American Adventures: A Second Trip 'Abroad at home'Street, Julian
General
American Adventures: A Second Trip 'Abroad at home'
Street, Julian
Southern States -- Description and travel; Southern States -- Social life and customs
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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