St. Tammany farmer., 1903-05-09
RURAL NEW ENGLAND
Bill Arp Reads of Sad State of De-
cadence There.
Thinks That Might Be a Good Place
to Send the Negro Preachers Ed
ucated by Northern Money-A
Slander on Texas.

Last night I read to my family por-
tions of long article by preacher
describing the sad condition of peo-
pie he has recently visited. Out of
168 towns in the state he visited 20 of
them that are off from the railroad.
and all of these have decreased in
populati tion since 1890. None of these
towns have settled pastors or preach
ers, and the churches are abandoned
or have preachers at irregular inter
walls, and the attendance hardly ever
exceeds 25 persons. The Sabbath
schools are equally deserted. The
once busy plants of small industries
are dead and the people farm only for
the bare necessities of life. Houses,
barns and fences are going to decay,
and the little mills that were on the
creeks have tumbled down and the
dams have washed away. Here and
there you have seen stately mansion
sheltering some degenerate family in
the back rooms 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 an
cestral home. I 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
bachelors and divorced men and wild
overs have housekeepers, and they
unblishingly cohabit with them and
young girls become grass widows by
the time they are 16.
"Where is all this?" said my wife.
II don't believe word of it. It is
some newspaper ie-a fake made up
by some reporter" I read on. In one
town found the usual Saturday night
dance going on in an old vacated tav
ern, and they danced and develled and
drank until Sunday morning. Sunday
is no more observed than it is in Chi
cago, for they hoe and dig and gather
hay all the same as on week days. IL
literacy, insanity and imbecility are
very marked; I found one family in
which both parents were idiots and
had raised up a family of idiots. I'M
another home or house I found poor
old father taking care of three moth
erless children, all idiots"
II don't believe a word of it," said
my wife. "There is no such people
in this country. What paper are you
reading from?"
One can hardly conceive of the filth
and vice reigning in these country
places called home-a barbarism diff
fering from the city slums only in it's
stagnant inertia and touched as little
by church influences as if in the heart
of Africa. The country people all over
the state are generally without anlbi-
ton, improvident, ignorant, not able
to read or write, loose in their family
relations, socially corrupt, given to
drink, and some to the opium ha bit.
And these are the towns where, half
century ago, lived the best families of
the state. Among them the Fields ICY
rus and his brothers), the Abbotts, the
Barnes and Donald G. Mitchell and
others. ..
And now let me tell you, my dear
wife, am reading from the Hartford
Times and this is only a short portion
of the report read in New Haven re-
Gently by Rev. Mr.. Hutchins, Bible
colporteur, 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.. Hutchins
for Connecticut are common to all the
older states" Rev. George Horr, of
Massachusetts,, is also Bible co1por-
teur for that state and he said in Bos-
ton the other day, II have driven all
over New England with my own horses
and my conviction is there is no immor-
ality in any western mining town that
will compare with what you find few
miles from any New England town.
Mr.. Hutchins' observation corresponds
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 of our mountain
counties the people are illiterate, but
they are honest and moral and attend
church and observe the marriage rela-
tion and obey the laws of the land and
make the best soldiers the world ever
saw. They have courts twice year and
it takes only half a week to clear the
criminal dockets.
Now, was thinking that as Boston