The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1901-03-28
BILL ARP'S LETTER
Barlow Man Makes Brief Visit
Y to Land of Flowers.
THE TRIP WAS A PLEASANT CHANGE
Returns Home and Eliminates Over the
Royal Treatment Received at the
Hands of the Floridians.

I had a pleasant call to Florida, and
have just returned. The railroads
make it so easy for you now that even
veteran can travel if he has the
money. I left home one morning after
early breakfast, and was in Jackson
X vile that night to supper with my boy
and his family, AIS miles in thirteen
hours, and travelled over parts of four
& roads. 1t was daylight trip and
had opportunity to notice the changes
e that latitude makes in vegetation. This
new route to Florida is star line from
Atlanta and the west. 1t includes the
Nashville, Chattanooga and st. Louis,
the Western and Atlantic, the Central
to Macon, the Georgia and Florida
Southern to Valdosta and the Atlantic,
Valdosta and Western to Jacksonville,
the prettiest, cleanest and best regula-
ted city in the south.
All of them first-class roads, with
parlor cars and dining cars and Sleep
ezls that run all the way through.
They don't even tarry at Jacksonville,
but keep on and on to the jumping of
place, if you wish to go there That
new road between Jacksonville and
Valdosta has made this speed and
comfort possible, for it has done away
& with the elbows at Triton and WAY.
cross. The great Plant system has no
B elbows after you get on it, but it is a
long ways from Atlanta and the west.
& The new road was just what our peo-
pie wanted. 1t is first class in all re-
spects, and makes its 10 miles in
less than three hours. I like these
straight Florida railroads; they don't
& reel you about like our roads
among the mountains, and they Just
glide along like snake in the grass.
These mountain roads swing an old
man around the curves and strain his
groin and loins and diaphragm and
epigram and make him sore and stiff
for two or three days after he gets
home. l can hardly navigate now,
and yet my wife wants me to plant
some lettuce and beans and okra and
work among the roses right away. Be-
sides all this, the cook has quit, and /
have got to get up by sunrise and fire
up the stove and put on the coffee and
shominy and then call her to get up and
n cook the rest of the breakfast. l used
Z to make the biscuits, but 1 have struck
on that; don't believe that a mans
rough old horny hands were intended
to mix up -four and milk and lard in
biscuit dough.
My old friend Judge Hillyer and
and Judge Underwood were once
walking along side street in New
York, and as they passed a bakery
i they saw the bakers through the
IsHttTds, and they were treading dough
lp ',he long troughs with their feet.
M5Idge Hillyer said: 600 you reckon
their feet are clean?" ''Well, yes, :"
said Underwood, 81 reckon they are
& by this time; they have been treading
a good while" But I don't care a
cent about the cook quitting, [ be-
Iieve in self-maintenance. I believe
4 that every household should be raised
to do their own work when it is neces.
u eary-and I am proud to say that
! my wife and my children have never
4 begged a cook to stay against her will.
4 Honors are easy; let her so and rest if
|sehe wants to. The fact is, it suits me
pretty well, for the cooking is better
and the things are cleaner and it saves
money-we get along on less victuals
and can dine out with our children
every day or two. We can use bakers
break and make toast and bake Irish
4 potatoes and fry eggs and get along
fine without a cook.
But I was thinking about Florida
fair Florida that Ponce de Leon found
| fifty years before the Pilgrims found
| plymouth or John Smith found James.
i town. Fair Florida-the Eldorado of
Il this continent. 1t has been hidden
II for all these years, but has been found.
H never saw the like of northern tour
lists, the hotels at Jacksonville are
oykrun, it takes several columns
rs, their papers to give their
names. The men are fairly good
II looking, but the women look tired and
prematurely old. Northern women
4 will not compare with southern women
i for beauty and refnment of manners.
In have known this for fifty years. They
have to work too hard; poor things, l
am sorry for them. They have got
I nothing but money.
I walked round the st. James and
|fNindsor and never saw a beautiful
|IWoman; they are masculine and
Ieoarse, and not an angel among them.
|IEew England or New York or any of
uthose cold, icy states won't produce
Fairies or sylphs or angelic creatures.
|tYou have to come as far south as
and Baltimore to find
beautiful woman, and they are scarce
Ieven there. You don't find them in
IpIenty until You get down to Charles
Hon and Savannah. Down here where
II live they are nearly all good-Iookiug
had graceful and, as David Harum
said, are coupled well and stand up
I square on their pasture joints and
ktep like deer. This is their
o,,11, Prov,