The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-09-14
SEEN ON THE WING.
Mr.. B. w. Herring Writes OF
South Carolina.
Some Interesting Sights That Esc'ps the Eyes
Of Less Close Observers. A Bit It
Political History.

| lima, cotton mills are seldom out OF
sight, and when they are you only have
to look to the horizon to see the smoke
of others in every direction.
In the low country the spindles and
the looms are driven by steam power.
| But in Piedmont the streams flowing out
| of the mountains are the power used.
| The impress of the French Huguenot
characteristics early stamped upon the
State marks the uncompromising deter
mination of the people. Marriage license
are not required, nor is there any divirco
| laws Which serve as slip-knots in other
| States to disturb domestic peace.
Farm fences have been abolished and
! the absence of hedge rows gives the cul-
tivated fields the appearance of well
titled gardens.
| All live stock is kept in the pastures,
and the pilot is a useless attachment to
| locomotives. The public roads are
worked by contract. Where there is 90
much sand it is removed, ditch is then
| dug alongside and the clay from The
| ditch is thrown on the road, viii h sCor
packs smooth and hard and the rubber
| tire buggies run without jar or noise and
| travel is free from dust or mud in wet or
dry weather. On such roads fancy car
riages are used, while the negro women
, split the wind on bicycles.
The cotton planters compose the arts.
| tocracy of the State, they being a dis
| tinct class from the town people They
remained on their plantations after the
invasions of the vandals, modernized
their residences, added waterworks, tele-
| phones and receive their daily mails by
! carriers.
Their libraries are we'll selected. Bal.
zac's French novels, twenty-five volumes,
formerly considered doubtful literature,
are now accepted as classical among
! them.
Negro servants being plentiful in
South Carolina the burden CT house
keeping falls light on the ladies, and
they devote much time to reading, fan
cy needlework and painting in oil and
water colors. But it was left for them
, to solve the churn question. House
keepers in hope of getting relief former
ly left that veXed churn question TO the
inventive talent of the land, and churn
models accumulated in the patent office
! until there was no more room for them.
/ Congress passed a law substituting
drawings for models. After that draw
| ings of newly invented churns accumu-
! lated in the patent office with no abatc-
ment until a South Carolina lady dis
, covered that Masons fruit Jar was a
perfect churn. The lid screwed down
keeps out the festive fly, and at the same
time prevents the cream from scattering
her dress as she walks about the mousse
and shakes the jar. AS a substitute for
churn Mason's fruit jar required no
dasher, and that intelligence connected
with other advantages soon reached her
neighbors, and from them it spread 10
others like wireless telegraphy, and in
a few days all of the patent churns in
South Carolina were pitched over the
fence. But while Mason's fruit jar used
as churn is without fault, it is liable
to accidents by falling from the hands
and breaking on the floor. To obviate
that, another lady invented the leather
bag churn, which they tie to the end of
pole and operate by negro beating it
against the side of the barn.
A dispute arose as to the rightful in
ventor, which another house keeper set
tied by reading from an old history that
the Kalmucks put milk in leather bags
when they break camp, and upon their
arrival at the new one, took butter from
their leather bags. Thus she proved by
authentic history that the Kalmucks
were the original inventors, ard no one
in South Carolina was entitled to a pa
tent on the leather bag churn.
Three knights of the trowel came from
the North and were put to work with the
l. 4
building After working a few days
they intimated to the foreman that they
wanted better wages, and they finally
told the contractor that they believed
that they would quit work and go back
| to the North unless the contractor
| The contractor interrupting told them that
it would have pleased him very well bad
4! they quit a week ago, that he had three
| hundred and fifty negro brick-layers at
| work on different buildings in the State,
and that he could concentrate his work
men on any one building at his pleasure.
The tragedy of the Confederacy has
! reacted and South Carolina is now shap-
| ing the destiny of the United States
Those who WELD power ought not to
! forget that a policy of bloodshed is ell
ways dangerous There is a standing
advertisement in the South Carolina
| newspapers, inviting a thousand negroes
| to Philadelphia. The police can
show that that city has increased its
negro population eighty-five thousand
from the South within the past twelve
months. At that rate Pennsylvania viii
! soon be able to supply her mines with
negro laborers, and put a permanent
stop to strikes in the anthracite coal dis
| tricts.
The politicians will tell you that there
| is no East, no West, no South, but
neither common sense nor the campus will
| sustain that kind of political metaphysics
| The section that rules labor rules TIC
J whole country, regardless OF political
| parties.
| Here is a little bit of history that the
; politicians have been careful to conceal:
! The next day after the Confederate ar
mics evacuated Petersburg and Rich
| mond President Lincoln rode horseback
| from Petersburg to Richmond, and
| stayed there about one hour. He then
| went on his way back to Washington
| After telling his cabinet that the objec;
! of his visit to Richmond was to inter-