Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-06-12

which she does very often, Towse is pretty
sure to have q share of it. In this picture
j ohm has Just received a savorv dish OF rab-
bit stew, and Towse is anxiously waiting for
his share
'fOld John is without membranes, and
under the patronage of his old master has q
comparatively easy time of it. Most OF the
e1-slaves, placed upon their own resources,
found and still find it matter of no small
difficulty to make both ends meet, and at
the same time secure their food and other
necessaries of life, simple though they may
be. There is generally a small garden
patch and sometimes few acres OF cotton
or tobacco or corn back of the cabin. Then
the colored owners or renters are also the
laborers and servants and often the mechan-
les Ito a lar greater extent in the South
than here, at any rate) for the neighbor-
hood, and out of all these resources they
manage to worry through patiently, and
with no great amount of hardship, rather
indolent and objectless existence Except
that they are not so large and soundly con-
structed, the cabins of the freedmen are not
much inferior to the habitations of the
Georgia Cracker"
An Old Lady's Misfortune.
In his rounds Mr.. Carr found one old
woman possessed of an old and once re-
deemed railroad freight receipt which had
been palmed of on her for ticket for pas
sage in the first steamer sailing from New
York for Liberia, and she was only waiting
to accumulate the money to take her to
New York before starting on her way. She
had carefully guarded her 'ticket" tor over
a year, and the artist had not the heart to
tell her of the deception that had been
practiced upon her.
But the artists trips were not always
unattended with peril. Preparation was
made one day for an extended trip into the
country and beyond into the wilder scenery
OF the mountains, and some of the girls, of
whom there were seven in Squire
Hutchins' family, determined to go along
part of the way to visit relative who lived
about seven miles out of town. In the
season the hills are full of snakes,
some of them of the most venomous kind,
hut one seldom heard of any one being Bit
ten by them. The girls went barefoot into
the hills, although they knew that there
we're deadly moccasins, rattlers, cotton
mouths and king and vermillion snakes
about them. They were retreshinglv conf
dent OF their ability to defend themselves.
Each was armed with a stick cut so as to
have a notch at the end, with which they
could pin snake to the ground until they
could kill it. With their sticks they waded
1SarIeSSlV across CTechS duu elldllO" pOois
and marshy places, and had considerable
sport with the lizards and turtles that they
found in them. Thev were merry lot, and
made disparaging remarks about the tim
idity of Northern girl who had declined to
accompany them.
4 Character of the Mountains.
After leaving the girls at their destina-
tion Mr. Carr struck straight up the noun
IN, ha Tn yrh -
ne struck a road which afforded pleasauter
travel until he met citizen of the noun
tains whose reputation was known to every
person in the county and through several
counties in the adjoining section of Ala
bama He was known to every revenue
officer in Georgia and Alabama, ior he had
been several wears in the revenue service in
this section himself, during which period
but few illicit stills were detected, and the
government" was on the best possible
footing with the people of that section.
But on one occasion, when the chief in
spector paid an unannoupced visit to the
district with strong force of deputies and
captured and destroyed a large number of
stills and kille three of the moonshiners,
among whom was q brother of the man in
question, he became disgusted with his po-
sition and resigned and became the leader
OF the moonshiners of the district. His an
cient stumptailed mule, known wherever
the master went as "Old Red Tiger" had
also suffered in the service and limped
along with one game" leg. The moon
sinner never went abroad without his rifle,
and seldom without his jug of ''gov ernment
stock"
That's the local name for the moonshine
whisky, which is not whisky at all, but just
pure high wines, colorless and clear (unless
o1l 1lu horru mi
awfully insidious. You taste it and think
you could drink "a barrel of it," until
about four minutes after the first good sized
nip, and then you go rapidly through in
tense feeling and excitement into profound
Inconsistencies.
Ruse of the Moopshiners.
The moonshiner was disposed to prevent
the artists purpose to make pictures IN the
hills, suspecting that he was an emissary of
the government and bent on securing evil
dence against him and his fellows; but he
soon became interested in the sketches
shown to him, and when he failed to find
that could be construed into
evidence against him of unlawful dis
tilling he withdrew his opposition, with
somewhat contemptuous sneer against the
''picters of niggers and old grist mills and
sech." The artist had not proceeded very
far on his way when he came to a turn in
the road, from which several small
smoldering fires, apparently left by
campers, came into view. Wondering what
they could mean he proceeded to investigate,
and found that in eacn instance the fire had
been made of the dryest twigs and tried
leaves and grass and then been covered
thickly with light dust, so as to make it
smolder long while, with the apparent
purpose of producing a smoke and not
flame. He proceeded from mound to noun d.
expecting at some one of them to find some
evidence of camping expedition or other
explanation OF the phenomenon, when he
came upon a moonshiner's still in fnll
blast.
He subsequently learned that it was q
systematic scheme of the moonshiner to
build number of fires in the vicinity of
every still in order to disconcert the
revenue officers when they should attempt
to discover them. BY this scheme they
generally gained time to destroy the
evidence of their work or to get away at
least with their ''worm," the most
expensive part of their outfit There was
no one in sight and not a sound to be heard
and in duty bound he prepared to make q
sketch of the still.
luminous Click Of the Winchester.
He had hardly composed himself to his
task and was about to touch a light to his
pipe, without which sketching is seldom
done, when he was aware of
an ominous clicking-once, twice-in the
bushes just behind him. He turned in
time to behold villainous looking fellow
just about to raise his cooked Winchester
to his shoulder, and to promptly throw up
his hands With mis- heart in his mouth he
managed to sing out: 'Hold on, friend; I'm
doing no harm" The moonshiner slowly