The Marlboro democrat. [volume] (Bennettsville, S.C.) 1882-1908, 1903-04-03
SAD SSifIJI'URE
Bill Arp Calls Attention 10 tho Deea.
denco Of the
FARMERS + OF NEW u ENGLAND.

81 81 FARMERS OF NEW ENGLAND. q
lie ,yritcs About Book Which All
Should Read, Especially Our
Young Men. a Good
Letter.
Last night read to my family por.
tions Of Il long article by preacher
describing the sad condition Of Il peo-
pie he has recently visited. Out Of
one hundred and sixty-cight towns in
the State he visited seventy of them
that are Off from the railroads, and all
4 of these have decreased in population
since 1890. None of these towns have
4 settled pastors or preachers and the
churches are abandoned or have
Z preaching at irregular Intervals and
the Attendance hardly ever exceeds
twenty-five persons. The Sabbath
schools are equally deserted. The
once busy plants uf small Industries
are dead and the people farm only for
( the bare necessities Of life. Houses,
Z barns, and fences are going to decay
and the little mills that we're on the
creeks have tumbled down and the
dams have washed away. Here and
there you Will see q stately mansion
sheltering some degenerate family in
the back woods while the vacant front
greetS you with the silence Of the
tomb. Sometimes you will find an old
man and woman alone in an old ;nceS-
tral home. l found a mother and her
Two sons and two old maids in one
house not one OF whom could read
The intermarriage of near relatives
or not marrying at all is common and
bachclura and divorced men and widow
crS have hUusekcepcrS and they un-
blushingly collabit with them and
young girls become grass widows by
the time they are sixteen.
Where is all this?" said my wife.
don't believe word Of it. 1t is
some newspaper liza fake made up
by some reporter" l read on. In
one town found the usual Saturday
night dance going on in an old vacated
tavern and they danced and devellcd
anu drank until Sunday morning
Sunday is no more observed than it is
in Chicago, for they hoe and dig and
gather hay all the same rs on week
days. 1lliteracy, insanity and imbe-
cility are very marked! I found one
family in which both parents we're
idiots and had raised up a family of
idots. In another home or house I
found Il poor father taking care Of
three motherlcsS children, all idiots.
don't believe word of it," said
my wife. There is no such people
n % inf f,-t,
reading from?"
One can hardly conceive Of the filth
and vice reigning in these country
places called hOmes-;l barbarsm diff
fering from the city slums only in it's
stagnant inertia and touched as little
by church influences as il in the heart
OF Africa. The conntry people all
over the State are generally without
ambition, improvidenl, ignorant, not
able to read or write, loose III thcil
family relations, socially corrupt, Civ.
en- to drink, and some to the opium
habit. And these arc the towns where
half a century ago, lived the best fam
lilies Of the State. Among them the
Fields (Cyrus and his hrother) tht
AbbottS, the Barnes and Donald G
Mitchell and others.
And now let me tell you, my deal
wife, am reading from The Hartford
Times and this is only n short portion
OF the report read in New Haven re-
Gently by Rev. Mr.. Hutching, Bible
colportcur, of Connecticut.
This report is fully accredited to be
true and the editor OF The Times tries
to tone it down by saying, The same
conditions described by Mr.. IIutchinS
for Connecticut are common to all the
older Statcs.n Rev. George IIorr. of
Of Massachusetts,, is also q Bible col
pOrtcur for that State and he said in
Boston the other day, i have driven
all over New England with my own
horses and my conviction is there is
no Immortality in any western mining
town that will compare with what you
find few miles from any New En-
gland town. Mr.. IIutchins' obscrva-
tion corresponds exactly with my
own"
Good friends, kind friends, what is
to be done about this. But the editor
OF The Times is mistaken when he
says the same conditions are common
to all the older States. We have no
such people in Georgia. In some or
Olil lIlOuJCulll SOuHClCS liz PCOpiC dlC
illiteratc, but tnry are honest and
moral and attend church and observe
the marriage relation and obey the
laws Of the land and make the best
soldiers the world ever saw They
have courts twice a year and it takes
only half week to clear the crmi-
nal dockctS.
Now, was thinking that us Bos-
ton and Hartford and New Haven had
sent a big lot Of money down here to
educate and reform our negroes it
would be nothing but fair for us to
send a lot Of the graduates up there
to do missionary work in Connecticut
and Massachusetts. These negro
graduates couldn't teach them the
lost art OF making wooden nutmegs,
but they could teach school and preach
and the New England people could
pay them for it and keep their money
at home. Something must be done
and done quick, or the old Puritan
race will become extinct ! reckon
thacn f.f,lnrn6 trruf}tatnc would ms, ,l.o