The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-10-02
IN THE OLD DOMINION.


VA CLO4SJ eA140 4AOCACSb LII Ht'4A$S VI tAO
government departments at Washington,
and all sorts of queer old stuff was
brought out for shipment to Atlanta.
What the eye sees the mind is more
or less sure of. was suddenly convinc-
ed that this Atlanta business was well
worth looking into and concluded to
work down that way by successive
stages.
The Piedmont line is naturally the
most pleasant at this season, and made
the first stage to Lynehburg in comfort,
despite the dust. With the cool, green
SUBMITS of the Blue Ridge to the right
and the rolling fields of middle Virginia
to the left the view was generally fine
and would have been all the time but
for a reprehensible habit the road has
of running in deep cuts through half or
more of its course. I was much surpris-
ed at the makeup of Lynchburg, where
I halted for day, as had somehow
formed the idea it was the metropolis
of a broad, fertile valley and located on
a plateau just above high water in the
James. It is, in fact, built in a water
gap. From bluff to bluff cannon shot
could be fred far above most of the
houses. and save for few squares here
and there walking the streets is like
climbing mountain side or series of
yellow stairs. It is worse than San Fran
cisco. Above town the bluffs of the
James give back, and thus a way is
opened into the lovely caves and seclud
ed dales of Rockbridge county.
Into this wild region fed few wild
Scotchnen about $50 years ago-men
who left their country for its good as
we'll as their own, as they themselves
confessed, for they had rebelled and
been whipped. With them, or very soon
after, came some Presbyterian exiles,
and from these it is modestly claimed
the first families of Rockbridge are de-
scended. But the exiled Quakers from
Ireland had settled near here ten years
before. One of them, James Lynch,
opened a farm and set up a ferry two
miles away, where his son John was
born in 1910. And John was the found
er of Lynchburg. This is tedious, bat
it has an interesting moral Those first
corners were antislave1y men, and John
Lynch was an "original abolitionist. -
He freed his slaves, and their descend
ants still live Lere. Forty per cent of
the population is colored, which the
citizens say is just the right per cent,
meaning, ] suppose, not enough to
threaten white supremacy. Assessor A.
B. Stratton tells me he has just finished
the five year assessment, the third be
has made, but the first under the law
requiring separate assessments for the
two races. OF real estate the whites own
Ar OOG nd 4ha oo1orol
the total being 1905, 905 less than in
1890. It's the old story which hear in
every part of Virginia-real estate less
valuable every year. And yet Lynch
burg. on the whole, is prosperous, and
just now business is quite lively.
The capitation tax lists show about
1000 colored and 2,700 white voters,
Indicating q total population Of about
5000, but IL the year ending July 81
the deaths were 1876 whites and 263 col
ored. two and half times as big per-
centage of the colored. This also is an
old story, and one hears it all over the
south, but most in those sections most
favorable to the white mans health
and vigor. It is down in the bayou re-
giOn, on the sea islands and in the wire
grass fats CT Georgia that the black
man has tho edge on the white man.
Lynchburg is notably healthful place
and is distinguished in two ways-it
has had the most regular and even
growth of any city in the country and
for two decades had larger wealth per
capita than any other except New Bed
ford. Mass. 1t is still a great tobacco
center, but is reaching cut for the pur-
= ~. 1
southwest Virginia and fondly hopes to
become the Sheffield Of the new south.
It is a rushing, roaring city, built
along and On both sides of roaring
river, and the whir Of cotton mills, the
long lines OF drays and wagons, the
throng il the streets and the clatter of
trade talk at tie hotels give the place
the likeness Of q northwestern town. AS
there are ten big tobacco warehouses
ard ten times as many houses devoted
to curing, stripping and manufacturing
the seductive weed, il follows that the
colorcd rather outnulnher the whites.
Yet the citizens hesitate to admit that
fact, and, as at Lynchburg, a visitor
who wants to make himself popular
should not dwell on it's being great
tobacco center. The people evidently
want to be distinguished for something
else. and surely they have basis for it.
II every part of the south ore hears
the greatest emphasis laid On the two
points that living is cheap and wages
low-great advantages, they add, which
only proves that they have not thor
oughly studied the subject. And SINH
larly certain New York and New Eng
land editors seek to scare US once a
month CT SO about cheap Japan and
China. Now, it may be set down as the
simplest and most elementary fact in
all economic history that no low wage
country ever did or ever can maintain a
general rivalry with a high wage coun-
try.
In a speciality it may excel, but even
that is very rare. If Japan ever becomes
q general manufacturer like England,
she viii pay as high wages as England.