Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1890-10-04

the new South is a grave error. Blr-
mingham and Bessemer are both the
product of Southern genius and South
ern capital. Perhaps you have heard
of the name of HenryF. DeBardleben ?
Well, the DeBardleben coal and iron
company, with its capital of ST., 0O0, 900,
is to Bessemer what the Consolidation
coal company is to Frostburg, and it is
exclusively an Alabama corporation.
Another great corporation here. with
a capital of $8.0000,000, is the Besse-
mer Land and Improvement company,
composed of Charleston, New Orleans
and Birmingham capitalists. In fact,
nine-tenths of the capital at work in
the development of this portion of
Alabama is owned by native Southern
ers who created it by their own efforts.
Yea, verify, the man in gray with a
heart of gold'' has wrought wondrous
work in the last generation, and before
another has passed away the South
will be the centre of the manufactur-
ing interests of the entire country,
and the basis of it all will be the unre-
liable, shiftless labor of the negro, as
sisted by climate under which the
workingman need stand in no dread
of rigorous winter, Perhaps, after
all the most important factor in the
development of Southern prosperity
will be found in its equable climate.
Here winter has no terrors for
the poor man. Outdoor labor is
possible any day in the year, and no
work need ever be retarded by reason
of the cold.
In many respects Alabama is far
ahead of Maryland or Pennsylvania.
She has finer institutions Of learning
and more of them she has better pub
lie school system, and her taxes-State,
county and municipal, all together,
are only forty cents on the 800, and this
after paying $75, 100000 debt incurred
under carpet bag rule. In one respect
she Is like Mary land-one of her State
treasurers is in the penitentiary. The
penitentiary here is, however, a coal
mine, and our defaulting treasurer has
been digging coal at Pratt mines for
several years. If all of Maryland's
political thieves were where Archer is
the penitentiary would have to be en-
larged. In that respect Maryland and
Alabama differ widely. Our criminal
population consists mainly of the va
grant class of negroes, whom a gener-
alton of freedom has developed into a
black army of tramps. Maryland's
criminal class consists largely OF Balti-
more city statesmen of the German
school who pasture around the public
crib.
The latest development of Southern
industrial genius is the conversion of
a low grade of pig iron into steel of the
best quality. | cannot define the pro-
cess, but that the experiment is a sue
cess there is no longer a shadow of a
doubt. For year the Henderson
steel works at Birmingham have been
experimenting IN that direction and a
disinterested committee of experts has
within the last few weeks pronounced
the result a complete success. The
great advantage of the Henderson
process lies in the fact that the same
quality of steel can be made here at a
c, st of about four dollars per ton less
than it can be made by the Bessemer
process in Pennsylvania.
But | have spun this rambling letter
out to rather an unreasonable length
and had better come to u full stop be-
fore tire you as we'll as your readers.
If this suits you and them, however,
perhaps you may hear from me again.
T. F. hiCCARDELL.