Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-01-09
TOLD FOR THE TRUTH
WILL HUBBARD HERMAN MEETS A
 YOUNG MlSSlSSlPPlAN.
Facts and d/Perhaps Few Fancies-Vicks- burg as It Was and Is-Saved by a Dream. Impress of the Heavy Hand of Time. The VicI1sburg of Today.
Special Correspondence.l

of green, save where it is relieved by the spires and housetops of city, town or will lage.
 It is nearly 20 years since first sailed down it's turbid waters on my way to this city. I had made the acquaintance of typical young Mississippian on the boat and found him very agreeable companion. | When within half dozen miles of here he pointed to bit of land that jutted out from the main shore on the right and re- marked:
 'See that little peninsula yonder, with it's three expresses intertwined with Spanish moss?"
 "Yes."
 "Well, never see that spur of land with | out thinking of the time when I saw it first. A cousin of mine and were on our way to New Orleans We were mere schoolboys, neither of us over F, and were off on a va- cation frolic. We were out on deck to- gether as the boat went drifting by that spur, when suddenly-though the day was very sultry-both my cousin and I began to shiver, and I cried out, Oh, how deathly cold I amp
 So am r. said my cousin, dropping into a seat with a face aswhite as a snowflake. It was a singular feeling that possessed us, | but it soon passed away.
 i "Well, our vacation in New Orleans drew to a close, and we prepared to return home.
 "'When does the boat leave, Hal?' I queried of my cousin.
 "'We are not going home by the boat,' he replied.
 But we have return tlckets,' said.
 "'No matter,' he answered. "We'u go back by rail-
 II won't,' replied testify. I have river passage and purpose using it, at the same | time opening my wallet to look at my ticket.
 Ut was missing, and, what was worse, l hadn't money enough to pay my way home. 1 Hal saw my dilemma. I'll tell you what I'll do, Dick he said. If you'll return with me by rail, I'll pay your way l was com pelled perforce to surrender, and by rail we returned.
 Well, the next day the papers recorded terrible steamboat explosion on the Mis- l sissppi at the very place where Hal and | had felt so strangely, and it was the very | boat on which we were to have taken passage! Hardly passenger escaped death in it's most dreadful form.
 II handed the paper to Hal. I knew it would happen,' he said. I dreamed it in all its details, and knowing you would only laugh at me if told you my dream crept out of bed and stole your ticket while you slept. Here it is, and he handed me the ticket"
 As my friend concluded his story our boat touched the Vicksburg wharf, and we { walked up the steep street to the main thoroughfare. Nearly 20 years have filed f by since then, but the city is no larger now than it was in that far day, and it's appear I ance has undergone no perceptible change. In the meantime cities have sprung into existence all over the north and south, | hamletS have put on metropolitan frills, and hardly town between the two sea- boards that hasn't felt the touch of progress Why, then, has Vicksburg stood still through all these years? 1 think the reason | can be traced to the fact that it's shipping ] facilities have been in a large measure ruined by the recession of the river. Once l it had one of the best ports on the Father of Waters Today it has no port at all for steamboats of a heavy draft-I mean none | within distance of less than three miles.
 Vicksburg is a lovely if not lively city, however. It is embowered in semitropic foliage-the matchless magnolia being con- spicuous by reason of it's glossy leaves and it's great sweet, radiant blossoms. Flowers are everywhere-in the garden plots of the poor, in the lawns of the rich, trailing down from terraces and reaching up to the chim- ney tops of almost every home. And, oh, such flowers!
 The most salient feature of Vicksburg in 1 point of architecture is it's courthouse. It is large, strikingly elegant edifice and | stands many feet above the sidewalk on a | plateau that occupies a square. It seems to defy the destructive touch of time, for it stood there when the thunder guns of the Federals were bombarding the city, and marks of the flying bombs can be seen in | places upon it's walls, but it is as substan- | tial a building today as it was in the year that it was built and bids fair to grace the green plateau for a century to come
 strolled out toward the Federal ceme- tery. The road for a part of the way wound between high banks of earth, and in these banks were the caves which the people of Vicksburg dug during the red, terrific siege of their city way back in 1863, and in which they resided, maintaining life the while by feeding on mule meat. These caves are the haunts of tramps today and are Uttered with whisky bottles, sardine cans and other emblens of tramphOod
 said that the Nicksburg of 20 years ago is the Vicksburg of today, that it has known no change ill the sweep forward of the years, but, alas! it has known the uni versal change that comes to every commit nifty on our swinging star, for the young men I met in that far time are men of mid dle years today, and many of the elderly people who welcomed me with kindly handclasp then have passed beyond the uncontinented sea into the unknown and unknowable sphere.
 | 1 have met many representative citizens while here, lawyers, journalists, poets and | others, and l am rather staggered to find i that many of them are pronounced Theos- ophists. I hardly looked for any members | of that mystic cult in a community bearing | the staid, conservative, orthodox reputation | of Nicks sburg, but here they are, and they | represent much of the brains, scholarship | and worth of the city.
 The Vicksburgers are a very hospitable | people, and saw no evidence of that polit- ical intolerance with which they are ac- | cused They are cheerful withal, though they have passed through war, pestilence | and famine, and they are an American peo | ple, few foreigners being found within their | gates-for we can hardly regard the blacks as foreigners, though belonging to a race that is diametrcally different from our | own. These blacks swarm everywhere and constitute more than half the population. Last Sunday I went for stroll up Wash ington street, the principal thoroughfare of the city, and by actual count was asked 1O3 times if l would ''have shine," and l every one who thus saluted me was youth of African lineage, and every one of them must have seen that my shoes had been | blacked less than an hour before. | WILL HUBBARD HERMAN 1 A Cautious Salesman. | Head of Firm-I hope you were careful about distributing those cigars we gave 1 you to take on the road.
 Trainmaker-You bet 1 was 1 never l thought of giving buyer one until had first secured his order-Cloak Review. | A Negative Decision. 1 stWhat had the hoy been dOinp?"