The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-02-08
LIFE OF THE MooNsHINEA.
The Women Mere Drudges and tns
Men Far from Happy.

and around the mountain III search OF
moonshine stills. The mountain paths and
coves of Northeast Georgia are as familiar
to the revenue officers as re the streets OF
Athens to our police force. They know
the wild and desolate coun-
try. and every spring and branch that can
furnish water to operate still. we dld
not follow the public highways, but took
little blind paths leading over the noun
tains and into places never visited by tray
elers. In travelling a mountain road | have
often wondered where the people lived, but
this question was now answered. They are
souatted on the barren mountain sides, and
on the banks Of the numerous little streams
that find their source in the Blue Ridge
range
In White, and in fact in all the mountain
Gus counties in Georgia, are found some as
fine land as our State affords, and also
many enterprising and refined people. This
class occupies the valleys, have nice and
comfortable homes, plenty of good stock,
and are Independent and prosperous
But it is not of this class l speak, or with
whom my business lay. but with the inhabi-
tantS of the poor and unproductive ridges.
If you want to see poverty and wretched-
ness in its worst form you must visit the
class that goes to make up the mountain
moonshiners. OF course there are excep-
tionS even to this rule, and occasionally
prosperous and well-to-do farmer is guilty
of thus violating the laws, but | am
speaking of the illicit distillers as class.
Their houses are generally built of logs,
and are devoid of every comfort. A clear
ing of a few acres surrounds the cabin, on
which the owner raises meagre crop OF
corn. These cabins can hardly be called
houses, but they are rather huts, such as
the prosperous negro in the lower counties
would refuse to occupy. During my days
ride saw more than one OF these shantles,
occupied by gaunt mountaineer, an augu-
lar, sallow-faced woman and great swarm
of children-the chimney to which had half
fallen down and the cracks between the
logs, instead of being daubed with clay, as
is customary, were stopped by rammlng
green pine brush between them, affordlng
a very poor protection against the cutting
mountain blasts. 1t is a mystery that these
people do not freeze to death during the
cold weather.
WOMEN MERE DRUDGEs
The blowing and field and farm work is
generally done by the women. Very few
families own even n scraggy mountain pony,
and the blowing is generally done by little
steer or bull calf hitched TO pillow. The
women do the most laborious work, and are
truly objects of pity. You often see two or
three stout, able-bOdied men lounging about
the yard in blissful idleness, while the poor
wife and mother not only cooks and washes
and attends TO her numerous family of
children, but also helps to make and gather
the crop, which crop when harvested, her
liege lord forthwith proceeds to toll into
mean liquor and drink it up. | saw several
really pretty girls in these wretched huts,
who, if they had the advantages OF wealth
and refinement, would rank as bellies; but
the hard life they are forced to lead, quickly
transforms them into withered old women
] cannot imagine n harder life than that led
by the wife of one of those poverty stricken
and thrftless mountaineers.
To satisfy myself, l visited several of
these cabins and talked with the inmates
] did not see a cooking stove in any of them;
the vessels in which the meals were prepared
being not an oven, a frying pan and a
kettle Many of the houses have only one
room, and in this the entire family eat,
sleep and work. These people are, however,
very hospitable and if they have but a crust
of bread will divide it with a stranger, and
also share their scant bedding with him on
the coolest night.
l particularly inquired of the women
their sentiment in regard to the operating of
illicit stills. found them as much opposed
10 this business as any one could be. More
than one wife remarked to me that she
would be thankful indeed TO see the last il
licit still in the country DESTROYED, as the
business had entailei more trouble upon the
helpless women and children in the noun
tainS than everything else combined They
say these moonshine stills were using all the
corn, and actually taking bread out of the
mouths of their people. Not a tenth part
of the whisky thus m-de is sold and the
money devoted to bug ing comforts for the
distiller's family.
The men who made this whisky. together
with their friends, drank it up. 1t encour-
ages drunkenness, thriftlessness and cruelty,
and the women and children are the princi-
pal sufferers thereby. There is not more
corn made in these mountain coves than is
sufficient to furnish bread to the population
and there is not spare grain to be made
up i'll whisky.
But the illicit distillery business has
pretty effectually been suppressed in the
mountains, and to-day there are more moon
shine stills in operation i'll Madison and
Walton counties than in all of Northwest
Georgia above the Airline railroad. Dur
ing the day our party visited number of
d,stilling places marked by rotten log
cabins and diSmanted furnaces, or oc-
casionally a cave excavated in the noun
tain side but they all showed that it was a
long time since any work was done in them.
The revenue officers have so thoroughly
raided the mountains that the moonShinerhas
about given up business in despair. There
is another cause that keeps down this trade.
The reward of $40 given by the government
TO informers is quite n bonanza to the aver
age mountaineer, and rs consequence even
many of the moonshiners themselves don't
hesitate to give away neighbor when he
starts no still to capture the reward. The
best spies the revenue department has were
once moonshiners.
All day long our party were winding
about in the mountains, following little
lead to an illicit still, but they met with nc
success. | saw no signs of prejudice among
the people against the revenue service
They politely answered all questions we
asked aud threw no impeachment in our
way. This talk about riding in the noun
tains being dangerous service is all
romance. A revenue officer is just as safe
in Rabun or White as in Madison or Clarke
Several years ago there was a shooting
scrape and several men have been killed.
The greatest trouble / encountered in
the mountains was the hard fare; fat bulk
meat, cut i'll chunks about the size and
thickness of a small paper match box, and
set before YOU floating in grease, together
with biscuits about the size of saucer and
odorous with soda, was our principal fare
The mountajneers have two kinds of corn
bread that they call rig bread and Yard
bread. The former is made up with the
szimmings from the beer stands at the Illicit
stills, which acts as an yeast. The latter is
corn meal mixed up with water, and Otter
not sifted. and baked in a solid cake in an