Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1891-04-20

Alliance of Kansas on the north with
the romantic yet peppery Quixote of the
south. Here the sad and solemn lutri-
Gator, vulgarly called the greaser, sper DIS
his patr!mony on an S-pound hat, and
with what he has left he buys horse.
Ineyer tire of looking at the deliricus
clothes Of q prosperous greaser They
are wildly beautiful to one who loves
Us l do, to see a hand to hand contest to
finish between strong colors.
On Sunday I attended divine worship
at the Mexican cathedral in San Antonio
1t afforded me grand opportunity TO
look at the clothes Of the congregat on
as We do az home, also to study The
faces of the people as they came out.
Religion does not seem to afford the
Mexican much JOY or comfort. He
goes through 1t, however, as one gets
his teeth repaired-not for the deliri1us
thrill of JOY he finds lurking in the lob
Itself, but as n precautionary meas ire
and as an evidence of his powers Of en-
durance.
The ladies Of the congregation, it
seemed to me, showed better taste in
proportion to their means than the gen
tiemeu. They dressed plainly and seemed
TO favor deep mourning wherever there
was an excuse for it. Some of Them. l
Judge, We're mourning on very slight
proyocatioO-thati is, if they were mourn
ing the loss Of such husbands as I was
permitted to see samples OF.
The men Wore large hats, heavily en-
Droldered, and whatever else they could
get IL the way OF clothes. l never saw
people run SO much to hats or seem so
indifferent to outer clothes. saw one
man at church who Wore a massive Mex
lean hat with two or three pounds of
silver braid on it, and leather cinch
with two silver buckles for a band He
also wore beautiful pair of lilac trou-
sers. One man in the amen corner of the
cathedral wore no coat or vest. but had
shsrt made Of buff calico. with grim
figures on it, and it was made with
pulled sleeves and Stewart collar. He
had also socked his inheritance into
nat, and wore heliotrope trousers Of the
time of Queen Elizabeth.
Dallas Is probably the most prosperous
of Texas cities. Some well known
writer-up of towns - possibly Chlrles
Dudley Warner-states that if YOU draw
n circle, using a radius of 100 miles. with
Dallas as the center, you will have there
in thirty-four counties. 1 was too tired
to try it while at Dallas, and coulC not
get 100 mile radius at any of the places
where | looked. Some of the stores
didn't seem to have any radius at all.
These thirty-four counties produce
nearly half the cotton of Texas, also
more than half the oats and whea-. 1t
is a very fertile district indeed. The soil
is rich and deep, and cotton just natu-
rally grows here with the very sight
est encouragement. never saw so much
cotton anywhere before as have seen on
this trip. Down near Waco-pronoJnced
Wayco-there is an old time cotton
planter who runs his plantation just as
they used to before the war, only, Of
course, he can't show as good all abstract
of title TO his help, but he has the large
black negro with the white eye, and that
negro knows his place. He is fec, wa
tered and looked out for every day. The
mules are locked up also so that there Is
no frolicking over the country at night
Will JllC SLOCh A1GNGIt SbCAL - bAAC
rule and $4,000 a year is the cotton
crop, while the negroes themselves are
any of them fat enough to kill, ano their
happy songs in the cottonields show
that healthful discipline, regular hours
and regular meals agree with them.
In this way they have also very little
temptation to monkey with the flowing
bowl. Rum is highly injurious 70 the
negro. While unquestionably berefcial
to the white man. making him bright
and highly conversational, it is not prop
er for the negro. 1t dulls his sensibil-
ties and makes him almost coarse. l
met one of them here in Texas VINO had
become somewhat addicted to the use OF
liquor for medical purposes. He said
that he lost his wife several years ago,
and had been ever since trying to drown
his sorrows in the flowing bowl. He ad-
:mitted, though, that it was not success.
He said he had drowned several of his