Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1889-01-11
His Experience in the Center of the
Cotton Belt-His Visit to the Cradle
aud the Grave of the Confed-
eracy-The Birmingham
Tragedy.
Bill Sees 6reat Many Things That
Escaped the Observation of the
Ordinary Traveller.
Once a Week

home use. 1t purs $40 bale of cotton
down to about the sIz. of an uoriykt
piano or folding bed. Then tits brought
To town, where large athletic p-ess of
more modern mechanism shuts il IN to
ne-foUrth It's former Ze, while nImbl-
myers read Just The hoUp-iron wrappers.
Ihe Old fashioned press Is operated by
mule, supported by a colored man,
whose ~oole life l. q shoreless calm. and
whose system Is satured with rest. The
nluie walks around the press and the
negro remslrs stationary. Ii is the ori-
gin OF what has been since called the
walk around.
The up lshs of the press is large screw.
which, as IL revulves. brings the r-Ient.
less Jaws of the machine closer and
closer together. Six bands of hoop-iron
are then wrspped around il, and il ia
ready tor market, Most all the cottor,-
planters of Alabama are Engaged In rails
Ing crop to pay for the grub and good
clothes of . pr IS. They DO not appear
IL enjoy 1t, lat they haY5 formed that
habit, and they can not overcome it now.
1t Is one of the drawbacks of cotton
planting that the planter gets his goods
on credit at enormous prices, and then
gives the crop to the merchant at the
eud of III. season. In TINS way he is real.
ly only kind of hired man for the one
who furnishes him with supplies. He is
wearing out the soil and barely keeping
his sou! and body inside the same suit
OF clothes. That Is the reason his gate
hangs by one hinge and the winds sigh
through the yertebre of his horse and
carnage. That Is the reason whv Won
DO not smell new paint around his pre-
misses, and the carpets on his floors are
never hung on the line to be chastised.
To day we visited the new State House.
he cradle and the grave of the confed-
eracy. Here for the first year the rebel
lion rolled up its sleeves and prepared
for the future. and here j. ffersou Davis
stood and addressed the people whose
warfare had been waged in vain. | stood
on the spot where ne stood to address the
people, near big whice pillar and com
mandlpg aview of the beautiful street.
In my minds eJeI could see him there
with white hair and beard as he recalled
the past. He does not understand VET
that ne made mistake, but thinks, like
Mr. Cleveland, that he was not defeated.
1t was a principle that got black eve.
1t Is pleasant 10 look upon things in that
way. l often wish | could do so. One
time was kicked through the side of a
corral IN the far West by a mule whose
bunlop was treating at the time, and if
could have felt that there was nothing
personal about it, and that it was lust
simply the defeat of a great principle,
instead CT feeling, as | did, that norm al
school building had fallen on me, it
would have been worth $1,000 to me. But
| can not reason things out calmly when
in paiu.
Birmingham is the most remarkable
city in the south. Ii Is more like A
booming mining town than anything else,
and looks like LeadviIIe in the flush 5imt
,Wheu we RODE into the city it was p re
markable transformation from the old
style of Alabama loves. Red mouthed
furnaces yawned like sleepy giants and
painted the scmber sky gaUdy crimson
with their hot breath. Busy people
mig ht have been seen here and there
going somewhere instead of waiting pa
tientiy for somebody to walk around
them or looking reproachfulls at stran-
gers who seemed 10 be the slaves to bus
mess habits.
Birmingham Is young Kansas City,
and has rity lots staked out so far west,
and Kansas City has so mane extending
east, that there is really only narrow
strip of ground between the two towns,
and il Is being rapidly bought up. A
new r7iiroed connects the two Young
giants, and a few choice lots in either
place will he good investment for those
who have become weary OF putting their
Elone2 in Canadian tourists.
Birmingham reminds me SO rorcibIv of
a booming mining town that l remarked
to Mr.. Riley, as we got off the train, that
all we needed to carry out the similarity
was an earnest lynchlng party. In less
than twenty-four hours a crowd of 5000
people made party call at the jail for
the purpose of extending the neck of
gentleman named HAYES, but after twenty
people hao been killed and wounded by
the officers they retreattd. Several
strangers who had never seen man
lynched, and wanted to Ge able to scare
their children with the story when they
got home by telling about it, went to oh
serve the ente rtainment, returning later
on by way of the undertaker's store.
Mr.. HAYES was q man who had an earn.
est nature and large red elm club. with
which he ever and anon attracted the at.
tention of his wife when he wanted to
com municate a disagreeable truth to her.
Dut hC NOuiu L1o5- hiNhl ltCl Ebdl sOTTY
about 1t afterwards, and one time after he
had broken two of his wife's ribs in this
way he told her he could see that he had
perhaps been hasty and given her need
less pain, aud he believed that he had bet
ter divide up his attention between her
and another woman, SO that one OF them
cou'd recover while he gently rebuked the
other.
So he married another woman, and this
created personal feeling between the
two, for no true wife can bear TO know
that her souls idol is lavishipg his kicks
on another. Night after night the fret
wife would sit up all alone counting the
tagging hours, all the time kno wing full
well that her rival was getting ali the
large blCe welts over the back which had
in the happy past been hers and hers
alone. They had two little girls, which
Mr.. Halves was in the habit of kissing in
public and kicking across the fireside oc
casiona.ly, AMI SO when little May was
wss found last week lying desd on :he
shore of East Lake, Mr.. Halves was
placed in jail. While we were in Birm-
ingham the citizens of tie town dragged
the lake and found the first Mrs. HAYES
at the bottom with large quantity of
railroad iron htbdchtu 10 HtT. mat Was
partly what created feeling against Mr..
HAYES, and so gr-at many of his old
neighbors gent up TO the Jail to present
him with the freedom OF the New Jeru
satem, bat they were fooled. Several of
them we're so much so that they will never
wnoIly recover from its effects.
Blu. l think that he will ultimately
climb telegraph pole at The hands of
his friends, and If the evidence as TINS
far gwen be correct, the audience is
making no mistake. Mr.. HAYES did
wrong in tue first instance in marrying !
two women. When a man merriss two |
women he is already on the doHnvsrd |
road. 'One wife seems TO call for 4
another" in such a case, and then iIl-feel- |
iog srises. Mr.. HAYES, of course, then /
trl. 70 obviate the wife he hsd at frs. |
married, and now people dislike him for /
it.
Mr.. HAYES made mistake, also, in /
marry ing woman, any how. He should |
have married a Sou-her hotel carpet, /
and then little beating wouldn'r have |
been out of place, though OF course 1t |
might have aroused u=picIon.
No man shvnlG accumulate family |