The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1897-01-29

the blankets h slept IN Ter were wo
ven in the cabins; tha nation, the ha m
the hot biscuits, the sweet milk, anC
the other simple and admirable condi
ments that. with the exception of :
mint ,julep before breakfast, and per
haps glass or two Of Madeira at din
ner, formed the acme of local Epicure
anism were all homegrown.
| should not, however, have thought
it worth while to drop into any tinan
cial comparisons concerning the by.
gone gentry of Virginia, except for the
reason that it has always seemed tc
me pity that so much tiorid nonsense
about ''Barons' and ''lavish splcndor'
and the like should have obscured, not
only the truth, but, in measure, also
the chief excellence of this society
w.lich lay in its simplicity. \ sim,
plicity, too, of which it was itself al.
most unconscious, for it knew nothing
else and had no standard of compari.
son. Owing good deal to this latter
cause, and with the help of an idcalist
literature, also due partly to it, the
southerner of this generation has al
most persuaded himself that his slave
owning ancestors ate off gold and silver
plates, drove habitually in coach and
six, and traced their descent to the
most illustrious houses of Britain.
AS a matter Of fact, Virginia had
been none too prosperous for the last
generation of the slave era. Her lands
had been going down, and, but for the
great demand for negroes occasioned
by the development of the new cotton
planting industry in the far south,
some crisis in her affairs must have oc-
CURED thirty years before she was
forced into war by her hot-headed sis
ter, She saved herself by becoming,
through the force of circumstances, "a
raising State and for the last period
of the old life her chief export was ne
TO come back, however, to the close
of the war, and the period of recon-
structiOn referred to at the beginning
of this paper. Numb despair had been
succeeded by something like hope in
the breasts of the Virginians, who still
stuck to their homesteads. | well re-
member the state of feeling upon this
subject. The land had never, it was
truly said, been reasonably treated un-
der slavery. And upon this everyone
was agreed. TO kindly treatment the
exhausted acres and infertile fields
would generously respond. So said
Yankee farmers who began to put in
an appearance, though not a very
warmly welcomed one; so said hard
headed Scotchmon and confident, cock
sure Englishmen. And so at last came
t) believe tie native owners, though
not quite so confident, because they
knew them better, of the ready re-
sponse to improvement OF their paternal
acres as the strangers who lectured
them on the subject, and. what was
better still, backed their opinions by
purchasing for purposes of illustration
no inconsiderable share of the country.
There was good excuse indeed in
those days for the number of estates
that were for sale; and very eligible
they appeared. Their buildings were
far superior to the ordinary farmhouses
of Canada, and there was no sugges-
tion of that backwoods life which had
hitherto been indelibly associated both
in the British and New England minds
with eXpatriation. The lands were
well watered, and lay in gentle undu
lations ready for the plough. The
was not sublime, but it was
good to look upon, and still is so for
those. if there could be any such, to
whom its briary waste and sedgy fields
and rotting fences tell no tales. State
ly forests of fine timber covered the
unoccupied spaces; prolific orchards Of
apple and peach trees bloomed around
the homesteads; the climate was the
best upon the Atlantic coast. 1t was,
in truth, a region calculated to hold
the affection of its sons, and to attract
the stranger, particularly the e"uca-
ted stranger, and Undue him with a
hankering for country life under such
conditions as seemed here to eXis'
"Iere will | live and die" was the re-
solve of many New Englander and
not a few Britishers rs they surveyed
the roomy and even dignifed-looking
mansions, with its ancestral oaks and
broad acres, that had just passed into
their hands at Il price which seemed to
them Il bargain, and, to those who
knew perhaps little better, quite fair
and reasonable. Such prices, indeed,
read now like Il joke, though in truth
a very grim one. "Who can suppose"
wrote an English author and authority
on such matters about the year 1870,
''that these Nirginian estates, now free
ly offered at thirty and forty dollars
an acre, will be long in the market at
figures such as these" \ true enoug h
prophet was our author. but alack
alack, not in the fashion he intended.
Far as the eye can see, and that is very
far indeed from some high points upon
the Bethel Pike, there is scarcely a