Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1915-04-30
INTERESTING LETTER
FROM ARKANSAS
George w. Banks Tells About
Hot Springs and the Rheu-
matlsm Cure
Hot Springs, Ark, April "a, 1915.
Jed Dubois.

Editor
AS time is hanging heavily or my
hands while here seeking relief for
rheumatism, by taking the hot baths
and drinking the hot spring water,
concluded | would write you of my
trip here and how the country and
cities passed through appeared to me.
Leaving Wildwood In the morning,
arrived in Philadelphia at 9.35. took
the 10 % train for Pittsburg. arriving
there at 7 O'Clock that night and laid
over there all next day and night. 1t
is well named the sSmoky City, and
cannot say | was favorabiy Ina pressed,
the streets being very narrow and
crooked. When viewed from the
mountain at night the many lights and
colored electric signs make q beautiful
sight. Left Pittsburg at 3.45 a. M,
arrived in st. Louis at 8 o'clock p. 10.
In going through the central part of
Ohio, Indiana and southern part of
Illinois | found the country flat, with
the farms having q healthy look and
all buildings in a well-kept condition,
giving one the impression that in that
section at least the farmers were pros
porous. Stayed yer night In st. Louis
and while there took advantage Of my
thirteen hours' lay over to visit the old
Planters Hotel, that long before and
q H. fLn mes - In ms fhrns4nhnnf
the world. Very few articles OF fiction
or were ever written about the
South that the Planters Hotel did not
play q prominent part. 1t was the
hotel where the cottoo planters always
put up on their trips to town to dispose
of their cotton and slaves, and Of course
was the headquarters of the gambling
element that continually piled up and
down the Mississippi on the old fiat
bottom, stern-wheel steamers, fleeing
the planters out of the proceeds of their
sales. 1t was alec the headquarters of
politicians of both parties and many
political states have been made, broken
and mended there. The business is
fast leaving that neighborhood moving
further west, and it will not be long
before the Planters, like the old South
ern In the same neighborhood, now
closed, will be a thing of the past. Ad-
joining the Planters Hotel is Tony
Faust's Cafe who had q national repu-
tation even exceeding Farnelll, of Phila-
delphia, or Delmonico, of New York,
as a caterer to the most fAstidious and
If II was In the market you could find
Ii on the bill of fare. Like the others
in that locality it will o be among
the ''has beens.u Leaving st. Louis at
8 O'Clock next morning and arrived in
Hot Springs at 1905 O'Clock that night.
The southern part of Missouri for a dis
lance Of about fifty miles Is mountain
GUS and rocky, but from there until you
reach Little Rock, Ark, a stretch Of
over three hundred miles, it is nothing
but swamp timber. Here and there
would be a knoll OF from one to three
acres upon which the trees have been
cut down-stumps remaining-being
cultivated. The houses, not one con-
tanning more than two rooms, are built
in the marsh on piling with a little
boardwalk leading to the solid ground
| did not see q house in the country
district In all that distance that had
ever been introduced or was on speak
ing acquaintance with q coal of paint.
Each one Of these little truck patches
had a fairly large stock of poor, scrawny
looking cows and razor-back hogs-the
hogs roofing IN the swamp and the
co WIS grazing of every little knoll of a
few feet in dimensions from their APP
pearance the picking was not very
good. Everything looked poor and
could not help reminding one of the
that "one-half the world doesn't
know how the other half lives" All
the small towns with a population Of
one hundred to twenty-five hundred
1.-THE population of every town is printed
the time table, are surrounded by
swamp, the streets being low and part
ly covered by water and in many in
stances elevated wooden sidewalks
about three or four feet wide. 1t is not
good section OF the country for auto
mobiles-in fact 1 did not see one after
leaving st. Louis until | reached Little
Rock.
Hot Springs, with q population Of
fifteen thousand, is situated between
two mountains, known as East and
West Mountain, being spurs of the
Ozark range. There is only one main
business street, Central avenue, one
hundred feet wide, In the town. For a
distance Of three squares it Is only one
and fifty feet from base to
haaa of the mountains. Some have