The age-herald., 1901-01-25
V and SOCIETY .
Travelinu Down the Alabama.

AfaSNhHA 61UH GtubNtHds
 Would you like to get weeks rest and r creation, and be rocked to sleep as in in sancy, and fed like your old-time black cook ied you in the ante-bellum days?
 Then take "The City of Mobile of "The Peoples Line of Steamers at Mobile, and make the round trip to Montgomery. A genial, considerate corps Of officers 1t has. well-yentillated, comfortable cabin, whose white and gold paint is kept immediately clean, and broad upper deck whose point of view brings within the moving horizon the fertile fields of Baldwin County, the undulating cotton ridges of Monroe and ad- joining counties, the fine grass lands of Dallas, the old hills of Autauga, and finally the rich plantations of Montgomery County Often the boat stops at private landings, hailed by a jolly old negro, a lusty white farmer, or by a crowd that includes these and many other types. To rag-time melo- dies sung by their deep-ehested voices the rough deck hands labor with the freight piled on the banks to await our passing Cotton bales and cotton-seed bags are tossed around by these muscular fellows as easily as boys throw rocks and for these products taken on the farmers orders for groceries or dry goods are borne out to the wagons whose teams are usually fine mules and sometimes strong, patient oxen.
 You sit on deck, neglecting book or paper, if you have one, and if you are native to the soil, and dream of the future of our State when the Nicaraguan canal shall have made this river a greater waterway than now and shall have multiplied the boats with their passengers and their freight and you wonder why so few white men are at the landings and so many at the towns. You heave a sigh at the number of jugs borne gleefully off, hugged tightly by the grinning darkeys, who in many instances are near enough to brutes without the bestializing liquor.
 Often among the passengers are cultured Northern people, making the round trip just for the novelty and the pleasure Of 1t; and what they tell you of the New England, Eastern or Western farm is delightful, and the questions they ask arrest your atten- tion and challenge your patriotism.
 Glad was I to expatiate once when asked if those deck hands were samples of our farm laborers, and to add to my yea, yea" on that subject the information that they were also specimens of the bulk of our col ored voters, and to ask in my turn an opin- ion of their ability to cast an intelligent ballot and to give the consent of the gov erned to regulate government. It made a warmer feeling come around my heart to have a long sympathetic talk with beau tiful, intelligent woman from Ann Arbor, Mich, which was concluded by her saying: 'It seems to me the best thing we can do with this negro problem is to leave it in the hands of you Southern people, who not only seem to understand the negro 50 well, but to have for him a sort of protective, op- erative kindiness of feeling, which makes me wonder when I observe him closely. There Is no telling to what degree of civil ization you might bring these black masses if the politicians would leave him to his true Southern friends"
 I had been insisting to her on a truth announced by Dr. Curry in one of his edu- cational addresses that the best thing to be done for the negro was to educate the white people among whom he lived.
 In summer time on the City of Mobile the young passengers frequently have charming little dances, where music is furnished by the cook (who is also a re- markable musician) and several assistants among the alert, attentive cabin boys. In winter the men passengers get a shot now and then at wild turkeys and when, as in my last trip, the sportsman fatally hits three down comes the fowl amid shouting and laughing, away paddle crew and the game is brought on board. The captain believes the old Virginia adage, Life is long enough to be polite,' and his senti- ments are shared by the clerks of the boat, the pilot and the mate.