The Press., 1889-02-07
CORRESPONDENCE.

pleasant lub0rVleW WlIu your GOWnSmaQ, Js J. Ellis, who was for five years our nearest neighbor in Monson. also called at The | Press office and met your very genial and | .obligipe editor for the first time, and can assure the readers of The Press that his | acquaintance will not lesson your respect for him ill the least. I went to the fair expecting to meet many of my old ac- quaintances, but in this was disappointed, as failed to recognize more than half dozen faces that had ever seen before. The fair was good, even better than in many pieces much larger than Stafford could show, but it is needless to say the ef- feet was spoiled by the rain.
 From the fair ground we rode to Son. CTS with MT. 0. Lee and wife, where we spent week, and as Mrs. l.. knows how to entertain company we enjoyed every hour of the time. People who visit there are not compelled to sit in the parlor in full dress and pretend to read poetry from away, but they have the liberty of the kitchen, the pantry, the cellar, the orchard and the whole farm, and when you come to dinner as hungry as bear, and find the l table loaded with the best the farm and the market affords, you are not reminded that 1t is breach of etiquette to cut your pie 1 with knife, or eat custard or ice cream with spoon, instead of doing the whole business with very inconvenient silver fork in short it is just the place to enjoy visit, feel at home, and grow fat.
 l We also visited the family of J. c. Lee, who owns hacienda about mile west of his fathers place, and the surroundings in- dicate good management He also has nicely constructed mill, where he converts vast quantities of the surplus apples which Somers IS famous for into cider, and made it convenient to call around nearly every day with rye straw in hand and partake of the fluid as it fell from the press, just as | I did fifty years ago, and it really seemed as if were boy again.
 We also called upon the families of Sum- ner Root and Spencer Davis, who have spent most of their lives ln Somers, and Capt. Johnson, who lived many years in Stafford, and Elijah Gutter, who lived neighbor to us forty years ago in MonsOn, and when the time came to leave we very reluctantly bade our Somers friends adien and left for MonsOn: where we packed our trunks and again were obliged to say good bye to host of friends, and left on the first day of November for western New York, and were met the same evening at the Walworth station by J. D. Bennett, Esq, who was waiting our arrival and took us to his home where he and his good lady dispensed their hospitalities in the most lavish manner.
 We spent week with the family of Wm. E. Greenwood, and had the pleasure of meeting Rev. l.. c. Leonard, who stop- ped over on his way from Bucyrus to Cam bridge, and as the opportunity was not likely to occur again they had family gathering of all the relatives in that vicin- ity, and twelve sat down to dinner such as only the women of New England can duplicate. Mr. Leonard has spent his life in the ministry, and has been one of the leading lights in the Baptist denomination, and is we'll known by the Baptist people ot Willington, but age and infirmity have put an end to his pastoral work ,as he has reach. ed his eightieth year.
 : We also visited the family of Davis Dewey, where we met Rev. Frank Mathe, and wife. MT. Mather was for two years a very acceptable and efficient pastor of the Methodist church of Pomona and has many friends here. We were royalty entertained at the home of Geo. l.. Lee, formerly o1 Somers, also at the house of Charles Pat terson and wife. MT. P. and wife resided several months in Pomona, and his wife was delighted with the country, but MT. , P. missed the snow and the ice, the mud and the rain, the thunder showers and cy clones, the clouds and the blizzards and found it very monotonous here where we have three hundred fair days in year, and 80 they returned; but I never found if in my heart to blame him for to some variety is the spice of life.
 We enjoyed every hour of our visit al Walworth, for aside from the many ano valued friends we have there it is one o the finest towns in Wayne county, noted for it's seat of learning, its handsome walks it's miles of shade trees, it's beautiful lawns ! and handsome buildings, it's intelligent citizens, and its great republican majority But the world moves swiftly, and the time soon came when we must say good bye te : the last of our eastern friends and set oul faces toward the setting sun. We returned by the southern route, and by so doing hae a chance to see something of rural life il the southern states.
 We took the fast express train at Koch ester, which made stops only once in abou forty miles, and thought we were making very fast tine, but from Cleveland to Gin cinnati much of the distance was covered at the rate of mile minute, which consider is full as fast as safety will war rant
 The harvest had been gathered in tn, northern states with exception of a portiol of the corn crop, and the land presented very different view from what it did threl months before, and everything indicated preparation for winter by the inhabitants a thing which is never thought of in south ern California. We reached Cincinnati ol the evening of the first day and crossed tn, Ohio river after nlghtfall, and passet through Kentucky in the darkness, ,and hae no opportunity to see any thing Of the Bour bon whiskey state.
 When .the sun arose we were passing through the most desolate part of Tennes see, and judge from appearances that th land was once under cultivation, but as i became impoverished the helnhabitants move. away and gave place to scrub oaks, whicl now cover nine-tenths of the ground. : had curiosity to see some of the peopl of the state and watched out from sunrit, till past nine o'clock before l got glimps of the first specimen of humanity, and h. and his surroundings were in perfect keep ing with the wilderness in which he lived and the only apparent motive for which h. lived was simply to exist.
 We ride miles and miles without seein, a human habitation, and when we do SD one through the jungle of oaks everthinl = indicates the most abject poverty and shift n lessness, and this ,,state of things extend II through the country on the line of the rail = road from Tennessee nearly to the Gulf o