In the Revolution, Charleston played an important part. Men of Charleston were, of course, among the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who gave us the immortal maxim: "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!" who was on Washington's staff, was later Ambassador to France and president-general of the Sons of the Cincinnati, was a Charlestonian of the Charlestonians, and lies buried in St. Michael's. Such Revolutionary names as Marion, Laurens, William Washington, Greene, Hampton, Moultrie and Sumter are associated with the place, and two of these are reechoed in the names of those famous forts in Charleston harbor on which attention was fixed at the outbreak of the Civil War: Moultrie and Sumter—the latter, target for the first shot fired in the conflict.

Nearly thirty years before the Civil War, Charleston had distinguished herself in the arts of peace by producing the first locomotive tried in the United States, and by constructing the first consecutive hundred miles of railroad ever built in the world, and now, with the War, she distinguished herself by initiating other mechanical devices of very different character—a semi-submersible torpedo boat and the first submarine to torpedo a hostile war vessel. True, David Bushnell of Connecticut did construct a crude sort of submarine during the Revolutionary War, and succeeded in getting under a British ship with the machine, but he was unable to fasten his charge of powder and his effort consequently failed. Robert Fulton also experimented with submarines, or "plunging boats" as he called them, and was encouraged for a time by Napoleon I. The little David of the Confederate navy is sometimes referred to as the first submarine but the David was not actually an underwater boat, but a torpedo boat which could run awash, with her funnels and upper works slightly out of water. She was a cigar-shaped vessel thirty-three feet long, built of wood, propelled by steam, and carrying her torpedo on a pole, forward. Dr. St. Julien Ravenel of Charleston and Captain Theodore Stoney devised the craft, and she was built by funds subscribed by Charleston merchants. In command of Lieutenant W.T. Glassell, C.S.N., and with three other men aboard, she torpedoed the United States ship New Ironsides, flagship of the fleet blockading Charleston. The New Ironsides was crippled, but not lost. After this United States vessels blockading Charleston protected themselves with booms. This resulted in the construction of an actual undersea torpedo boat, the Hunley. This extraordinary vessel has been spoken of as having had the appearance of a huge iron coffin, as well as the attributes of one, for she proved a death-trap for successive crews on three trial trips. As there were no electric motors or gasoline engines in those days, she was run by hand, eight men crowded together turning a crank-shaft which operated her propeller. After repeated sinkings, she was raised, manned by new men, and sent forth again. Finally, in Charleston harbor she succeeded in destroying the United States man-o'-war Housatonic, but at the same time went down, herself, drowning or suffocating all on board. A memorial drinking fountain on the Battery, at the foot of Meeting Street, commemorates "the men of the Confederate Army and Navy, first in marine warfare to employ torpedo boats—1863-1865." On this memorial are given the names of sixteen men who perished in torpedo attacks on the blockading fleet, among them Horace L. Hunley, set down as inventor of the submarine boat. The names of fourteen others who were lost are unknown.

* * * * *

Lord William Campbell, younger son of the Duke of Argyll, was British governor at Charleston when the Revolution broke out. He had married a Miss Izard, of Charleston, who brought him a dowry of fifty thousand pounds, a large sum in those times. Their home was in a famous old house which stands on Meeting Street, and it was from the back yard of this house that Lord William fled in a rowboat to a British man-o'-war, when it became evident that Charleston was no longer hospitable to representatives of the Crown. Later his wife followed him to Great Britain, where they remained.

The Pringle House, as it is now called, formerly the Brewton house, perhaps the most superb old residence in the city, was the headquarters of General Sir Henry Clinton, after he had captured Charleston, and was the residence of Lord Rawdon, the unpleasant British commander who succeeded Clinton. Cornwallis lived outside the town at Drayton Hall, which still stands, on the Ashley River. After his capture Cornwallis was exchanged for Henry Laurens, a distinguished Charlestonian, who, though he wept over the Declaration of Independence, was before long president of the Continental Congress, and later went to France, where he was associated with Benjamin Franklin, John Jay and John Adams in negotiating the treaty of peace and independence for America.

Mrs. Ravenel says in her book that Sherman destroyed all but one of the superb old houses on the Ashley River, and when we consider that Sherman's troops invested Charleston just before the end of the War, and reflect upon the general's notorious "carelessness with fire," we have cause for national rejoicing that Charleston, with its unmatched buildings and their splendid contents, was not laid in ashes, as were Atlanta and Columbia. Had Sherman burned Charleston it would be hard for even a Yankee to forgive him.

Even without the aid of the Northern general, the city has been able to furnish disastrous conflagrations of her own, over a period of two centuries and more, and I find in the quaint reminiscences of Charles Fraser, already alluded to, a lamentation that, because of fires, many of the old landmarks have disappeared, and the city is "losing its look of picturesque antiquity." To make matters worse, there came, in 1886, an earthquake, rendering seven eighths of the houses uninhabitable until repairs aggregating some millions of dollars had been made. Up to the time of the earthquake the old mansion from which Lord William Campbell fled at the beginning of the Revolution, was adorned by a battlemented roof. It is recorded that when the shock came, an Englishman was in the house, and that in his eagerness to get outdoors he pushed others aside. As he reached the front steps, however, the battlements came crashing down. He was the one person from that house who perished, and his only monument is the patch of comparatively new stone where the broken steps have been repaired.

* * * * *

My companion and I achieved entrance to one of the famous old Charleston houses which we had been particularly anxious to see, through the kindness of a lady to whom we had a letter of introduction, who happened to be a relative of the owner of the house.

It seems necessary to explain, at this juncture, that in Charleston, many proper names of foreign origin have been corrupted in pronunciation. A few examples will suffice: The Dutch name Vanderhorst, conspicuous in the early annals of the city, has come to be pronounced "Van-Dross"; Legare, the name of another distinguished old family, commemorated in the name of Legare Street, is pronounced "Legree"; De Saussure has become "Dess-a-sore," with the accent on the first syllable, and Prioleau is called "Pray-low."

I was unaware of these matters when my companion and I visited the ancient house I speak of. Though I had heard the name of the proprietor of the mansion spoken many times, and recognized it as a distinguished Charleston name, I had never seen it written; however, without having given the matter much thought, I had, unfortunately, reached my own conclusions as to how it was spelled. Still more unfortunately, while I was delighting in the drawing-room of that wonderful old house, with the portraits of ladies in powdered hair and men in cocked hats and periwigs looking down upon me from the walls, I was impelled to reassure myself as to the spelling of the name. Let us assume that the name sounded like "Bowfee." That was not it but it will suffice for illustration.

"I suppose," I said to our charming cicerone, "that the family name is spelled 'B-o-w-f-e-e'?"

I had no sooner spoken than I realized, with a sudden access of horror what I had done. In guessing I had sinned, but in guessing wrong I had ruined myself. All this came to me instantly and positively, as by a psychic message of unparalleled definiteness from the dead ancestors whose portraits hung upon the paneling. It was as though they had joined in a great ghostly shout of execration, which was the more awful because it was a silent shout that jarred upon the senses rather than the ear drums. Then, before the lady replied, while the sound of my own voice saying "B-o-w-f-e-e" seemed to reverberate through the apartment, I suddenly comprehended the spirit of Charleston: understood that, compared with Charleston, Boston is as a rough mining camp, while New York hardly exists at all, being a mere miasma of vulgarity.

There was a long silence, in which the lady to whom I had spoken gazed from the window at the rainy twilight. Her silence, I am persuaded, was not intended to rebuke me; she was not desirous of crushing me; she was merely stunned. Indeed, when at last she spoke, there was in her tone something of gentleness.

"The name," she said, "is Beaufoy—B-e-a-u-f-o-y. It is of Huguenot origin."

Passionately I wished for an earthquake—one that might cause the floor to open beneath me, or the roof to fall through and blot me from her sight. How to get away?—that was my one thought. To cover my embarrassment, I tried to make small-talk about a medallion of an Emperor of France, which hung upon the paneling. The lady said it had been given to an ancestor of the Beaufoys by the Emperor himself. That, for some reason, seemed to make things rather worse. I wished I had not dragged the Emperor into the conversation.

"It is getting dark," I said. "It is time we were going."

This the lady did not dispute.

Of our actual farewells and exit from that house, I remember not a detail, save that, as we departed, I knew that we should never see this lady again; that for her I no longer existed, and that in my downfall I had dragged my companion with me. The next thing I definitely recollect is walking swiftly up Meeting Street beside him, in the rain and darkness of late afternoon. All the way back to the hotel we strode side by side in pregnant silence; neither did we speak as we ascended to our rooms.

Some time later, while I was dressing for dinner, he entered my bedchamber. At the moment, as it happened, I was putting cuff-links into a dress shirt. With this task I busied myself, dreading to look up. In the meantime I felt his eyes fixed upon me. When the links were in, I delayed meeting his gaze by buttoning the little button in one sleeve-vent, above the cuff.

"Do you mean to say you button those idiotic little buttons?" he demanded. "I didn't know that anybody ever did that!"

"I don't always," I answered apologetically.

"I should hope not!" he returned. Then he continued: "Do you remember where we are to be taken to-morrow?"

"Yes," I said. "To the Pringle house."

"Well," said he, "I just came in to ask you, as a favor, not to get off any fanciful ideas that you may have thought up, about the way to spell Pringle."



CHAPTER XXX

POLITICS, A NEWSPAPER AND ST. CECILIA

Charleston is very definitely a part of South Carolina. That is not always the case with a State and its chief city. It is not the case with the State and the City of New York. New York City has about the same relation to New York State as a goldpiece has to a large table-top on one corner of which it lies. Charleston, on the other hand, harmonizes into its state setting, as a beautiful ancient vase harmonizes into the setting afforded by some rare old cabinet. Moreover, Charleston's individuality amongst cities is more or less duplicated in South Carolina's individuality amongst States. South Carolina is a State as definitely marked—though in altogether different ways—as Kansas or California. It is a State that does nothing by halves. It has rattlesnakes larger and more venomous than other rattlesnakes, and it has twice had the disgraceful Cole Blease, otherwise "To-hell-with-the-Constitution" Blease, as governor. For senator it has the old war-horse Tillman, a man so admired for his power that, in our easy-going way, we almost forgive his dives into the pork-barrel. Tillman has been to South Carolina more or less what the late Senator Hale was to his section of New England. Hale grabbed a navy yard for Kittery, Maine (the Portsmouth yard), where there never should have been a navy yard; Tillman performed a like service, under like circumstances, for Charleston. Both are purely political yards. Naval officers opposed them, but were overridden by politicians, as so often happens. For in time of peace the army and the navy are political footballs, and it is only when war comes that the politicians cease kicking them about and cry: "Now, football, turn into a cannon-ball, and save your country and your country's flag!" For obviously, if the flag cannot be saved, the politicians will be without a "starry banner" to gesture at and roar about.

Now, of course, with war upon us, any navy yard is a blessing, and the Charleston yard is being used, as it should be, to the utmost. But in time of peace the yard comes in for much criticism from the navy, the contention being that it is not favorably located from a strategic point of view, and that, owing to bars in the Cooper River, up which it is situated, it cannot be entered by large ships. The point is also made that while labor is cheaper at this yard than at any other, skilled metal-workers are hard to get. Friends of the yard contend, upon the other hand, that it is desirable because of its convenience to the Caribbean Sea, where, according to naval theory, this country will some day have to fight a battle in defense of the Panama Canal. The Pensacola yard, it is pointed out, is exposed and can be bombarded, whereas the Charleston yard is far enough inland to be safe from sea attack. As to the channel, it is navigable for destroyers and other small craft—though whether it would be so to a large destroyer which had been injured and was drawing more water than usual, I do not know. The practical situation of the navy, with regard to this and some of the other political yards, is like that of some man who has been left a lot of heterogeneous houses, scattered about town, none of them suited to his purposes, and who is obliged to scatter his family amongst them as best he can, or else abandon them and build a new house. We have been following the former course, and are only now preparing to adopt the latter, by establishing a naval base at Norfolk, as mentioned in an earlier chapter.

Charleston politics have been peculiar. Until a few years ago the government of the city had long rested in the hands of a few old families, among them the Gadsdens and the Rhetts. The overthrow of this ancient and aristocratic rule by the election to the mayoralty of John P. Grace, an alleged "friend of the people," was spoken of by the New York "Sun," as being not a mere change in municipal government, but the fall of a dynasty which had controlled the city politically, financially and socially for a century and a half. Mr. Grace may be dismissed with the remark that he supported Blease and that he is editor of the recently founded Charleston "American," which I have heard called a Hearst newspaper, and which certainly wears the Hearst look about it.

On January 19, 1917, this newspaper printed a full account of the ball of the St. Cecilia Society, Charleston's most sacred social organization. Never before in the history of the St. Cecilia Society, covering a period of a century and a half, had an account of one of its balls, and the names of those attending, been printed. The publication caused a great stir in the city and resulted in an editorial, said to have been written by Grace, which appeared next day, and which reveals something of Charleston tradition and something of Grace, as well. It was headed "The Saint Cecilia Ball," and ran as follows:

We carried on yesterday a full account of the famous Saint Cecilia Ball. From the foundation of Charleston until the present moment it has been regarded as an unwritten law that the annual events of this ancient society shall not be touched upon.

Of course it was permissible for the thirty-five thousand poor white people of Charleston to talk about the Saint Cecilia, and to indulge in the thrilling sensation that comes to the proverbial cat when she looks at a queen. Some of them, moved by curiosity, even ventured within half a block of the Hibernian Hall to observe from afar the gay festivities.

The press being forbidden to cover Saint Cecilia events, there grew up in the vulgar mind weird stories of what went on behind the scenes. While the Saint Cecilia has enjoyed the happy privilege of journalistic silence, it has, therefore, correspondingly suffered on the tongue of gossip. The truth is that we always knew that the Saint Cecilia was just about the same as every other social collection of human beings—a little gaiety flavored with a little frivolity; nothing more, nothing less.

There was a time when this society was the extreme limit of social exclusiveness. It was an anachronism on American soil, a matter of pure heredity, the right to membership in which was as fixed as Median law, but transcendently above the median line. Now, however, since the society, in keeping with the spirit of the age, has relaxed its rules to admit from year to year (if, indeed, only a few now and then) members whose blood is far from indigo, we think it perfectly legitimate for the newspaper, which represents ALL classes of people, to invade the quondam sanctity of its functions which are now being OPENED to all classes.

Following this, the editorial quoted from Don Seitz's book, telling how the elder James Gordon Bennett was in the habit of mocking "events to which he was not invited," and how, in 1840, he managed to get one of his reporters into "Henry I Brevoort's fancy dress ball, the social event of the period." The quotation from Mr. Seitz's book ends with the following: "A far cry from this to 1894, when Ward McAlister, arbiter of the '400' at Mrs. Astor's famous ball, became a leader on social topics for the New York 'World.' It took many years for this umbrage at the reporting of social events to wear off and make the reporter welcome. Indeed, there is one place yet on the map where it is not even now permitted to record a social event, though the editors and owners of papers may be among those present. That is Charleston, South Carolina...."

The Charleston editor then resumes his own reflections in this wise:

We regret to say, and it is the regret of our life, that we were not one of the editors present at the Saint Cecilia. This, therefore, relieves us of the implied condition to adhere any longer to this silly and absurd custom which, in the language of this great newspaper man, has made its last stand "on the map" at Charleston. We are glad that we have forever nailed, in the opinion of one hundred million ordinary people who make the American nation, the absurdity that there is any social event so sacred, any people so DIFFERENT from the rest of us poor human beings, that we dare not speak of them.

Just why private social events should be, as Mr. Grace seems to assume, particularly the property of the press, it is somewhat difficult to explain, unless we do so by accepting as fundamental the theory that the press is justified in invading personal privacy purely in order to pander, on the one hand to the new breed of vulgar rich which thrives on "publicity," and on the other, to the breed of vulgar poor which enjoys reading that supremest of American inanities, the "society page."

What Mr. Seitz said in his book as to the reticence of Charleston newspapers, where society is concerned, is, however, generally true—amazingly so to one who has become hardened to the attitude of the metropolitan press elsewhere. The society columns of Charleston papers hardly ever print the names of the city's real aristocrats, and in the past they have gone much farther than this, for they have been known to suppress important news stories in which prominent citizens were unpleasantly involved. It may be added that earthquakes are evidently classed as members of the aristocracy, since occasional tremors felt in the city are pointedly ignored by the press. Whether or not the paper edited by the fearless Mr. Grace ignores these manifestations I am unable to say. One can easily fancy his taking a courageous stand on such a subject as well as upon social matters. Indeed, with a few slight changes, his editorial upon the St. Cecilia ball, might be made to serve equally well after an earthquake shock. He might say:

The press being forbidden to cover earthquakes, there grew up in the vulgar mind weird stories of what went on behind the scenes. While the earthquakes have enjoyed the happy privilege of journalistic silence, they have, therefore, correspondingly suffered on the tongue of gossip.

He could also make the point that since, "in keeping with the spirit of the age," the earthquake shakes people "(if indeed only a few of them now and then), whose blood is far from indigo, we think it perfectly legitimate for the newspaper, which represents ALL classes of people, to invade the quondam sanctity of its functions which are now being OPENED to all classes."

But of course, where the editor of such a paper is concerned, there is always the element of natural delicacy and nicety of feeling to be considered. Mr. Grace felt that because he was not present at the St. Cecilia ball, he was free to print things about it. An earthquake would not be like the St. Cecilia Society—it would not draw the line at Mr. Grace. At a Charleston earthquake he would undoubtedly be present. The question therefore arises: Having been PRESENT, might his AMOUR PROPRE make him feel that to REPORT the event would not be altogether in GOOD TASTE?

The St. Cecilia Society began in 1737 with a concert given on St. Cecilia's day, and continued for many years to give concerts at which the musicians were both amateurs and professionals. Josiah Quincy, in his "Journal," tells of having attended one of these concerts in 1773, and speaks of the richness of the men's apparel, noting that there were "many with swords on."

When, in 1819, difficulty was experienced in obtaining performers, it was proposed that a ball be held in place of a concert, and by 1822 the society was definitely transformed from a musical to a dancing organization, which it has remained ever since.

The statement in the "American" editorial that St. Cecilia balls have been the subject of scandalous gossip is, I believe, quite false, as is also the statement that the balls are now "being opened to all classes."

Mrs. Ravenel in her book tells how the organization is run. Members are elected, and all are men, though the names of the ladies of a member's household are placed on the club list. "Only death or removal from the city erases them—change of fortune affects them not at all." A man whose progenitors have belonged to the society is almost certain of election, though there have been cases in which undesirables of good family have been blackballed. Two blackballs are sufficient to cause the rejection of a candidate. Men who are not of old Charleston stock are carefully investigated before they can be elected, but of late years not a few such, having been considered desirable, have become members. The members elect officers and a board of managers, and these have entire control of the society. Three balls are given each year, one in January and two in February. Until a few years ago the hall in which the balls are given was lighted by innumerable candelabra; only lately has electricity been used. The society owns its own plate, damask, china and glassware, and used to own a good stock of wines. Of late years, I believe, wines have not been served, the beverage of the evening consisting of coffee, hot and iced. The greatest decorum is observed at the balls. Young ladies go invariably with chaperones; following each dance there is a brief promenade, whereafter the young ladies are returned to their duennas—who, if they be Charleston dowagers in perfection, usually carry turkey-feather fans. Cards are filled months in advance. As lately as the year 1912 every other dance was a square dance; since then, however, I believe that square dances have gone the way of candle-light. The society has an endowment and membership is inexpensive, costing but fifteen dollars a year, including the three balls. This enables young men starting in life to be members without going into extravagance, and is in accord with the best social tradition of Charleston, where the difference between an aristocracy and a plutocracy is well understood. Most of the rules of the organization are unwritten. One is that men shall not smoke on the premises during a ball; another is that divorced persons shall not be members or guests of the society. In this respect the St. Cecilia Society may be said, in effect, to be applying, socially, the South Carolina law; for South Carolina is the only State in the Union in which divorces are not granted for any cause whatsoever.

This reminds me that the State has an anti-tipping law. The Pullman porter is required to hang up copies of the law in his car when it enters South Carolina, and copies of it are displayed on the doors of hotel bedrooms. The penalty for giving or receiving a tip is a fine of from ten to one hundred dollars, or thirty days in jail. Perhaps the law is observed. I know, at least, that no one offered me a tip while I was in that State.

* * * * *

The old grandees of Charleston were usually sent to Oxford or Cambridge for an education and English tradition still remains, I fancy, the foundation for what Charleston social life is to-day. I thought at first that Charlestonians spoke like the English, but later came to the conclusion that there is in the pronunciation of some of them a quality resembling a very faint brogue—a brogue such as might be possessed by a cultivated Irishman who had moved to England in his boyhood, and had been educated there. The "vanishing y" of tidewater Virginia is also used by some Charlestonians, I am told, though I do not remember hearing it.

Generalizations on the subject of dialectic peculiarities are dangerous, as I have good reason to know. Naturally, not all Charlestonians speak alike. I should say, however, that the first a in the words "Papa" and "Mama" is frequently given a short sound, as a in "hat"; also that many one-syllable words are strung out into two. For instance, "eight" is heard as "ay-et" ("ay" as in "gray"); "where" as "whey-uh," or "way-uh," and "hair" as "hay-uh." "Why?" sometimes sounds like "Woi?" Such words as "calm" and "palm" are sometimes given the short a: "cam" and "pam"—which, of course, occurs elsewhere, too. The name "Ralph" is pronounced as "Rafe" (a as in "rate")—which I believe is Old English; and the names "Saunders" and "Sanders" are pronounced exactly alike, both being called "Sanders." Tomatoes are sometimes called "tomatters." Two dishes I never heard of before are "Hopping John," which is rice cooked with peas, and "Limping Kate," which is some other rice combination. What we, in the North, call an "ice-cream freezer" becomes in Charleston an "ice-cream churn." "Good morning" is the salutation up to three P.M., whereas in other parts of the South "Good evening" is said for the Northern "Good afternoon." Charlestonians speak of being "parrot-toed"—not "pigeon-toed." Where, in the North, we would ask a friend, "How are things out your way?" a Charlestonian may inquire, "How are things out your side?" The expression "going out" means to go to St. Cecilia Balls, and I have been told that it is never used in any other way. That is, if a lady is asked: "Are you going out this winter?" it means definitely, "Are you going to the St. Cecilia balls?" If you heard it said that some one was "on Mount Pleasant," you might suppose that Mount Pleasant was an island; but it is not; it is a village on the mainland across the Cooper River. And what is to me one of the most curious expressions I ever heard is "do don't," as when a lady called to her daughter, "Martha, do don't slam that door again!"

How generally these peculiarities crop out in the speech of Charleston I cannot say. It occurs to me, however, that, assembled and catalogued in this way, they may create the idea that slovenly English is generally spoken in the city. If so they give an impression which I should not wish to convey, since Charleston has no more peculiarities of language than New York or Boston, and not nearly so many as a number of other cities. Cultivated Charlestonians have, moreover, the finest voices I have heard in any American city.



CHAPTER XXXI

"GULLA" AND THE BACK COUNTRY

The most extraordinary negro dialect I know of is the "gulla" (sometimes spelled "gullah") of the rice plantation negroes of South Carolina and of the islands off the South Carolina and Georgia coast. I believe that the region of Charleston is headquarters for "gulla niggers," though I have heard the argot spoken as far south as Sepeloe Island, off the town of Darien, Georgia, near the Florida line. Gulla is such an extreme dialect as to be almost a language by itself. Whence it came I do not know, but I judge that it is a combination of English with the primitive tongues of African tribes, just as the dialect of old Creole negroes, in Louisiana, is a combination of African tribal tongues with French.

A Charleston lady tells me that negroes on different rice plantations—even on adjoining plantations—speak dialects which differ somewhat, and I know of my own knowledge that thick gulla is almost incomprehensible to white persons who have not learned, by long practice, to understand it.

A lady sent a gulla negro with a message to a friend. This is the message as it was delivered:

"Missis seh all dem turrah folk done come shum. Enty you duh gwine come shum?" (To get the gulla effect the sounds should be uttered very rapidly.)

Translated, this means: "Mistress says all them other folks have come to see her. Aren't you coming to see her?"

"Shum" is a good gulla word. It means all kinds of things having to do with seeing—to see her, to see him, to see it. Thus, "You shum, enty?" may mean, You see him—her—or it? or You see what he—she—or it—is doing, or has done? For gulla has no genders and no tenses. "Enty" is a general question: Aren't you? Didn't you? Isn't it? etc. Another common gulla word is "Buckra" which means a white man of the upper class, in contradistinction to a poor white. I have known a negro to refer to "de frame o' de bud," meaning the carcass, or frame, of a fowl. "Ay ain' day" means "They aren't (ain't) there."

A friend of mine who resided at Bluffton, South Carolina, has told me of an old gulla fisherman who spoke in parables.

A lady would ask him: "Have you any fish to-day?" To which, if replying affirmatively, he would answer: "Missis, de gate open"; meaning, "The door (of the 'car,' or fish-box) is open to you." If he had no fish he would reply: "Missis, ebb-tide done tack (take) crick"; signifying: "The tide has turned and it is too late to go to catch fish." This old man called whisky "muhgundy smash," the term evidently derived from some idea of the word "burgundy" combined with the word "mash."

Here is a gulla dialect story, with a line-for-line translation. A train has killed a cow, and a negro witness is being examined by a justice of the peace:

JUSTICE—Uncle John, did you see what killed Sam's cow?

NEGRO—Co'ose Uh shum. (Of) course I saw him.

JUSTICE—What was it, Uncle John?

NEGRO—Dat black debble you-all (It was) that black devil you-all runnin' tru we lan'. Nigga duh (are) running through our land. (A) nigger (fireman) he stan' deh, duh po' coal stands there (and) he pours coal in eh stomach. into its stomach. Buckra duh sit up on eh seat, (A) white man (engineer) he sits up on his seat. duh smoke eh cigah, an' ebry (and) he smokes his cigar, and every tahme eh twis' eh tail eh run fasteh. time he twists its (engine's) tail it An' runs faster. And eh screams dis lak uh pantuh. Eben it screams just like a panther. Even w'en eh git tuh de station, eh stan' when it gets to the station, it stands tuh de station an' seh: "Kyan-stop! at the station and says: "Can't-stop! Kyan-stop! Kyan-stop!" Can't-stop! Can't-stop!"

Sam cow binna browse down deh Sam's cow was browsing down there tuh Bull Head Crick. Eh ram eh to (at) Bull Head Creek. It (engine) rammed its nose innum, an' eh bussum wahde nose into it (the cow), and it busted him wide loose. Eh t'row eh intrus on de loose (open). It threw its entrails on the reyel on de cross-tie, an' clean-up rails, on the cross-ties, and clean up on de telegram pole. on the telegraph pole.

Mrs. Leiding (Harriette Kershaw Leiding), of Charleston, has done a fine service to lovers of Old Charleston, and its ways, in collecting and publishing in pamphlet form a number of the cries of the negro street vendors. Of these I shall rob Mrs. Leiding's booklet of but one example—the cry of a little negro boy, a peddler of shrimp ("swimp"), who stood under a window in the early morning and sang:

[Music:

An' a Daw-try Daw! an' a swimp-y raw! an' a Daw-try Daw-try Daw-try Raw Swimp.]

While on the subject of the Charleston negro I must not neglect two of his superstitions. One is his belief that a two-dollar bill is unlucky. The curse may be removed only by tearing off a corner of the bill. The other is that it is unlucky to hand any one a pin. A Charleston lady told me that when she was motoring and wished to pin her hat or her veil, she could never get her negro chauffeur to hand her pins. Instead he would stick them in the laprobe, or in the sleeve of his coat, whence she could pick them out herself. Another lady told me of the case of an old black slave who lived years ago on a plantation on the Santee River, owned by her family. This slave, who was a very powerful, taciturn and high-tempered man, had a curious habit of disappearing for about half an hour each day. He would go into the swamp, and for many years no one ever followed him, the other negroes being afraid to do so because of his temper and his strength. At last, however, they did spy upon him and discovered that in the swamp there stood a cypress tree on which were strange rude carvings, before which he prostrated himself. No one ever learned the exact significance of this, but it was assumed that the man practised some barbaric form of worship, brought from Africa.

* * * * *

The country back of Charleston is very lovely and is rich in interest, even though most of the houses on the old estates have been destroyed. Drayton Hall, however, stands, and the old Drayton estate, Magnolia, not far distant from the Hall (which was on another estate), has one of the most famous gardens in the world. Seven persons touching fingertips can barely encircle the trunks of some of the live-oaks at Magnolia; there are camellias more than twenty feet high, and a rose tree nearly as large, but the great glory of the garden is its huge azaleas—ninety-two varieties, it is said—which, when they blossom in the spring, are so wonderful that people make long journeys for no other purpose than to see them.

In "Harper's Magazine" for December, 1875, I find an account of the gardens which were, at that time, far from new. The azaleas were then twelve and thirteen feet tall; now, I am told, they reach to a height of more than twenty feet, with a corresponding spread.

"It is almost impossible," says the anonymous writer of the article, "to give a Northerner any idea of the affluence of color in this garden when its flowers are in bloom. Imagine a long walk with the moss-draped live-oaks overhead, a fairy lake and a bridge in the distance, and on each side the great fluffy masses of rose and pink and crimson, reaching far above your head, thousands upon tens of thousands of blossoms packed close together, with no green to mar the intensity of their color, rounding out in swelling curves of bloom down to the turf below, not pausing a few inches above it and showing bare stems or trunk, but spreading over the velvet, and trailing out like the rich robes of an empress. Stand on one side and look across the lawn; it is like a mad artist's dream of hues; it is like the Arabian nights; eyes that have never had color enough find here a full feast, and go away satisfied at last. And with all their gorgeousness, the hues are delicately mingled; the magic effect is produced not by unbroken banks of crude reds, but by blended shades, like the rich Oriental patterns of India shawls, which the European designers, with all their efforts, can never imitate."

Another remarkable garden, though not the equal of Magnolia, is at Middleton Place, not many miles away, and still another is at the pleasant winter resort town of Summerville, something more than twenty miles above Charleston. The latter, called the Pinehurst Tea Garden, is said to be the only tea garden in the United States. It is asserted that the teas produced here are better than those of China and Japan, and are equal to those of India. The Government is cooeperating with the owners of this garden with a view to introducing tea planting in the country in a large way.

The finest grade of tea raised here is known as "Shelter Tea," and is sold only at the gardens, the price being five dollars per pound. It is a tea of the Assam species grown under shelters of wire mesh and pine straw. This type of tea is known in Japan, where it originated, as "sugar tea," because, owing to the fact that it is grown in the shade, the sap of the bush, which is of starchy quality, is turned chemically into sugar, giving the leaf an exceedingly delicate flavor.

From the superintendent in charge of the gardens I learned something of the bare facts of the tea growing industry. I had always been under the impression that the name "pekoe" referred to a certain type of tea, but he told me that the word is Chinese for "eyelash," and came to be used because the tip leaves of tea bushes, when rolled and dried, resemble eyelashes. These leaves—"pekoe tips"—make the most choice tea. The second leaves make the tea called "orange pekoe," while the third leaves produce a grade of tea called simply "pekoe." In China it is customary to send three groups of children, successively, to pick the leaves, the first group picking only the tips, the second group the second leaves, and the third group the plain pekoe leaves. At the Pinehurst Tea Gardens the picking is done by colored children, ranging from eight to fifteen years of age. All the leaves are picked together and are later separated by machinery.

Summerville itself seems a lovely lazy town. It is the kind of place to which I should like to retire in the winter if I had a book to write. One could be very comfortable, and there would be no radical distractions—unless one chanced to see the Most Beautiful Girl in the World, who has been known to spend winters at that place.

On the way from Charleston to Summerville, if you go by motor, you pass The Oaks, an estate with a new colonial house standing where an ancient mansion used to stand. A long avenue bordered by enormous live-oaks, leading to this house, gives the place its name, and affords a truly noble approach. Here, in Revolutionary times, Marion, "the Swamp Fox," used to camp.

Not far distant from the old gate at The Oaks is Goose Creek Church—the most interesting church I have ever seen. The Parish of St. James, Goose Creek, was established by act of the Assembly, November 30, 1706, and the present church, a brick building of crudely simple architecture, was built about 1713. The interior of the church, though in good condition, is the oldest looking thing, I think, in the United States. The memorial tablets in the walls, with their foreign names and antique lettering, the curious old box pews, the odd little gallery at the back, the tall pulpit, with its winding stair, above all the Royal Arms of Great Britain done in relief on the chancel wall and brilliantly colored—all these make Goose Creek Church more like some little Norman church in England, than like anything one might reasonably expect to find on this side of the world.

Countless items of curious interest hang about the church and parish. Michaux, the French botanist who came to this country in 1786, lived for a time at Goose Creek. He brought with him the first four camellias seen in the United States, planting them at Middleton Place above Drayton Hall, where, I believe, they still stand, having reached a great height. A British officer known as Mad Archy Campbell was married at Goose Creek Church during the Revolution, under romantic circumstances. Miss Paulina Phelps, a young lady of the parish, was a great beauty and a great coquette, who amused herself alike with American and British officers. Campbell met and fell desperately in love with her, and it is said that she encouraged him, though without serious intent. One day he induced her to go horseback-riding with him and on the ride made love to her so vehemently that she was "intimidated into accepting him." They rode to the rectory, and Campbell, meeting the rector, demanded that he should marry them at once. The dominie replied that he would do so "with the consent of the young lady and her mother," but Campbell proposed to await no such formalities. Drawing his pistol he gave the minister the choice of performing the ceremony then and there, or perishing. This argument proved conclusive and the two were promptly wed.

When Goose Creek was within the British lines it is said that the minister proceeded, upon one occasion, to utter the prayer for the King of England, in the Litany. At the end of the prayer there were no "Amens," the congregation having been composed almost entirely, as the story goes, of believers in American independence. Into the awkward pause after the prayer one voice from the congregation was at last injected. It was the voice of old Ralph Izard, saying heartily, not "Amen," but "Good Lord, deliver us!" There is a tablet in the church to the memory of this worthy.

The story is told, also, of an old gentleman, a member of the congregation in Revolutionary times, who informed the minister that if he again read the prayer for the King he would throw his prayer-book at his head. The minister took this for a jest, but when he began to read the prayer on the following Sunday, he found that it was not, for sure enough the prayer-book came hurtling through the air. Prayer-books were heavier then than they are now, and it is said that as a result of this episode, the minister refused to hold service thereafter.

The church is not now used regularly, an occasional memorial service only being held there.

* * * * *

Charleston is a hard place to leave. Wherever one may be going from there, the change is likely to be for the worse. Nevertheless, it is impossible to stay forever; so at last you muster up your resignation and your resources, buy tickets, and reluctantly prepare to leave. If you depart as we did, you go by rail, driving to the station in the venerable bus of the Charleston Transfer Company—a conveyance which, one judges, may be coeval with the city's oldest mansions. Little as we wished to leave Charleston we did not wish to defer our departure through any such banality as the unnecessary missing of a train. Therefore as we waited for the bus, on the night of leaving, and as train time drew nearer and nearer, with no sign of the lumbering old vehicle, we became somewhat concerned.

When the bus did come at last there was little time to spare; nevertheless the conductor, an easygoing man of great volubility, consumed some precious minutes in gossiping with the hotel porter, and then with arranging and rearranging the baggage on the roof of the bus. His manner was that of an amateur bus conductor, trying a new experiment. After watching his performances for a time, looking occasionally at my watch, by way of giving him a hint, I broke out into expostulation at the unnecessary delay.

"What's the matter?" asked the man in a gentle, almost grieved tone.

"There's very little time!" I returned. "We don't wish to miss the train."

"Oh, all right," said the bus conductor, making more haste, as though the information I had given him put a different face on matters generally.

Presently we started. After a time he collected our fares. I have forgotten whether the amount was twenty-five or fifty cents. At all events, as he took the money from my hand he said to me reassuringly:

"Don't you worry, sir! If I don't get you to the train I'll give you this money back. That's fair, ain't it?"



CHAPTER XXXII

OUT OF THE PAST

By no means all the leading citizens of Atlanta were in a frame of mind to welcome General Sherman when, ten or a dozen years after the Civil War, he revisited the city. Captain Evan P. Howell, a former Confederate officer, then publisher of the Atlanta "Constitution," was, however, not one of the Atlantans who ignored the general's visit. Taking his young son, Clark, he called upon the general at the old Kimball House (later destroyed by fire), and had an interesting talk with him. Clark Howell, who has since succeeded his father as publisher of the "Constitution," was born while the latter was fighting at Chickamauga, and was consequently old enough, at the time of the call on Sherman, to remember much of what was said. He heard the general tell Captain Howell why he had made such a point of taking Atlanta, and as Sherman's military reasons for desiring possession of the Georgia city explain, to a large extent, Atlanta's subsequent development, I shall quote them as Clark Howell gave them to me.

First however, it is perhaps worth while to remind the reader of the bare circumstances preceding the fall of Atlanta. After the defeat of the Confederate forces at Chattanooga, General Joseph E. Johnston's army fell back slowly on Atlanta, much as the French fell back on Paris at the beginning of the European War, shortening their own lines of communication while those of the advancing Germans were being continually attenuated. As the Germans kept after the French, Sherman kept after Johnston; and as Joffre was beginning to be criticized for failing to make a stand against the enemy, so was Johnston criticized as he continued to retire without giving battle. One of the chief differences between Joffre's retirement and Johnston's lies, however, in the length of time consumed; for whereas the French retreat on Paris covered a few days only, the Confederate retreat on Atlanta covered weeks and months, giving the Confederate Government time to become impatient with Johnston and finally to remove him from command before the time arrived when, in his judgment, the stand against Sherman should be made. Nor is it inconceivable that, had the French retreat lasted as long as Johnston's, Joffre would have been removed and would have lost the opportunity to justify his Fabian policy, as he did so gloriously at the Battle of the Marne.

Though Atlanta was, at the time of the war, a city of less than 10,000 inhabitants, it was the chief base of supply for men and munitions in the Far South.

"When my father asked him why all his effort and power had been centered, after Chickamauga, on the capture of Atlanta," said Clark Howell, "I remember that General Sherman extended one hand with the fingers spread apart, explaining the strategic situation by imagining Atlanta as occupying a position where the wrist joins the hand, while the thumb and fingers represented, successively, New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, and Norfolk. 'If I held Atlanta,' he said, 'I was only one day's journey from these chief cities of the South.'"

In spite, therefore, of the assertion, which I have heard made, that the prosperity of Atlanta is "founded on insurance premiums, coca-cola, and hot air," it seems to me that it is founded on something very much more solid. Nor do I refer to the layer of granite which underlies the city. The prosperity of Atlanta is based upon the very feature which made its capture seem to Sherman so desirable: its strategic position as a central point in the Far South.

Neither in Atlanta nor in any other part of Georgia is General Sherman remembered with a feeling that can properly be described as affectionate, though it may be added that Atlanta has good reason for remembering him warmly. The burning of Atlanta by Sherman did not, however, prove an unalloyed disaster, for the war came to an end soon after, and the rebuilding of the city supplied work for thousands of former Confederate soldiers, and also drew to Atlanta many of the strong men who played leading parts in the subsequent commercial upbuilding of the place: such men as the late General Alfred Austell, Captain James W. English, and the three Inman brothers, Samuel, John, and Hugh—to mention but a few names. The First National Bank, established by General Austell, is, I believe, Atlanta's largest bank to-day, and was literally the first national bank established in Georgia, if not in the whole South, after the war.

Woodrow Wilson was admitted to the bar in Atlanta, and, if I mistake not, practised law in an office not far from that meeting place of highways called Five Points. Here, at Five Points, two important trails crossed, long before there was any Atlanta: the north-and-south trail between Savannah and Ross's Landing, and the east-and-west trail, which followed the old Indian trails between Charleston and New Orleans. When people from this part of the country wished to go to Ohio, Indiana, or the Mississippi Valley, they would take the old north-and-south trail to Ross's Landing, follow the Tennessee River to where it empties into the Ohio, near Paducah, Kentucky, and proceed thence to Mississippi.

In the thirties, Atlanta—or rather the site of Atlanta, for the city was not founded until 1840—was on the border of white civilization in northern Georgia, all the country to the north of the Chattahoochee River, which flows a few miles distant from the city, having belonged to the Cherokee Indians, who had been moved there from Florida. Even in those times the Cherokees were civilized, as Indians go, for they lived in huts and practised agriculture. Of course, however, their civilization was not comparable with that of the white man. If they had been as civilized as he, they might have driven him out of Florida, instead of having been themselves driven out, and they might have driven him out of Georgia, too, instead of having been pushed on, as they were, to the Indian Territory—eighteen thousand of them, under military supervision, on boats from Ross's Landing—leaving the beautiful white Cherokee rose, which grows wild and in great profusion, in the spring, as almost their sole memorial on Georgia soil.

As Georgia became settled the trails developed into wagon and stage routes, and later they were followed, approximately, by the railroads. After three railroads had reached Atlanta, the State of Georgia engaged in what may have been the first adventure, in this country, along the lines of government-owned railroads: namely, the building of the Western & Atlantic, from Atlanta to Chattanooga, to form a link between the lower South and the rapidly developing West. This road was built in the forties, and it was along its line that Johnston retreated before Sherman, from Chattanooga to Atlanta. Though it is now leased and operated by the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railroad Company, it is still owned by the State of Georgia. The lease, however, expires soon, and (an interesting fact in view of the continued agitation in other parts of the country for government ownership of corporations) there is a strong sentiment in Georgia in favor of selling the railroad; for it is estimated that, at a fair price, it would yield a sum sufficient not only to wipe out the entire bonded indebtedness of the State ($7,000,000), but to leave ten or twelve millions clear in the State treasury.

* * * * *

At Roswell, Georgia, a sleepy little hamlet in the hills, not many miles from Atlanta, stands Bulloch Hall, where Martha ("Mittie") Bulloch, later Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, mother of the President, was born. Roswell was originally settled, long ago, by people from Savannah, Darien, and other towns of the flat, hot country near the coast, who drove there in their carriages and remained during the summer. After a time, however, three prosperous families—the Bullochs, Dunwoodys, and Barrington Kings—made their permanent homes at Roswell.

Bulloch Hall is one of those old white southern colonial houses the whole front of which consists of a great pillared portico, in the Greek style, giving a look of dignity and hospitality. Almost all such houses are, as they should be, surrounded by fine old trees; those at Bulloch Hall are especially fine: tall cedars, ancient white oaks, giant osage oranges, and a pair of holly trees, one at either side of the walk near the front door.

Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., and Mittie Bulloch met here when they were respectively seventeen and fifteen years of age. A half sister of Miss Mittie had married a relative of the Roosevelts and gone from Roswell to live in Philadelphia, and it was while visiting at her home that young Roosevelt, hearing a great deal of the South, conceived a desire to go there. This resulted in his first visit to Bulloch Hall, and his meeting with Mittie Bulloch. On his return to the North he was sent abroad, but two or three years later when he went again to visit his relatives in Philadelphia, Miss Mittie was also a guest at their house, and this time the two became engaged.

Save that the Bulloch furniture is no longer there, the interior of the old Georgia residence stands practically as it was when Theodore Roosevelt and Mittie Bulloch were married in the dining room. Through the center, from front to back, runs a wide hall, on either side of which is a pair of spacious square rooms, each with a fireplace, each with large windows looking out over the beautiful hilly country which spreads all about. It is a lovely house in a lovely setting, and, though the Bullochs reside there no longer, Miss Mittie Bulloch is not forgotten in Roswell, for one of her bridesmaids, Miss Evelyn King, now Mrs. Baker, still resides in Barrington Hall, not far distant from the old Bulloch homestead.



CHAPTER XXXIII

ALIVE ATLANTA

An army officer, a man of broad sympathies, familiar with the whole United States, warned me before I went south that I must not judge the South by northern standards.

"On the side of picturesqueness and charm," he said, "the South can more than hold its own against the rest of the country; likewise on the side of office-holding and flowery oratory; but you must not expect southern cities to have the energy you are accustomed to in the North."

As to the picturesqueness, charm, officeholding, and oratory, I found his judgments substantially correct, but though I did perceive a certain lack of energy in some small cities, I should not call that trait a leading one in the larger southern cities to-day. On the contrary, I was impressed, in almost every large center that I visited, with the fact that, in the South more, perhaps, than in any other part of the country, a great awakening is in progress. The dormant period of the South is past, and all manner of developments are everywhere in progress. Nor do I know of any city which better exemplifies southern growth and progress than Atlanta.

My Baedeker, dated 1909, opens its description of Atlanta with the statement that the German consul there is Dr. E. Zoepffel. I doubt it—but let us pass over that. It describes Atlanta as "a prosperous commercial and industrial city and an important railroad center, well situated, 1030-1175 feet above the sea, enjoying a healthy and bracing climate." That is true. Atlanta is, if I mistake not, the highest important city east of Denver, and I believe her climate is in part responsible for her energy, as it is also for the fact that her vegetation is more like that of a northern than a southern city, elms and maples rather than magnolias, being the trees of the Atlanta streets.

Baedeker gave Atlanta about 90,000 inhabitants in 1909, but the census of 1910 jumped her up to more than 150,000, while the estimate of 1917 in the "World Almanac" credits her with about 180,000. Moreover, in the almanac's list of the largest cities of the earth, Atlanta comes twentieth from the top. It is my duty, perhaps, to add that the list is arranged alphabetically—which reminds me that some cynic has suggested that there may have been an alphabetical arrangement of names, also, in the celebrated list in which Abou Ben Adhem's "name led all the rest." Nevertheless, it may be stated that, according to the almanac's population figures, Atlanta is larger than the much more ancient city of Athens (I refer to Athens, Greece; not Athens, Georgia), as well as such considerable cities as Bari, Bochum, Graz, Kokand, and Omsk. Atlanta is, in short, a city of about the size of Goteborg, and if she has not yet achieved the dimensions of Baku, Belem, Changsha, Tashkent, or West Ham, she is growing rapidly, and may some day surpass them all; yes, and even that thriving metropolis, Yekaterinoslav.

As to the "healthy and bracing climate," I know that Atlanta is cool and lovely in the spring, and I am told that her prosperous families do not make it a practice to absent themselves from home during the summer, according to the custom of the corresponding class in many other cities, northern as well as southern.

Atlanta is one of the few large inland cities located neither upon a river nor a lake. When the city was founded, the customs of life in Georgia were such that no one ever dreamed that the State might some day go dry. Having plenty of other things to drink, the early settlers gave no thought to water. But, as time went on, and prohibition became a more and more important issue, the citizens of Atlanta began to perceive that, in emergency, the Chattahoochee River might, after all, have its uses. Water was, consequently, piped from the river to the city, and is now generally—albeit in some quarters mournfully—used. Though I am informed by an expert in Indian languages that the Cherokee word "chattahoochee" is short for "muddy," the water is filtered before it reaches the city pipes, and is thoroughly palatable, whether taken plain or mixed.

Well-off though Atlanta is, she would esteem herself better off, in a material sense at least, had she a navigable stream; for her chief industrial drawback consists in railroad freight rates unmodified by water competition. She has, to be sure, a number of factories, including a Ford automobile plant, but she has not so many factories as her strategic position, stated by General Sherman, would seem to justify, or as her own industrial ambitions cause her to desire. For does not every progressive American city yearn to bristle with factory chimneys, even as a summer resort folder bristles with exclamation points? And is not soot a measure of success?

Atlanta's line of business is largely office business; many great corporations have their headquarters or their general southern branches in the city; one of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks is there, and there are many strong banks. Indeed, I suppose Atlanta has more bankers, in proportion to her population, than any other city in the United States. Some of these bankers are active citizens and permanent residents of the city; others have given up banking for the time being and are in temporary residence at the Federal Penitentiary.

The character of commerce carried on, naturally brings to Atlanta large numbers of prosperous and able men—corporation officials, branch managers, manufacturers' agents, and the like—who, with their families, give Atlanta a somewhat individual social flavor. This class of population also accounts for the fact that the enterprisingness so characteristic of Atlanta is not the mere rough, ebullient spirit of "go to it!" to be found in so many hustling cities of the Middle West and West, but is, oftentimes, an informed and cultivated kind of enterprisingness, which causes Atlanta not only to "do things," but to do things showing vision, and, furthermore, to do them with an "air."

This is illustrated in various ways. It is shown, for example, in Atlanta's principal hotels, which are not small-town hotels, or good-enough hotels, but would do credit to any city, however great. The office buildings are city office buildings, and in the downtown section they are sufficiently numerous to look very much at home, instead of appearing a little bit exotic, self-conscious, and lonesome, as new skyscrapers do in so many cities of Atlanta's size. Even the smoke with which the skyscrapers are streaked is city smoke. Chicago herself could hardly produce smoke of more metropolitan texture—certainly not on the Lake Front, where the Illinois Central trains send up their black clouds; for Atlanta's downtown smoke, like Chicago's, comes in large part from railroads piercing the heart of the city. Where downtown business streets cross the railroad tracks, the latter are depressed, the highways passing above on steel bridges resembling the bridges over the Chicago River. The railroad's right of way is, furthermore, just about as wide as the Chicago River, and rows of smoke-stained brick buildings turn their backs upon it, precisely as similar buildings turn theirs upon Chicago's busy, narrow stream. I wonder if all travelers, familiar with Chicago, are so persistently reminded of that portion of the city which is near the river, as I was by that portion of Atlanta abutting on the tracks by which the Seaboard Air Line enters the city.

Generally speaking, railroads in the South have not been so prosperous as leading roads in the North, and with the exception of the most important through trains, their passenger equipment is, therefore, not so good. The Seaboard Air Line, however, runs an all-steel train between Atlanta and Birmingham which, in point of equipment, may be compared with the best limited trains anywhere. The last car in this train, instead of being part sleeping car and part observation car, is a combination dining and observation car—a very pleasant arrangement, for men are allowed to smoke in the observation end after dinner. This is, to my mind, an improvement over the practice of most railroads, which obliges men who wish to smoke to leave the ladies with whom they may be traveling. All Seaboard dining cars offer, aside from regular a la carte service, a sixty-cent dinner known as the "Blue Plate Special." This dinner has many advantages over the usual dining-car repast. In the first place, though it does not comprise bread and butter, coffee or tea, or dessert, it provides an ample supply of meat and vegetables at a moderate price. In the second place, though served at a fixed price, it bears no resemblance to the old-style dining car table d'hote, but, upon the contrary, looks and tastes like food. The food, furthermore, instead of representing a great variety of viands served in microscopic helpings on innumerable platters and "side dishes," comes on one great plate, with recesses for vegetables. The "Blue Plate Special" furnishes, in short, the chief items in a "good home meal."

This is, perhaps, as convenient a place as any in which to speak of certain points concerning various railroads in the South. The Central of Georgia Railway, running between Atlanta and Savannah, instead of operating Pullmans, has its own sleeping cars. This is the only railroad I know of in the country on which the tenant of a lower berth, below an unoccupied upper, may have the upper closed without paying for it. One likes the Central of Georgia for this humane dispensation. The locomotives of the Western & Atlantic carry as a distinguishing mark a red band at the top of the smokestack. The Southern Railway assigns engineers to individual engines, instead of "pooling power," as is the practice, I believe, on many railroads. Because of this, engineers on the Southern regard the locomotives to which they are regularly assigned, as their personal property, and exercise their individual taste in embellishing them. Brass bands, brass flagstaffs, brass eagles over the headlight, and similar adornments are therefore often seen on the engines of this road, giving the most elaborate of them a carnival appearance, by contrast with the somber black to which most of us are accustomed, and hinting that not all the individuality has been unionized out of locomotive engineers—an impression heightened by the Southern Railway's further pleasant custom of painting the names of its older and more expert engineers upon the cabs of their locomotives.

* * * * *

Some cities are like lumbering old farm horses, plugging along a dusty country road. When another horse overtakes them, if they be not altogether wanting in spirit, they may be encouraged to jog a little faster for a moment, stimulated by example. If, besides being stupid, they are mean, then they want to kick or bite at the speedier animal going by. Some cities are like that, too. If an energetic city overtakes them, they are not spurred on to emulation, but lay back their ears, so to speak. Again, there are tough, sturdy little cities like buckskin ponies. There are skittish cities which seem to have been badly broken. There are old cities with a worn-out kind of elegance, like that of superannuated horses of good breed, hitched to an old-fashioned barouche. There are bad, bucking cities, like Butte, Montana. And here and there are cities, like Atlanta, reminding one of thoroughbred hunters. There is a brave, sporting something in the spirit of Atlanta which makes it rush courageously at big jumps, and clear them, and land clean on the other side, and be off again. Like a thoroughbred, she loves the chase. She goes in to win. She doesn't stop to worry about whether she can win or not. She knows she will. And as the thoroughbred, loving large and astonishing achievement, lacks the humbler virtues of the reliable family carriage horse, Atlanta, it cannot be denied, has "les defauts de ses qualites." For whereas, on the side of dashing performance, Atlanta held a stock fair which, in one year, surpassed any other held in the South, and secured the grand circuit of races, on the other side she is careless about hospitals and charities; and whereas, on the one side, she has raised millions for the building of two new universities (which, by the way, would be much better as one great university, but cannot be, because of sectarian domination), on the other, she is deficient as to schools; and again, whereas she is the only secondary city to have an annual season of Metropolitan grand opera (and to make it pay!) she is behind many other cities, including her neighbors, New Orleans and Savannah, in caring for the public health.

I am by no means sure that the regular spring visit of the Metropolitan Grand Opera Company may be taken as a sign that Atlanta is peculiarly a music-loving community. Indeed, I was told by one Atlanta lady, herself a musician, that the city did not contain more than a thousand persons of real musical appreciation, that a number of these could not afford to attend the operatic performances, and that opera week was, consequently, in reality more an occasion of great social festivity than of devout homage to art.

"Our opera week," she told me, "bears the same relation to the life of Atlanta as Mardi Gras does to that of New Orleans. It is an advertisement for the city, and an excuse for every one to have a good time. Every night after the performance there are suppers and dances, which the opera stars attend. They always seem to enjoy coming here. They act as though they were off on a picnic, skylarking about the hotel, snap-shotting one another, and playing all manner of pranks. And, of course, while they are here they own the town. Caruso draws his little caricatures for the Atlanta girls, and Atlanta men have been dazzled, in successive seasons, by such gorgeous beings as Geraldine Farrar, Alma Gluck, and Maria Barrientos—not only across the footlights of the auditorium, mind you, but at close range; as, for instance, at dances at the Driving Club, with Chinese lanterns strung on the terrace, a full moon above, and—one year—with the whole Metropolitan Orchestra playing dance music all night long!"

Another lady, endeavoring to picture to me the strain involved in the week's gaieties, informed me that when it was all over she went for a rest to New York, where she attended "a house party at the Waldorf"!

* * * * *

Of all Atlanta's undertakings, planned or accomplished, that which most interested my companion and me was the one for turning a mountain into a sculptured monument to the Confederacy.

Sixteen miles to the east of the city the layer of granite which underlies the region stuck its back up, so to speak, forming a great smooth granite hump, known as Stone Mountain. This mountain is one of America's natural wonders. In form it may be compared with a round-backed fish, such as a whale or porpoise, lying on its belly, partly imbedded in a beach, and some conception of its dimensions may be gathered from the fact that from nose to tail it measures about two miles, while the center of its back is as high as the Woolworth Building in New York. Moreover, there is not a fissure in it; monoliths a thousand feet long have been quarried from it; it is as solid as the Solid South.

The perpendicular streaks of light and dark gray and gray-green, made by the elements upon the face of the rock, coupled with the waterfall-like curve of that face, make one think of a sort of sublimated petrified Niagara—a fancy enhanced, on windy days, by the roar of the gale-lashed forest at the mountain's foot.

The idea of turning the mountain into a Confederate memorial originated with Mr. William H. Terrell of Atlanta. It was taken up with inspired energy by Mrs. C. Helen Plane, an Atlanta lady, now eighty-seven years of age, who is honorary president of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and president of the Stone Mountain Memorial Association. Mrs. Plane presented the memorial plan to Mr. Samuel H. Venable of Venable Brothers, owners of the mountain, and Mr. Venable promptly turned over the whole face of the mountain to the Memorial Association. The exact form the memorial was to take had not at that time been developed. Gutzon Borglum was, however, called in, and worked out a stupendous idea, which he has since been commissioned to execute. On the side of the mountain, about four hundred feet above the ground, a roadway is to be gouged out of the granite. On this roadway will be carved, in gigantic outlines, a Confederate army, headed by Lee and Jackson on horseback. Other generals will follow, and will, in turn, be followed by infantry, cavalry and artillery. The leading groups will be in full relief and the equestrian figures will be fifty or more feet tall. This means that the faces of the chief figures will measure almost the height of a man. The figures to the rear of the long column will, according to present plans, be in bas-relief, and the whole procession will cover a strip perhaps a mile long, all of it carved out of the solid mountainside.

A considerable tract of forest land at the foot of the great rock has already been dedicated as a park. Here, concealed by the trees, at a point below the main group of figures, a temple, with thirteen columns representing the thirteen Confederate States, is to be hewn out of the mountain, to be used as a place for the safe-keeping of Confederate relics and archives.

Two million dollars is the sum spoken of to cover the total cost, and one of the finest things about the plans for raising this money is that contributions from the entire country are being accepted, so that not only the South, but the whole nation, may have a share in the creation of a memorial to that dead government which the South so poetically adores, yet which it would not willingly resurrect, and in the realization of a work resembling nothing so much as Kipling's conception of the artist in heaven, who paints on "a ten-league canvas, with brushes of comet's hair."

Until the Stone Mountain Memorial is completed, Atlanta's most celebrated monument will continue to be that of Jack Smith. The Jack Smith monument stands in Oakland Cemetery, not over the grave of Jack Smith, but over the grave that local character intends some day to occupy. Mr. Smith is reputed to be rich. He built the downtown office building known as "The House that Jack Built." As befits the owner of an office building, he wears a silk hat, but a certain democratic simplicity may be observed in the rest of his attire, especially about the region of the neck, for though he apparently believes in the convention concerning the wearing of collars, he has a prejudice against the concealing of a portion of the collar by that useless and snobbish adornment, the necktie. Each spring, I am informed, it is his custom to visit his cemetery lot and inspect the statue of himself which a commendable foresight has caused him to erect over his proposed final resting place. It is said that upon the occasion of last season's vernal visit he was annoyed at finding his effigy cravated by a vine which had grown up and encircled the neck. This he caused to be removed; and it is to be hoped that when, at last, his monument achieves its ultimate purpose, those who care for the cemetery will see to it that leafy tendrils be not permitted to mount to the marble collar of the figure, to form a necktie, or to obscure the nobly sculptured collar button.



CHAPTER XXXIV

GEORGIA JOURNALISM

In journalism Atlanta is far in advance of many cities of her size, North or South. The Atlanta "Constitution," founded nearly half a century ago, is one of the country's most distinguished newspapers. The "Constitution" came into its greatest fame in the early eighties, when Captain Evan P. Howell—the same Captain Howell who commanded a battery at the battle of Peachtree Creek, in the defense of Atlanta, and who later called, with his son, on General Sherman, as already recorded—became its editor, and Henry W. Grady its managing editor. Like William Allen White and Walt Mason of the Emporia (Kansas) "Gazette," who work side by side, admire each other, but disagree on every subject save that of the infallibility of the ground hog as a weather prophet, Howell and Grady worked side by side and were devoted friends, while disagreeing personally, and in print, on prohibition and many other subjects. Grady would speak at prohibition rallies and, sometimes on the same night, Howell would speak at anti-prohibition rallies. In their speeches they would attack each other. The accounts of these speeches, as well as conflicting articles written by the two, would always appear in the "Constitution."

Of the pair of public monuments to individuals which I remember having seen in Atlanta, one was the pleasing memorial, in Piedmont Park, to Sidney Lanier (who was peculiarly a Georgia poet, having been born in Macon, in that State, and having written some of his most beautiful lines under the spell of Georgia scenes), and the other the statue of Henry W. Grady, which stands downtown in Marietta Street.

The Grady monument—one regrets to say it—is less fortunate as a work of art than as a deserved symbol of remembrance. Grady not only ought to have a monument, but as one whose writings prove him to have been a man of taste, he ought to have a better one than this poor mid-Victorian thing, placed in the middle of a wide, busy street, with Fords parked all day long about its base.

Says the inscription:

HE NEVER SOUGHT A PUBLIC OFFICE. WHEN HE DIED HE WAS LITERALLY LOVING A NATION INTO PEACE.

On another side of the base is chiseled a characteristic extract from one of Grady's speeches. This speech was made in 1899, in Boston, and one hopes that it may have been heard by the late Charles Francis Adams, who labored in Massachusetts for the cause of intersectional harmony, just as Grady worked for it in Georgia.

This hour [said Grady] little needs the loyalty that is loyal to one section and yet holds the other in enduring suspicion and estrangement. Give us the broad and perfect loyalty that loves and trusts Georgia alike with Massachusetts—that knows no South, no North, no East, no West; but endears with equal and patriotic love every foot of our soil, every State in our Union.

Grady could not only write and say stirring things; he could be witty. He once spoke at a dinner of the New England Society, in New York, at which General Sherman was also present.

"Down in Georgia," he said, "we think of General Sherman as a great general; but it seems to us he was a little careless with fire."

Nor was Grady less brilliant as managing editor than upon the platform. He had the kind of enterprise which made James Gordon Bennett such a dashing figure in newspaper life, and the New York "Herald" such a complete newspaper—the kind of enterprise that charters special trains, and at all hazards gets the story it is after. Back in the early eighties Grady was running the Atlanta "Constitution" in just that way. If a big story "broke" in any of the territory around Atlanta, Grady would not wait upon train schedules, but would hire an engine and send his men to the scene. Once, following a sensational murder, he learned that the Birmingham "Age-Herald" had a big story dealing with developments in the case. He wired the "Age-Herald" offering a large price for the story. When his offer was refused Grady knew that if he could not devise a way to get the story, Atlanta would be flooded next day with "Age-Heralds" containing the "beat" on the "Constitution." He at once chartered a locomotive and rushed two reporters and four telegraph operators down the line toward Birmingham. At Aniston, Alabama, the locomotive met the train which was bringing "Age-Heralds" to Atlanta. A copy of the paper was secured. The "Constitution" men then broke into a telegraph office and wired the whole story in to their paper, with the result that the "Constitution" was out with it before the Birmingham papers reached Atlanta.

Atlanta was at that time a town of only about 40,000 inhabitants, but the "Constitution," in the days of Howell and Grady, had a circulation four times greater than the total population of the city—a situation almost unheard of in journalism. Something of the breadth of its influence may be gathered from the fact that in several counties in Texas, where the law provided that whatever newspaper had the largest circulation in the county should be the county organ, the county organ was the Atlanta "Constitution."

An Atlanta lady tells of having called upon Grady to complain about an article which she did not think the "Constitution" should have printed.

"Why did you put that objectionable article in your paper?" she asked him.

"Did you read it?" he inquired.

"Yes, I did."

"Then," said Grady, "that's why I put it there."

Grady and Howell always ran a lively sporting department. Away back in the days of bare-knuckle prize fights—such as those between Sullivan and Ryan, and Sullivan and Kilrain—a "Constitution" reporter was always at the ringside, no matter where the fight might take place. For a newspaper in a town of forty or fifty thousand inhabitants, a large percentage of them colored illiterates, this was real enterprise.

A favorite claim of Grady's was that his reporters were the greatest "leg artists" in the world. He used to organize walking matches for reporters, offering large prizes and charging admission. This developed, in the middle eighties, a general craze for such matches, and resulted in the holding of many inter-city contests, in which teams, four men to a side, took part. One of the "Constitution's" champion "leg artists" was Sam W. Small, now an evangelist and member of the "flying squadron" of the Anti-Saloon League of America.

The most widely celebrated individual ever connected with the "Constitution" was Joel Chandler Harris, many of whose "Uncle Remus" stories—those negro folk tales still supreme in their field—appeared originally in that paper. In view of Mr. Harris's achievement it is pleasant to recall that there was paid to him during his life one of the finest tributes that an author can receive. As with "Mr. Dooley" of our day, he came, himself, to be affectionately referred to by the name of the chief character in his works. "Uncle Remus" he was, and "Uncle Remus" he will always be. Mr. Harris's eldest son, Julian, widely known as a journalist, is said to have been the little boy to whom "Uncle Remus" told his tales.

Though there is, as yet, no public monument in Atlanta to Joel Chandler Harris, the "Wren's Nest," his former home, at 214 Gordon Street, is fittingly preserved as a memorial. Visitors may see the old letter box fastened to a tree by the gate—that box in which a wren built her nest, giving the house its name. It is a simple old house with the air of a home about it, and the intimate possessions of the author lie about as he left them. His bed is made up, his umbrella hangs upon the mantelshelf, his old felt hat rests upon the rack, the photograph of his friend James Whitcomb Riley looks down from the bedroom wall, and on the table, by the window, stands his typewriter—the confidant first to know his new productions.

The presence of these personal belongings keeps alive the illusion that "Uncle Remus" has merely stepped out for a little while—is hiding in the garden, waiting for us to go away. It would be like him, for he was among the most modest and retiring of men, as there are many amusing anecdotes to indicate. Once when some one had persuaded him to attend a large dinner in New York, they say, he got as far as New York, but as the dinner hour approached could not bear to face the adulation awaiting him, and incontinently fled back to Atlanta.

Frank L. Stanton, poet laureate of Georgia, and of the "Constitution," joined the "Constitution" staff through the efforts of Mr. Harris, one of whose closest intimates he was. Speaking of Mr. Harris's gift for negro dialect, Mr. Stanton told me that there was one negro exclamation which "Uncle Remus" always wished to reproduce, but which he never quite felt could be expressed, in writing, to those unfamiliar with the negro at first hand: that is the exclamation of amazement, which has the sound, "mmm—mh!"—the first syllable being long and the last sharp and exclamatory.

Mr. Stanton has for years conducted a column of verse and humorous paragraphic comment, under the heading "Just from Georgia," on the editorial page of the "Constitution." Some idea of the high estimation in which he is held in his State is to be gathered from the fact that "Frank L. Stanton Day" is annually celebrated in the Georgia schools.

Mr. Stanton began his newspaper career as a country editor in the town of Smithville, Georgia. Mr. Harris, then a member of the "Constitution's" editorial staff, began reprinting in that journal verses and paragraphs written by Stanton, with the result that the Smithville paper became known all over the country. Later Stanton moved to Rome, Georgia, becoming an editorial writer on a paper there—the "Tribune," edited at that time by John Temple Graves, if I am not mistaken. Still later he removed to Atlanta, joined the staff of the "Constitution," and started the department which has now continued for more than twenty-five years.

Joel Chandler Harris used to tell a story about Stanton's first days in the "Constitution" office. According to this story, the paper on which Stanton had worked in Rome had not been prosperous, and salaries were uncertain. When the business manager went out to try to raise money in the town, he never returned without first reading the signals placed by his assistant in the office window. If a red flag was shown, it signified that a collector was waiting in the office. In that event the business manager would not come in, but would circle about until the collector became tired of waiting and departed—a circumstance indicated by the withdrawal of the red flag and the substitution of a white one. According to the story, as it was told to me, reporters on the paper were seldom paid; if one of them made bold to ask for his salary, he was likely to be discharged. It was from this uncertain existence that Stanton was lured to the "Constitution" by an offer of $22.50 per week. When he had been on the "Constitution" for three weeks Mr. Harris discovered that he had drawn no salary. This surprised him—as indeed it would any man who had had newspaper experience.

"Stanton," he said, "you are the only newspaper man I have ever seen who is so rich he doesn't need to draw his pay."

But, as it turned out, Stanton was not so prosperous as Harris perhaps supposed. He was down to his last dime, and had been wondering how he could manage to get along; for his training on the Rome paper had taught him never to ask for money lest he lose his job.

"Well," he said to Harris, "I could use some of my salary—if you're sure it won't be any inconvenience?"

Those familiar with the works of Mr. Stanton, Mr. Harris, and James Whitcomb Riley, Indiana's great poet, will perceive that certain similar tastes and feelings inform their writings, and will not be surprised to learn, if not already aware of it, that the three were friends. Mr. Stanton's only absence from Atlanta since he joined the "Constitution," was on the occasion of a visit he paid Mr. Riley at the latter's home in Indianapolis. The best of Stanton's work must have appealed to Riley, for it contains not a little of the kindly, homely, humorous truthfulness, and warmth of sentiment, of which Riley was himself such a master. Among the most widely familiar verses of the Georgia poet are those of his "Mighty Like a Rose," set to music by Ethelbert Nevin, and "Just a-Wearying for You," with music by Carrie Jacobs Bond. "Money" is a verse in hilarious key, which many will remember for the comical vigor of the last three lines in its first stanza:

When a fellow has spent His last red cent The world looks blue, you bet! But give him a dollar And you'll hear him holler: "There's life in the old land yet!"

Richly humorous though Stanton is, he can also reach the heart. The former Governor of a Western State picked up Stanton's book, "Songs of the Soil," and after reading "Hanging Bill Jones," and "A Tragedy," therein, commuted the sentence of a man who was to have been executed next day. One hopes the man deserved to escape. In another case an individual who was about to commit suicide chanced to see in an old newspaper Stanton's encouraging verses called "Keep a-Goin'," and was stimulated by them to have a fresh try at life on earth instead of elsewhere.

Joel Chandler Harris wrote the introduction to "Songs of the Soil." Other collections of Stanton's works are "Songs of Dixie Land," and "Comes One With a Song." The danger in starting to quote from these books—which, by the way, are chiefly made up of measures that appeared originally in the "Constitution"—is that one does not like to stop. I have, however, limited myself to but one more theft, and instead of making my own choice, have left the selection to a friend of Mr. Stanton's, who has suggested the lines entitled "A Poor Unfortunate":

His hoss went dead, an' his mule went lame, He lost six cows in a poker game; A harricane come on a summer's day An' carried the house whar he lived away, Then a earthquake come when that wuz gone An' swallered the land that the house stood on! An' the tax collector, he come roun' An' charged him up fer the hole in the groun'! An' the city marshal he come in view An' said he wanted his street tax, too!

Did he moan an' sigh? Did he set an' cry An' cuss the harricane sweepin' by? Did he grieve that his old friends failed to call When the earthquake come and swallered all? Never a word o' blame he said, With all them troubles on top his head! Not him! He climbed on top o' the hill Whar stan'in' room wuz left him still, An', barrin' his head, here's what he said: "I reckon it's time to git up an' git, But, Lord, I hain't had the measles yit!"

Among those who have been on the staff of the "Constitution" and have become widely known, may be mentioned the gifted Corra Harris, many of whose stories have Georgia backgrounds, and who still keeps as a country home in the State where she was born, a log cabin, known as "In the Valley," at Pine Log, Georgia; also the perhaps equally (though differently) talented Robert Adamson, whose administration as fire commissioner of the City of New York was so able as to result in a reduction of insurance rates.

Atlanta reporters, it would seem, run to the New York Fire Department, for Joseph Johnson, who preceded Mr. Adamson as commissioner, was once a reporter on the Atlanta "Journal." The latter paper used to belong to Hoke Smith. It was at one time edited by John Temple Graves, who later edited the Atlanta "Georgian," and is now a member of the forces of William Randolph Hearst, in New York. The late Jacques Futrelle, the author, who went down with the Titanic, was a Georgian, and worked for years on the "Journal." Don Marquis, one of the most brilliant American newspaper "columnists," now in charge of the department known as "The Sun Dial" on the New York "Evening Sun," was also at one time on the "Journal," as was likewise Grantland Rice, America's most widely read sporting writer. Lollie Belle Wiley, whose poetry has a distinct southern quality, is, I believe, a member of the "Journal's" staff. As the eminent Ty Cobb once wrote a book, it seems fair to mention him also among Georgian authors, though so far as I know he never worked on an Atlanta paper. And if Atlanta's three celebrated golfers have not written for the papers, they have at least supplied the sporting page with much material. Miss Alexa Sterling of Atlanta, a young lady under twenty, is one of the best women golfers in the United States; Perry Adair also figures in national golf, and Robert T. ("Bobby") Jones, Jr., who was southern champion at the age of fourteen, is, perhaps, an unprecedented marvel at the game—so at least my golfing friends inform me.

The continued militancy of the "Constitution," under the editorship of Clark Howell, who sits in his father's old chair, with a bust of Grady at his elbow, is evidenced not only by its frequent editorials against lynching, but by its fearless campaign against another Georgia specialty—the "paper colonel." The ranks of the "paper colonels" in the South are chiefly made up of lawyers who "have been colonelized by custom for no other reason than that they have led their clients to victory in legal battles." Some of the real colonels have been objecting to the paper kind, and the "Constitution" has bravely backed up the objection.

The liveliness of journalism in Georgia does not begin and end in Atlanta. The Savannah "Morning News" has an able editorial page, and there are many others in the State. Some of the small-town papers are, moreover, well worth reading for that kind of breeziness which we usually associate with the West rather than the South. Consider, for example, the following, in which the Dahlonega (Georgia) "Nugget," published up in the mountains, in the section where gold is mined, discusses the failings of one Billie Adams, the editor's own son-in-law:

On Saturday last, Billie Adams and his wife waylaid the public road over on Crown Mountain, where this sorry piece of humanity stood and cursed while his wife knocked down and beat her sister, Emma. He is a son-in-law of ours, but if the Lord had anything to do with him, He must have made a mistake and thought He was breathing the breath of life into a dog.

He is too lazy to work and lays around and waits for his wife to get what she can procure on credit, until she can get nothing more for him and the children to eat. Recently he claimed to be gone to Tennessee in search of work. Upon hearing that his family had nothing to eat, we had Carl Brooksher send over nearly four dollars' worth of provisions. In he came and sat there and feasted until every bite was gone. But this ends it with us.

There are a lot of people who have sorry kinfolks, but in this instance if there were prizes offered, we would certainly win the first.

Last year, thinking he would scare his mother-in-law and sister-in-law off from where they live, so he could get the place, he shot two holes through their window, turned their mule out of the stable, and tried to run it into the bean patch, besides hanging up a bunch of switches at the drawbars. Then their fence was set afire twice. This is said to be the work of his wife. Then, after carrying home meat, flour, lard, and vegetables to eat for her mother and sister, he whipped the latter because she refused to give him two of the wagon wheels.

The city made a case against both for the whipping, and the wife, although coming to town alone frequently during the day, brought her baby and everything to the council room, plead guilty and was fined one and costs. Billie didn't appear, but if he stays in this country Marshal Wimpy will have him, when all these things will come to light, both in the council chamber and grand jury room.

The scandal of newspaperdom in Georgia is, of course, Tom Watson, who publishes the "Jeffersonian"—a misnamed paper if there ever was one—in the town of Thomson. Many years ago, when Edward P. Thomas, now assistant to the president of the United States Steel Corporation, was a little boy in Atlanta, complaining about having his ears washed; when Theodore D. Rousseau, secretary to Mayor Mitchel of New York, was having his early education drilled into him at the Ivy Street school; when Ralph Peters, now president of the Long Island Railroad, had left Atlanta and become a division superintendent on the Panhandle Road; when the parents of Ivy Ledbetter Lee were wondering to what college they would send him when he grew to be a big boy; when Robert Adamson was a page in the Georgia Legislature—as long ago as that, Tom Watson was waving his red head and prominent Adam's apple as a member of the State House of Representatives. In the mad and merry days of Bryanism he became a Populist Member of Congress. He was nominated for vice-president, to run on the Populist ticket with Bryan. Later he ran for president on the ticket of some unheard-of party, organized in protest against the "conservatism" of the Populists. Watson's paper reminds one of Brann and his "Iconoclast." Reading it, I have never been able to discover what Watson was for. All I could find out was what he was violently against—and that is almost everything. He is the wild ass of Georgia journalism; the thistles of chaos are sweet in him, and order in any department of life is a chestnut burr beneath his tail.