Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1911-01-11
WAY In THE SUNNY SOUTH
GENERAL ROGERS SEES TIE SIGHTS
AND TELLS ABOUT THEM
Relates Fish Story That May Draw the
Ire of Ed. Hazen- Poor Farming
and Buildings E7route

EDITOR CENSOR: Up the branch, on
the main travelled road, in Chicago at
the season of Christmas shopping We
saw the beautiful window displays Of
fine art; undoubtedly the most artistic
exhibition of woman's apparel any
where to be seen. We saw the h0bble
skirt girls with high heel shoes, the hat
pin, the turbin hat, peach basket style,
the Gainsborough aeroplane all in the
great jam.
Running out of Chicago, are soon in
Indiana and down the length of the
Hoosier state, past unshocked corn
fields. in shock and fodder. Ii is no
ticeable the farm houses and barns lack
the comforts of Wisconsin homes and
shelter for animals. Darkness was over
the Ohio valley when the train pulled
into Kentucky. Resting in Pullman
car, the morning sunrise located the
train near Birmingham, the great steel
manufacturing town of the south. Ages
and ages ago, Nature great law form
ed beas of coal and mines of iron which
rested IN the tostness OF the mountain
till the men of the north prospected
and found the hidden wealth that made
Birmingham a second Pittsburg. All
day down the length of Alabama, look
ing from car window, farms are seen
from which corn and cotton had been
harvested. Not in the days ride is
there to be seen a single good farm
house, a barn, granary, pig pen, hen
coop, shelter for the mule or pasture
for the stock, no country school house
or church, Two-room shacks on stills
are the abodes, shelter of the families
with the hoe. 1t is to be hoped this
"scenic route" does not fully represent
the great state to the gulf.
As we pull into cities, more life,
more enterprise, more of the age of
progress is seen in electric cars, tele-
phones, taller buildings, school houses,
churches and universities. Towards
evening the belated train, overtaxed
with Pullman passengers. left Alabama
and entered west Florida. Forty miles
through eut-over land and pull into PEN
sacola with one new building, SPLEEN
did hotel Pensacola is an old town on
a beautiful bay. Its history is ancient.
Indians were here when the Spaniards
sailed into the bay in 1915. The Eng
lish ships for time anchored in the
waters, and an hundred years ago Cen
eral Jackson with his army of frontier
men, came this way, established the
authority of the United States and la
ter was governor of Florida Fishing
is good. Shops sail out of the harbor,
load with the red snapper and return.
At the harbor entrance is old Fort
Pickens that fioated the Confederate
flag from 1861 to 1865, when the old
flag again was unfurled. A good hotel.
recently opened, Is the only building
less than one hundred years old We
travel westward along the gulf coast,
pass Mobile and stop at Biloxi. This
town is the oldest on the gulf, with a
beautiful shore, thickly forested with
the live oak whose wide-spreading
branches, heavily burdened with moss
and after ages of growth. are diving
from the moss parasites. Along the
shore electric cars run for twenty
miles to Pass Christian. Nearly the
whole distance are dwellers in cottages,
who came here to breathe the salt air,
to battle, to witness the going-out and
incoming tide.
Our neighbors, Hazen and wife, are
pleasantly located, awaiting the carni-
val in New Orleans. While sitting in
the shade of an oak, Hazen related to
me a fish story OF extreme interest and
great peril that occurred before our ar
rival. He went out day when fish
were not biting and came back without
any catch. He wanted TO put on div
ing suit and go down in the water and
hook onto the big fish. He bought a
diving suit, electric lantern and phono-
graph, and with hook and line and
guide rowed to the fishing water. He
was told to jump overheard start the
\ photograph and turn on the electric
| light, when the schools of sea animals
would surround him. He went to the
bottom, hooked onto a porpoise which
was being chased by a man eating
shark. Hazen came out of the deep
much frightened, an hundred crabs
clinging to his clothes, caught hold the
boat which was being pulled at fast
speed by the porpoise They mad no
means to cut the line and were dragged
past the life-saviug station which they
| signaled with the sign Of distress. The
station sent out crew, cut the line
and saved HaZen from a watery grave.
| He left his photograph playing an OPP
era, the electric light Illuminating the
water with a five-cent moving picture
show, around which had gathered a
multitude of the large and infiuitesi-
NAL, the beautiful and horrid sea life.
With the coolest of seriousness he told
me this Munchausen fish story, and
exclaimed tbravoi" 1t was New Year 8
day, too Now, HaZen's opinions on
tobacco and great financial questions
are good, but do not take his FISH stor-
les with seriousness.
People from the lorth are coming to
the gulf coast in great numbers. The
real estate people and railroad agents
are telling them of the great poasibili-
ties and profits in truck farming and
selling vegetables il January and Feb
ruary. Some remain many return.
The land is CUT over pine, which has to
be grubbed; the soil has to be fortified
before the ground will yield harvest.
The working man with capital may
prosper. There is much wealth being
developed and there is much uhSevel-
oped.
The gulf is swarming with over
twelve hundred distinct species of good
fish, the oyster beds are numerous and
cover hundreds of acres out for twelve
miles from shore. Two-masted sloops
1 go to the distant beds and load, while
small crafts gather tongue-fsh near
| the shore Carloads of shells are daily
sent north to be ground for chicken
feed. train loads for road covering.
Carloads of oysters in shells and the
oyster meat are rolled northward to
every city and village, TO be consumed
in hotels, restaurants, lunch counters
and private homes. The crab, a deli
cate morsel. and shrimps have large
demand by the good livers and yield q
good profit.
Along the shore of the gulf the old