West Virginia argus. [volume] (Kingwood, W. Va.) 1877-1946, 1900-03-08
THE SOUTHLAND.
Travelling Way Down In Dixie
Notes Caught on the Fly.
Something About the Plantations, Mardi
Gras and the Crescent City.
New ORLEANS, La, !
Feb. IT, 1900. (

Last Thursday, February zad,
the National Editorial Associations
special train consisting of eleven
Pullman sleepers, one baggage car
and two engines, pulled out of the
Great Terminal Station in St. Louis
at o:3o p. m. promptly with three
hundred and fifty editors and ladies
aboard, bound for the land of per-
petual sunshine, or as we heard a
Southern speaker say in an address
of welcome, "Land of beautiful
women, gallant men, sugar and
cotton, hog and hominy, magnolia
and palmetto and mules and
niggers."
Our time has been so taken up at
every place we stopped we have not
had time to write up each and
every place and as they all de-
serve special articles, we will give
The ARGUS readers some informa-
ton in regard to the cities OF
Memphis, Grenada, Jackson and
Baton Rouge, later on.
Hon. ]. f. hurry, Assistant
General Passenger Agent of the
Illinois Central Railroad is with us
and sees that we get every attention
and the special was put through on
time from the very start. At Jack
son, Miss, they put on another
Pullman, and at Baton Rouge last
night, another. So when the
special arrived here there were 10
Pullman palace cars, containing
$50 people.
The Illinois Central Railroad fol-
lows the "Great Father of Waters
from St. Louis to this city. In
some places the river will be one
hundred miles away but you can
see all along where it has washed
away the surface and made it as
rugged in places as our own West
Virginia Hills, when it gets too
fresh and goes on a bender and
starts out "to take in the towns. y
Also the surrounding country for
SO and 100 miles on each side.
This mighty river is one of the
greatest natural gifts of God to the
people in the States through which
it takes its course to the Gulf, when
controlled by the power of man, but
is about the most terrible Miss
man has ever tried to control and
if it was not for the constant helm
of Uncle Sam, she never could be
controlled. From Baton Rouge
to New Orleans about 90 miles the
land is twelve feet lower than the
river. The levees are built OF
heavy timber, like the fence around
base ball grounds, with great en-
bankments of earth thrown I'D
against the wall Of timbers. The
levees are about 20 feet high and
there would be no New Orleans
without them. They are built in
such way as to cause the river to
flow in seven different channels into
the Gulf
From Baton Rouge to New Or.
leans we passed right through the
great sugar cane belt Of Louisiana
for ninety miles. Through this
section is some of the grandest old
plantations with the most magnif-
cent of ante-bellum day mansions,
with the darby quarters in the back
ground. They are small white
houses and nearly all of them have
a chapel near by and resemble army
camps or small towns. / have not
seen a white man working out doors
since leaving St. Louis. The
darkeys do it all and are the slowest
mortals on earth. 1t is very warm
and pleasant here now, we can 90
out without overcoats or wraps.
New Orleans is very different from
other cities in the y. S. and we
don't hardly know whether we are
in the Louisiana purchase or in
some Of Uncle Sans new domains
across the sea. A great many OF
the Creoles, who have lived here for
four or five generations have never
learned to speak the English Ian
guage. They never teach their
children, in fact, try to prevent
them from learning. SO a Creole
gentleman in Baton Rouge told us.
Our train arrived here Yesterday
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