Gloucester County Democrat., 1902-01-30
Cunning Experience in North Carolina.

MR.. EDITOR: Thinking that snort Gle
scription Of hunting trip taken by Land
lord Rachor, Contractor Edward P. Henry
Captain G. Walter Shivers, of the FRS
National Bank, and your correspondent
John NJ Henderson, might interest you
many readers, especially those who love tt
hunt "Bob White, y we will attempt in oul
inexperienced manner to give them some
idea of the trip and hunt.
We left Broad Street Station, via. the
} Pennsylvania railroad at 1016 a. m. or
January 18th, and without change of cars
crossed the states of Delaware and Mary
land and part Of Virginia to Cape Charles
a run Of something over 200 miles. The
only thing that especially attracted oul
attention on this run was when we reached
the Virginia state line the train stopped
and there was attached what is known as 9
"Jim Crow'' car, divided into two compart
ments for negroes, those who smoked using
one and those who did not smoke using the
other The negroes that were on the train
up to this point were hustled into the jim
Crow" car and not allowed to enter the
other cars.
We arrived at Cape Charles at lbs p. M.
and at once went abroad side wheel
steamboat, that had rather an antique ap-
pearance, to cross over to Chesapeake City,
distance of 3S miles. We were surprised
to see about two car loads OF lager beer
stored on the boat, but reasoned that this lot
of beer was intended to supply the entire
South for some time, but to our surprise it
was all unloaded at that exceedingly fash
ionable and renown health resort, Old Point
Comfort,n and we must confess that our
faith was somewhat shaken in the theory
that beer is unwholesome, when so fashion
able place as Old Point is using it by the
car load After unloading the beer the boat
started for Norfolk, Virginia, which is one
half hours run.
| On our arrival we were besieged by
hotel runners and negroes; the negroes in
sisting on toting the dogs, but at their
every attempt to take hold of the
chain of my Kate she would attempt to
bite them, and as we had hotel man with
us he led us to the Atlantic, one of the larg-
est in town. We were assigned to large
second story front rooms, elegantly fur
nished; the table and service was all that
the most fastidious could desire.
By the way, we learned while we were
there that there was quarrel about two
years ago in the Democratic party and at
the municipal election great many Demo-
Gratis staid away from the polls-the result
being that the Prohibition party elected
their entire ticket. This event caused con-
sternation every where. License to sell
| liquor was refused The entire police force
was discharge as fast as they could find men
to accept the position, and strange as it may
seem, we were told that most all of the
officers selected had long whiskers, which
was found to be a great handicap when
attempting to arrest drunken negro, and
| it is said, that there was more drunkenness
with no license than ever before. However,
at the next election the Democrats stopped
quarreling and forty of the long whiskered
gents were discharged before II O'Clock the
day after election.
We also learned that they had some
wholesome laws in the city of Norfolk.
One is that expectorating on the pavements
or trolley cars is finable at 81, so and costs
and is rigidly enforced. A police officer
seeing any one splitting on the pavement
makes arrest at once and takes the offender
before the nearest magistrate, where the
fine must be paid or go to jail. Trolley
conductors noticing passenger splitting on
the floor of the car calls the first police
man seen, who takes the offending passen-
ger off the car to the police headquarters,
where the fine must be paid. To our mind,
just such law for our city would be appre-
ciated by all decent citizens.
At 8 a. m. our party purchased what IS
known as hunters tickets to Hobgood and
return to Norfolk at a greatly reduced price,
which also gave us the privilege to stop OIL
at any and all stations between Hobgood
and Norfolk with no charge for dogs. The
management of this road understand that
sportsmen spend money and that they are
not going to kill nor cripple the goose that
lays the golden egg" as it estimated that
sportsmen are spending not less than 81
100000 per year in the state of North
Carolina.
We arrived at Hobgood at 1890 p. M,
and were met by mule and homemade
cart. The proprietor said that he had the
nigger boy and mule to tote our rigging to
the house and we could walk as it was not
very far On our arrival at the house we
were shown to our room, which was on the
| first floor there was no second floor. 1t
had large fireplace, two beds, a sofa (old) J
and four rocking chairs, aud this quartet
spent many pleasant hours in the evening in
front of the fireplace, which snapped and
blazed while being literally fed with fat
pine by Contractor Henry. In fact, 1t was
so cheerful that Shivers and Rachor would
insist on smoking just one more segar, and
we rarely went to bed before l o'clock.
The result of this indulgence before the
cheerful fire caused Henderson much trou-
BILE the next morning. The cook slept in
the adjoining room and could not sleep on
account of our talking and in order to get
her up to breakfast in time, Henderson
would drop his huge boots several times on
| the floor, and as there was no cellar under
the house the floor made an excellent
sounding board AS soon as we heard a
movement in the next room we gave our
attention to getting Racbor, Henry and
Shivers up, and let say, Mr.. Editor, they
are the greatest eaters and sleepers we
ever associated with. However, we would
generally get them up in time for breakfast.
That over, we would get our cunning har-
ness on, our belts containing about thirty
shells, but no one felt safe in starting out
with this number, so from one to two hum
dred were placed in the two wagons, which
by this time were in front OF the house
The wagons were of especial design; never
saw anything like them. The gage or track
was of full width, the body about fifteen
inches wide, and you can imagine your
correspondent sitting on one OF these wag-
ons with Rachor or Henry and driving
that Betsy mule, or Shivers with either of
them driving that old horse rugged with
rope harness, that we hired from negro
that lived close by.
Why, l can hardly sit still while writ
ing this article when think of the width
of the seats on those wagons, and seats Of
Henry and Rachor, and the roads some
thing terrible. Certainly, nothing has been
done on them since Noah was young man.
They have no road overseers and no pub
lie money is spent on roads.
The county builds bridges over streams
that are too deep to ford; all small streams
are bridged by the abutting land owners
These bridges are made of pine poles or
slabs with the round side down, and gene
rally the bridge is about three feet below
the road bed, so that if the horse or mule
goes through he will strike bottom. Some
of the streams that we forded were 200
yards wide and in depth to the bottom Of
the wagon. We had an elegant opportunity
to inspect the roads and bridges in Halifax
and Martin counties as we drove out every
day prospecting for the best hunting
grounds, and we are now prepared to tell
Jersey gunners how, when and where to
go to find plenty of quail, wild turkey and
deer.
Full information will be given by any of
the above mentioned party. We had plenty
of shooting at Hobgood, in Halifax County,
not so good in Martin County, but in going