Divisions and subdivisions of society existed, but into these intricate complexities it is not necessary to enter here. Enough to say that the “upper-crust” was composed exclusively of the landed proprietors and professional men. Of trade, this class had a holy horror, although they recognized “degrees” in infamy; holding with Cicero that, while the “retail” trader was to be regarded as “unmitigatedly base,” the “wholesale” trader might be accounted “mitigatedly” so. Next to this topmost layer came the factors. The factor combined in his own person the functions of banker, commission merchant, and general factotum. He sold the planter’s crop, invested his proceeds, negotiated his loans, and advanced him money when required. Socially, the factor was the connecting link between the mercantile class and the landed gentry, to whom, indeed, he was often closely allied by blood. For it was the Southern custom to pass into a counting-house and thereby convert into “factors,” such planters’ sons as were considered incapable of receiving a classical or professional education, and showed no special aptitude for any particular calling. Below the factor class were innumerable gradations gradually descending until, at the bottom of the social scale, were to be found the poor whites, or “crackers,” as they were contempteously termed. Of this element nothing need be said, as its influence was _nil_; the Old South being practically composed of but two classes—its aristocracy and its negroes. In those old days the tone of public morals was pure and high. As a rule, a Southern gentleman’s word was as good as his bond; for any imputation on his honor he regarded as a disgrace, and disgrace was the one thing he dared not face. To these people wealth was not the be-all and the end-all of existence. Not that they underrated its importance or despised its advantages, but their whole manner of life was a protest against making wealth the standard by which to gauge the sum of human achievement, affixing, as it were, a money value to all things in the heavens above and in the earth beneath. Again, they were—not obstructionists indeed—but strong conservatives; holding that change is not necessarily synonymous with improvement, but that it sometimes means retrogression rather than advance. And holding this creed, they were not carried away by every vagary which presented itself, whether masquerading in the guise of social panacea or political hocus-pocus.