Hattiesburg daily progress. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 18??-1909, 1903-06-01
FREE RURAL DELIVERY.

4 l.
There have been carriers appointed
for the free mail delivery in Hatties-
burg The carriers will commence the
delivery mail Monday. Why can't
Laurel have free delivery ?-Chroni-
Gle.
The only way you can do is to con-
tinue to hammer on your mayor and
board of aldermen until they have
the streets named and the houses num-
bered and then have the postofice in
spector to examine the same and re-
port to the postoffice department, pro-
vided your Office does the required an
nual postal business.
Not only should the towns in Mis-
sissippi, but the rural districts should
have the free delivery. 1t is a great
civilizer. No one has but little idea
the scarcity of reading matter in the
interior until he makes an investiga-
ton. Scarcely one family out of five
subscribes for newspaper, and if he
does SO as apt as not it is some little
cheap concern published up in Maine
or some other northern state and con-
tai rs nothing but the worst kind of
trashy reading matter. There are
many people in Perry and adjoining
counties who have not the remotest
idea of what is going on even in their
own state, and if he should tell them
about the Spanish war, the
recent destructive earthquakes, the
terrible and most disastrous cyclones
or any other recent event they would
be a little amazed. Perhaps they
would belive it, but it is more likely
that they would not, or if they did
they would believe it was the coming
Of Christ to earth again.
The people of south Mississippi are
not any more ignorant than those OF
other sections, but they do not reat
and of course cannot keep posted. L
, the government would establish fret
rural delivery more of them woult
subscribe for and read papers ant
| know more about what is going OIL
in the world, more about human
, nature, more about religion ant
Crhist and the churches and th,
| schools, and would become bette,
{ civilized and better people. There
. are men living within thirty mile o.
) Hattiesburg who never shaved in theil
lives, never wore shoe in the sum
J mer season and who are raising theil
, families in the most obscure and ILL
; terate manner. These men are scarce
ly responsible for what they do, fol
they know no better.
If their fathers had not gone to the
civil war and told them on their re-
turn that there was such war they
would never have heard of it, and as
for there being ice in the summer
time deacon of the church could not
be made to believe it. Since rail
roads have been constructed through
this section there has been a wonder
full Improvement in the moral and
fertilization of the people, but rail-
roads cannot be constructed to the door
of every mans house.
1t is the duty of the government
and the duty of the more highly civil
lied people of this country to see that
these rural people have greater oppor-
tunties to make better men and better
women of themselves. Uncle Sam
and the churches and the educators
should send an army of missionaries
among these people. Charity should
begin at home and our love and our
protection should go out to our peo-
pie first-the foreign heather can
wait until the work in our own coun-
try and among our own people is ac-
Icomplished. s.