading as
follows: "Miss Blank, lovely lady of Phil
adelphia, is the guest of Miss Dash" "Miss
So-and-so, one of Atlanta's fairest flowers.
will summer at Highlands, s. c., this year. F"
! ''The many friends of Miss Pugnose, who be-
longs to the creme de la creme of Atlanta So
ciety, will regret to learn that she is serious
ly ILL.," If I were yoang lady, and paper
said anything of that sort about me, should
not be satisfied with anything short of
blood. If I hadn't any big brother who
would thrash the editor for me would do it
myself.
Since arrived here I have made the ac-
quaintance of two very pleasant young men,
1 E0blOcubcIs IA mnCOu. 4ACJ n1C Ae14Ay 4u4Oo
bright and have been just awfully good to
me. But oh! what I have suffered at their
hands in the way of southern brag! To be
sure they are hardly to blame for their ego
tism since they have been brought up that
way; but that fact didn't make the Dragging
any easier to swallow and digest at the time
They got carriage and took me all over
the city. The broad streets are really quite
beautiful, and they ramble all over the site
of the city in delightfully."- picturesque way.
| gusta, Savannah and Columbia, S. 9. But
those were the least of the gleries of Macon
as they were unfolded to me by my enthusi-
astie chaperones. The park and fair grounds
were among the finest on the globe. The ar
| mory was the earliest established and best in
the South. This house was probably the
best furnished of any in America outside of
New York city. That church had one of the
finest organs which had ever been built The
billy roads leading out of Macon were unsur-
passed anywhere for bicycling.
At one point we crossed a railroad track.
That's the Central road, isn't itf" asked
| eyes," was the reply, ''the best equipped
and most extensive system in the country,
you know"
swallowed even this without murmur,
although could not help recalling mentally
the excellencies of the Pennsylvania, Lake
Shore. New York Central, Michigan Central
and other great systems over which I had
| travelled in the North-to say nothing of the
magnificent roads leading west and south and
| northwest from Chicago; and contrasting
| with these excellencies the wretched depots
|, and mediocre cars and slow movement which
I had encountered on various lines in the
tfCentral of Georgia" system.
Then when they showed me the new gov
erntnent building didn't noed any coaching.
| observed meekly:
Eyes. that is the finest thing of the kind
that ever saw. Il certainly beats anything
in Paris or London, or Berlin or Vienna"
!. They were much grati6ed at this COMES
sion, and though it had imposed a severe
strain upon my sensitive conscience to make
it, I tried to comfort myself by thinking
how easy it is to make people happy in this
world if one only sets about it.
They drove me out to some Indian mounds
| in the suburbs, in which 1 was really very
!. much interested. On the way back noticed
great quantities of fine, white rand strewed
over some bottom lands beyond the railroad
| tracks.
"What magnificent sandI'' said, thinking
! that had at last discovered something which
was beyond the reach of eulogy, and yet
anxious not to be outdone at the eulogy bus
mess.
eyes," said one of the two, s'that sand
was left there during the great flood of '79
, | and discovered after the subsistence of the
) waters. It has been pronounced by compe-
tent geologists the finest in the world for the
. manufacture of glass. So you see q fortune
awaits the capitalist who will put up glass
| factories here"
remarked that man must be small and
4 inarrow-minded indeed who failed to admire
: their sand, for it was certainly unapproacha
BILE. Then I added, rubbing my chin medi-
tasively:
'sWhat superb food that must have
Z beenl"
4 s'It was indeed, )" they replied with vieiblt
| enthusiasm.
BY this time I had begun to feel i'll from
: some cause or other; possibly it was only
nausea caused by listening to too mucf
u southern complacency. It occurred to me a
q | of drinking too much ice water.
SCI was overheated when returned to tn,
hotel this morning" I said, "and think
IS must have injured myself by indiscreet
Il drinking. Someone told me once that tn
W water Of Macon was peculiars and that it wa
" liable to make person i'll the first time h