Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1914-07-10
Big Army at Poca Drinks, Fights,
and Few On In Prison

and Few go to Prison.
Pocahontas, Va, July 6.-The 4th.
of July in Pocahontas, Va, was one
day of days. 1t was day in which
Col. John Barleycorn held full sway.
The trains operating between Blue
stone Junction and the town across
The Virginia border carried more than
four thousand people both ways,
while people walked by the hundreds
from the junction, their thirst evil
IDENTIFY exceeding their waiting quail
ties for trains to run.
For serious disorder the situation
in Pocahontas was well handled, but
for good natured revelry and debau-
cherry Virginia's chief mining town
was in glorious ascendency. OF the
large numbers who came from the
mining towns of West Virginia, the
negroes were greatly in the majority.
Beside the negroes there were many
foreigners and goodly sprinkling of
white Americans. There was n con-
glomeration of nationalities repre-
sented in the immense crowd, which
added to the cosmopolitan population
of Pocahontas, and the people from
the farms of Tazewell county, all
went to make up homogeneous
whole, which would be hard to con-
ceive except by the person who went
to see.
The immense crowd came to Poca-
hontas to have good time and to
drink liquor. This they did to the
queens taste. There were no "half
way doin's" about it either, except on
the part of the few who fell by the
wayside, and were put on the cooler"
to sober up. BBy nightfall the Jail
was pretty well full, Notwithstanding
the fact that the police department
gave the visitors all the leverage pos
sible. There was very little disorder
on the fighting line. There were
few lively scraps, but the special
trains carried out most of the crowd
before thief got drunk enough to be
very disorderly. Trainmen who car
ried the coalfield contingent back to
their homes report that there was
much drunkenness, but those under
the influence of liquor chose to sleep
it off.
1t was revelation to those who
went to see and observe. There were
many who predicted that Pocahontas
with her twenty-one saloons would
soon be worse morally than Keystone
ever was in its palmiest days. On the
streets of Pocahontas people of all
classes and conditions met on COM
mon level. White men placed them
selves on a level socially with negro
women, and it was not an uncommon
sight to see them engaged in con-
fetti battles, or holding animated con-
versations, jostling each other good
naturally as though it was an every
day phase of their lives.
Boys in their teens were bleareyed
and Enthusiastically under the influ-
ence of liquor. One aged father
brought his son to Poca to enjoy the
day, but spent several hours guard
ing the boy in livery stable until
he could sleep off the effects of his
drunk, and to keep the youth from
falling into the hands of the police.
Women could be seen drunk and
unable to navigate. One well dressed
woman, young and good looking, was
stretched out in the ladies' waiting
room of the passenger station, where
she became the object of ridicule. She
was attended by male companion
who remained with her until he got
possession of what change she had
when he departed. She soon dropped
into drunken slumber in her seat.
One man went fast asleep sitting
outside the station with child APP
parently about two years old on hi
knee. The little one was endeavorinl
to feed the "boozy" father some chew
| ing gum. Many persons stood by an
: watched the man with his baby unit
the arrival of train when he wa
aroused from his slumbers and put O.
board and taken out of thecity. Som