Year: 1878

mat heaven on earth to the emil


grant-before he gets there-Texas.


appears to be a mirage which fades


on near approach. Tt is currently


believed that there are thousands of


people ia Texas who are there like


the man in the dungeon-because


they are not somewhere else. Some


man has said that if he owned hi
and Texas, he would rent Texas.
Another man who was offered at the
end of a rope the alternative of hi
or Texas, said, sadly, he had been
to Texas and didn't like the country.
A lecturer in a neighboring town,
after scornfully scanning an audience
of six persons. said, gentlemen. you
can get your money back at the door,
and you can go to HI and I'll go to
Texas" Whether he was politely
taking the worst for himself or put.
ting the worst upon his audience, it
seems that these two vast countries
of boundless resources and exten-
sive immigration are closely connec.
ted in the popular thought; there
are many tracks leading into both
and none returning. We have won
derful accounts of the climate of
both. but nothing reliable. Both
have an extraordinary cohesive pow
er. Neither gives up its victim, and
from the one the way to the other is
supposed to be broad and easy.


Our newspapers are continually
filed with doleful accounts of losses
to Tennessee by migration to this
land of the cohesive soil, whence no
man ever extricates himself. We
believe this loss is purely shadowy.
The people who migrate from Ten.
nessee to Texas are in general-not
always, of course-a class who can
we'll be spared. They are a class
who do no good so long as they are
rooted to the old spot. When they
have lived around neighborhood
until they can live no more, or worn
a tract of land into the red and al
lowed all its fences to rot to the
ground, and even the briers have
ceased to furnish blackberries, they
pull up stakes and seek new land.
They sometimes, through the stirring
up of new scenes and travel, do some
good in the new country, or if they
do not their children are shaken up
by the change and learn new modes
of life. The best thing they can do
is to migrate. The best thing Ten
nessee can do is to lose this class of
people. It is tolerably certain that
no man--as a general rule--goes
who can or will make living here.
and every other is a burden to the
State and a clog upon its progress.
We can afford to lose this class and
Texas can afford to gain it. They
have settled down into a state of
despair here without ray of hope.
They see only ruin. In new land
they will have a good soil, and the
necessity for work, besides loss of
all the old props to Incidence and
unthrift which sustained them at
home. The same class have made
thrifty citizens in Illinois and In
diana, though in general the emil
grant to ''the Illinoy" and "Indi-
any" of years ago was perhaps
superior to the class we fiud gener-
ally leaving Tennessee to day. The
tide which set from East and Mid
die Tennessee to the "Forky deer"
and the Kentucky purchase have
made good citizens, moderately pro-
gressive. They at least improved
their fortunes and cleared mp the
country. The citizens we want in
Tennessee are those who know what
is fact, that man can make a
living and more IN Tennessee if he
knows how to adapt himself to


new state. of affairs and will do it


with energy and individual exertion.


All others it can afford to lose, and


when one man leaves another will


come, by the simple law of replace


ment of that which, Withdrawn,


leaves vacuum. Those who emil


CRATE leave lands which must be


cheaply sold. These will attract


live men from elsewhere. and instead


of loss we may be gaining now. If


not. we soon will be. Let us not


deplore these blessings in disguise,


or envy the land which seems to be


convertible into hill, those who


choose to emigrate thither or regret


that they viii; come no more. Ten


nessee will regret to losesany Of her


children, but they may benefit them


selves and her by going when they


can no longer successfully meet the


conditions around them. When our


live young men go to seek new


homes We suffer a real loss, but


whatever there is of this we suspect


is replaced by live young men from


elsewhere seeking Tennessee.