The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-09-21

eral Prosperity
From the Eoston Herald
NEW York. Sept. 4.-Lame from paraly.
gray haired from age and sum- urnt
I'm travel, met to-day well-known
inner citizen of Boston, James Redpath
bo informed me that he had just returned
.,m trip of a month in the southern
otes from Norfolk to New Orleans, and
,ot on this tour he had met Gov Lee of
rirginia, Gov Gordon of Georgia, Gen.
tIabone, Gen. Longstreet, and had been a
nest for four days of Mr.. and Mrs. Jeffer-
on Davis at their home on the gulf, at Beau
mir Mississippi, between Mobile and New
Orleans.
/ As Mr.. Redpath refused to give me the
|oints unless l would report them in his
wn words and permit him to revise'them.
give the result of my interview with him,
Knitting, as unnecessary, most of the ques-
oas that called out the narrative of his
/ Il have often visited Virginia, the Caro-
kna,. Georgia and Mississippi. Thirty years
1 nee made a long pedestrian trip from
/ Richmond, Va, to Augusta, Ga; was in
atlanta twenty -four hours after Sherman
uttered it, and had slowly gone over his
soute to that point; | accompanied three
CONGRESSIONAL investigating committees to
South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana !;
i saw large portion of tho south shortly
/, fter the war, and have made visit to
some southern state every year since the
<close of the war, so | can compare the con-
/ liton of the country from personal obser-
NATION for more than a generation.
81 never saw the south looking so pros
| erous as it looks to-day. The crops every
/ where are good. The cotton crop is good
+ one. The recent transforms in Mississippi
/ have done damage to certain localities, but
|the aggregate losses will not seriously affect
|tbe prosperity, either OF the south as a sec
|ton nor of any particular state. New
|Orleans was isolated from the outside world
|for several days-all the telegraphs were
down and the railroads along the coast
we're reported from to feet under water
was kept four days in Mobile. No trains
came or went. The Mobile streets, near the
bay, were compared to a back alley in
|Venice-but that was vanity Mobile does
not seem to have made any progress since
the war. improvements, however, are said
10 be under way. Petersburg, Va, and
Gainesville, Ga, class with Mobile in their
stationary character.
DuU E2tldHld nave Ildu6
great strides. Richmond has entirely recov-
cred from the effects of the war; and, with
its suburb of Manchester, has now over
$4,000 inhabitants. 1t is handsome city.
Montgomery, the other capital of the con-
tederacy, has also made great progress.
Quite a number of new manufacturing
towns have sprung up, and many villages
have become thriving little cities since the
war, especially in Northern Alabama and
Northern Georgia. The great iron and coal
deposits that have been developed since the
war are rapidly changing the character of
that elton. In the course of an hour [
read over twenty different items among the
exchanges in Richmond hotel, each record
ing the opening of new furnace or the
erection of new factory, most of them in
he gulf states.
Atlanta is a marvel. Sherman left it a
mass of smoking or smouldering ruins of q
city. IL is now little Chicago, a
irving, thriving commercial city, with
niles of as handsome streets as any pros
)erous northern city, and with one of the
)est and largest hotels in the country.
at is curious to note the gradual evolu-
ion in the south of northern traits with the
development of commercial and manu-
acturing interests. In New Orleans, and
Mobile and Petersburg, for example-cities
hat have not yet felt the quickening im-
pulse of commercial activity-the people
walk as they walked before the war-slowly,
Is if they had all eternity to walk in. In
Atlanta, on the contrary, although the
people have not yet quite caught on to the
Chicago quickstep, the men walk with an
llertness unknown before the war; they
walk now as if they had all eternity to rest
IN, and therefore needn't mind getting tired.
met quite q number of drummers in the
3arS and hotels, and, without exception,
they all gave favorable reports of the pros
perity of the south and the excellence of the
crops and the hopefulness of the outlook in
the new manufacturing districts. In the
mills of all sorts, they said, the operatives
are whites
IA new southern trait is developed
Nobody is ashamed of being
poor; the war annihilated the wealthy
class; the rich of the ante-bellum period
are, almost without exception, either really
Or relatively poor now. Take Davis and
Longstreet, for example Longstreet's
home, l found, is large, but thoroughly
ramshackee frame house, close
to the dusty roadside, giving every evidence
Of the extreme poverty of its owner. |
could not gain entrance front or back, and
finally negro went after the general and
brought him from his barn, that looked,
like his house, badly in need of repair. The
general came along without his coat
on, as if he had been working, and adj
nitted me to the house. No pictures on
the walls. No carpets on the floors. In
what was once doubtless the parlor, was
long dining table, covered with papers,
books and manuscripts. There were few
Kitchen chairs in the room, but no carpet.
This is the room that the old confederate
cN, "a L. 10
on the war. The old soldier finds it hard
work, as his right arm is partially paralyzed.
lie Is a tall, Well-proportioned, rather stall
wart gentleman of over 20, with ruddy
clear complexion and hair and Burnside
as white as snow. His health
seems good, but he looks very old and is
rather bent with age.
BY the way, there is large ingredient
Of humbug in the cry against the solid
south. There are two solid souths-and
just as long as the blacks are solid for the
republicans just so long will the whites be
solid for the democrats There is also
COON deal of cant about the suppression OF
Inc negro vote. The negroes never had any
thing to say-any influence whatever-dur-
ing the reconstruction period-about the
practical management of the party or the
selection of candidates. Half a dozen white
men, either northern men or southern re-
ublicans-selected candidates and dictated
platforms and policy. The carpot-baggers,
as class, were as honest as any class of
public men; but the most honest did the most
larin. They were sincere human
tarans who turned the negroes
beads by constantly championing
Their rights, and never or rarely expound-
ns their duties They consolidated the
pack vote as distinct and hostile force
against the white vote. AS long as the
Republican party in the south is composed
ALMOST exclusively OF colored voters, just so