The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-06-04

10 which the family repaired in OPP
pressively hot seasons and where the
sea- bath was always to be had at least
possible pains.
1t is here then that the retired eX-
! President spent those last days which
every man would like to enjoy in the
semi -seclusion of country life. After
his death, December 6, 1889, the Davis
family moved to New York where Mrs.
Davis still lives. Some two years ago
the Mississippi Daughters of the Con-
federacy purchased the place and gave
it to the State as a home for Confed-
crate veterans. The State accepted the
gift, voted the necessary appropriation
for it's maintenance and now some fifty
aged veterans find there the same SOL
ace of their last years which it gave
to the former chieftain. They are
faithful to his memory. and love to
tell of the many favorite spots where
Mr.. Davis used to loiter, of his proud
and unconquered spirit and of his de-
votion to a cause to which every one
else gives the name of THE Lost
Cause" A more fitting act than that
of these Mississippi ladies could hard
ly have been done; nor is there more
appropriate place for the retirement
of WORKOUT Confederate veterans than
this beautiful Gulf-shore home-noW
famous i'm American history as the
last home of one of Americas most
gifted. high-spirited sons. visit TO it
is q tonic to patriotism tonic which
once taken can not but be long remem-
bered
The Passing hof the Early Spanish
Civilization i'm the South.
From this place the writer of these
lines rode leisurely along the shell-road
which parallels the coast for about
seven miles back to Gulfport the new
railroad town which is growing great
we are told, as a result of the Standard
Oil Kings interest in It, As one fingers
here or in the other one-time Spanish
towns, such as Biloxi Pass Christian,
and others which line the coast from
Mobile to New Orleans, one is prone
to recall the Spanish civilization which
was planted here a hundred years be-
fore jamestown was settled; but
which. like that of Spain itself, has
Jagged behind in the pressing march
of modern times. Here came as bold
and daring pioneers as doughty John
Smith and the famous Puritans of the
North: but all that is left of their work
rs a strange accent in the language of !
the people, a few neighborhoods of
Spanish French Indian populations.
the right to build old fashioned houses
along narrow streets paved with cob
BILE stones. and the privilege of keep
ing their houses and premises in the
dirtiest possible condition--happily
this latter is being somewhat abridged
of late by yankees notions of ones
duty to ones neighbor.
The tide of Virginia and Carolina
civilization in the early years of the
nineteenth century over-ran this earl
ier one-the old Lower South, with its
great plantations, thousands of negro
slaves, its feudal system Of society, its
master statesmen superseded ii and
fiourished short hundred years. This,
too, gave way in the early struggle of
the sixties to newer and more DEM
ocratic life and now one sees every
where the leveling process of democ-
racy. There is no longer any thing
unique in this country except in rarest
instances. The same style of houses.
the same noisy streets, with bells and
gongs going all the time and every
where, the same modes of travel and
the same style of dress. From Boston
to Chicago, from Richmond even TO
New Orleans there is but one life one
people, all rushing and crowding the
highways of trade and commerce
There is no longer any character to the
different sections of our country-our
Yankee civilization hates anything that
is not useful and convenient. His
towns must all be alike, his streets
must be rectangular and numbered,
laid off like a checkerboard-his
names, poetic associations. the coy
hooks and corners which he goes all
the way to Europe to see, he will not
permit in his own country And the
South has become American" even
the automobiles rush through the
streets as they do in the greater towns
of the North, making the way of the
old-fashioned who still go a-foot the
more uncertain. The South hastens to
initiate what We are to believe is 'cic-
ilization."
VIM. T.. DODD.