The farmer and mechanic., 1910-02-22
WHAT NATIVE NORTHERNER
SAYS Of CRIME IN SOUTH
He Believes There is Less Drink
ing and Fewer Murders in
the South
(Bion H, Butler in Southern Pines
Tourist

\
Tourist.)
The average Northern man has an
idea that the men OF the South are
quick on the trigger.
The other day l picked up a paper
from Washington county, Pennsyl-
Vania, which noted the tact that about
a dozen murder cases We're to be
tried or had been tried in the county
within year. A Mexican county
paper not long ago told Of tour mur-
der trials at one session of court, if /
remember Alright. And Allegheny
county has SO many murder trials
thai such cases excite no comment.
1he counties OF Pennsylvania that
are most familiar to me are pretty
busy at court weeks trying murder
csa~-es. But i do not observe many
such cases in the counties of my
neighborhood down this way.
1 have no idea of the relative fire.
quency Of muroer, but it seems to me
that our people of this section are
little lambs alongside of the blood
thirsty people of the North.
L don't Just now recall murder
trial In this county since have been
here, which is six years, although it
is possible such have occurred and
either been forgotten or not known to
me. But certainly we do not hear Of
murders in this section Of the country
nearly as frequently as We read Of
them in Pennsylvania papers.
1t Is just like the reputation at
tributed to the Southern man for
drinking Whiskey. As compared with
the fellow at the North. the governors
OF North and South Carolina would
De prlmer-class scholars. Robert
Glenn, a man who recently left the
executive chair of this State, has been
touring the North on lecture ex-
peditIon, and few men anywhere are
more pronounced and convincing pro-
hn &c win >f
the South are seen by the North with
D magnifying glass, and why I can
not understand. At the present time
nearly every Southern State is a pro-
hibition State, and if anybody tells
you that prohibition does not have an
influence the sale of liquor you
tell him just as far as you have conf
dence in what / say that that man
has another guess.
Our prohibition laws lessen the use
Of liquor, and they lessen the murders
and the crimes Of various kinds that
liquor incites, and these pTohi ibition
laws help to make OF the South one
of the most lawful sections of the
country.
There is certain amount of gun
play in certain parts or the South The
tobacco Outrages in Kentucky must
be counted one of the inexcuSable
affairs that no State and no people
should tolerate for Il minute. Posi-
things would not be permitted up that
way. but 1 remember the riots at
Pittshurg when the Pennsylvania sta
ton and the elevator and several
millions of dollars worth of property
were in the hands of the rioters. I
was in the hard coal country when
the Molly Maguires made that section
dangerous for a man who let his right
hand know what his left hand
thought. 1 have not forgotten the
burning Of the public buildings in
Cincinnati. ] recall yet the H;lynar-
ket murd ers in Chicago.
All of this leads me to believe that
human nature breaks out in about
the same lawless manner any place
when common sense gives way TO hat
red
But aside from these extremes I do
not thinks that the men of the South
have recourse to the gun any more
frequently than the people do IN any
section Of the country.
One thing that strikes me as slngu-
lar is the vastly greater amount OF to-
bacco used in the North than in the
South North Carolina raises more
tobacco than any State in the Union
except Kentucky and sells 1t to the
North and to Europe. The famous
Durham smoking tobacco came from
this State, and an enormous quant1ty
OF plug tobacco. But you Will not see
the native with a pipe or cigar once
while you see the man from the North
light half dozen cigars. Tobacco
chewing is more common than smok-
ing.
AS I cipher it out, the South is
closer to the Puritan atmosphere to-
day than any other section of the
union, for it is not yet so closely IN
touch with the commercial spirit
which seems to be making the differ
ence between the old and the new
upon
purely New England condition, and
if We go by the name alone that may
be the case. But the Calvinist or
the Carolinas and the Puritan of the
Eastern States brought with them the
same frigid and auStere ideas. 1t is
a .,nt fI,n OF Cod