Page:The cotton kingdom (Volume 2).djvu/123

 suggested. "No, I don't think that had anything to do with it." "Is Tuscaloosa an unhealthy place?" "No, sir; healthier than Montgomery, I reckon." "Was it then simply because the people of the southern districts were stronger, and used their power to make the capital more convenient of access to themselves?" "Well, no, I don't think that was it, exactly. The fact is, sir, the people here are not like you northern people; they don't reason out everything so. They are fond of change, and they got tired of Tuscaloosa; the Montgomery folks wanted it there and offered to pay for moving it, so they let 'em have it; 't was just for a change." "If there really was no better reason, was it not rather wasteful to give up all the public buildings at Tuscaloosa?" "Oh, the Montgomery people wanted it so bad they promised to pay for building a new State House; so it did not cost anything."

Quite on a par with the economics of southern commercial conventions.

I passed the night at the second framed house that I saw during the day, stopping early in order to avail myself of its promise of comfort. It was attractively situated on a hilltop, with a peach orchard near it. The proprietor owned a dozen slaves, and "made cotton," he said, "with other crops." He had some of his neighbours at tea and at breakfast; sociable, kindly people, satisfied with themselves and their circumstances, which I judged from their conversation had been recently improving. One coming in, remarked that he had discharged a white labourer whom he had employed for some time past; the others congratulated him on being "shet" of him; all seemed to have noticed him as a bad, lazy man; he had often been seen lounging in the field, rapping the negroes with his hoe if they didn't work to suit him. "He was about the meanest white man I ever see,"