The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-01-14

been his. of what literary and scholar istic pabulum he has fed upon.
 Mir Mertins was born In Evergreen, lConecuh county. in the early seventies, was brought up with negroes all about
 him, had a black nanny like the rest
 of us. and saw every phase of negro character good, bad. indifferent, from tyouth up. In 1887 Mr. Mertins entered the academic department of Washing ton and Lee University at Lexington Virginia. He stayed only one year, al the end of that period he went to Gevena. Switzeriand. where for two years he was d student at the College | de St. Antoine.
 After that he studied for q while | under private tutors at Calmor, in l Province Posen, East Prussia | Then he came back to Washington | and Lee. finished his undergraduate | course, studied law, and was admitted to the bar at Evergreen. For some years he has practieed at Montgomery | A first book must need hold crudi- l ties, one doesn't expect d finished. ar | tistic work with First effort at writ | ing any more tha" one expects to be l employed in and win the greatest l criminal case on record with a maiden l speech But MT. Mertins's first book Ichallenges respect and holds interest. | The dialect where employed, Is good. ! some new to literature though com | monly heard on the S plantation | "biffon for before and wedges" for wages are both good and true. | old Ephraim is a we'll known char acter. The degradation of his grand son, ''Red Shirt" shows with great l distinctness the frightful contrast or the negro character of former days nd of now.
 l The story of the forming of secret societies by the negroes and of the uprising is well told. These things would in reality be followed by just such slaughter of blacks bent upon murder and arson and worse. White men of the entire South from senator to moonshiner are as one man in any suche emergency. But where is the solving of the complex problem after all? Some of the authors ideas upon the matter eternally discussed by all | are as follows:
 Leave the negro to his corn field. to his cotton field and his old-time happy songs. and for years all will be | well.
 Force them into competition. into collision, and the black man will reel from the strife, broken and lost | Between the two races we will not tolerate the least suggestion of social equality. The man that castes 1t or breaches it is an enemy to both blacks and whites. He is sowing the seeds of strife.
 Take that little village of Illinois. The negroes. ..that dwell there are re- spected There is no toleration what | ever for the narrow. -Christianlike views of the South. Suddenly there is an affray between the men. white man Is shot down in the Village square by black man. and inside of an hour 1 that peaceful village is moving hell. The homes of thenegroes are burned. and they are killed as they flee from | the people that loved them so.
 Why is this?"
 Tt is simply racial cohesion and is born of the ages. This thing Is in the blood of the minister's son in Maine; it is in the eyes of the sweet-faced sis ter of charity hurrying though dark ening places as night settles down on
 New Orleans.
 We do not do things that way (of
 the Illinois village) in the South. We
 do not visit upon community punish
 ment for the sins of one man. We hold
 the rein tight always. We watch. We
 are careful We know the situation
 and we never Hull ourselves into toll
 eration of open violation of those rules
 in which experience has taught us lies
 our safety
 We have people who write foi Southern papers and for Northern
 ma gazines, but, in nearly every in
 stance they sing to suit the audience. | Mir. Mertins certainly sings to sui
 himself. He voices his convictions clearly and with independence of spirit
 The sermon of the negro preacher
 Aaron Green, is too long for artistic
 fitness. The showing, however, of the
 mulatto, part Indian, part negro, dom
 mated in turn by the darker race in
 stincts commingled, horribly preventing
 his education and his ordination by
 preaching "a doctrine of blood anC
 hate" is strongly done.
 The complete book in the main story
 to introduce Jared Ogletree is not war
 ranted by any imperative need of Ogle tree and his life story in the plot. Ex cept that Ogletree's son, known as Josf
 Simpson, was the only man killed 1T . the uprising there is no close connec 7 tion with the thread of the narrative The entire Ogletree matter comes in a; ; extreme and marring to a very interest ing piece of work; that with the quain mountaineer courtship and moonshin' | coloring had better have been cut ou
 for another story" as Kipling woulC put it.
 Mary" asked old Moonshiner Simp
 son when he learned that the lost Ogle
 tree was not a revenue man; Mary does you want dat man? Does yer wan , him wid CT preacher, CT squire an e
 marriage, an all der whole business? 2 The girl covered her face with he arm, her checks burned and she turned
 her head from him:
 Vas she murmured faintly.
 All right he stroked her hair soft
 ly; "fatten him, honey an he's yor'n. "Ase," the youthful negro boy of al
 work about the saw smill, is nothe well-drawn sketch. "Ase des natchall!
 mer name. I dunno if hits fer short O no." de declared. "Ase's" way of mak . ing money fly. and general happy
 Iuckyness brightens some of the dark ness that falls naturally about stor! of the retrograding of a race.
 The saw-mill country of Alabama i
 well depicted, the vast piney wood
 with intervening swamps. where might,
 magnolias rear their black columns
 tinted with richest evergreen and hal the year starred with odorous blooms
 Southern country home and communit
 life Is truly pictured.
 Wooden shanties in the village lonl shut up, white owners glad to get renter, even though it be Cuban negr
 barber.
 old homes. barely kept up on shrink 2 ing revenues. selling off pieces of pine . woods to send d daughter to Hollln' t Institute, Virginia; selling of eggs D - l the land poor owner of man
 dcres; crossroads, general stores, gath T oring place of the community, fror , which tn" Doctor starts for most of hi - calls and where the young men of tn @ nciGhborhood arrange for their dance ] l and gaiti"s, We sec them all as |
 reality.
 , Characters do not in this young au : thor's creditablc work show out quit as clearly as do scenes and local colol n Virginia and Jerima are contrasts. t For the literary taste of the villag