Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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-. '4* '~ .1 1 - I "a> C era an 'Ktw5. VOL XLIII. NQ. 22. A - - NEWBERRY. S. C. FRIDAY. .\M40R Hi. 190Q TWICE A WEEK. $1.50 A YEAR EKORY GROWS BUSY AS WE GROW OLD OLD NEWBERRIAN RECALLS CMHOOD DAYS. When Newberry Had Less Than Half Hundred Residences-The Good Old Days-Scotch-rish Settlers-Excellent Citizens. 'I'd rather today Be a tow headed elf Than to be this old fellow, I know as myself; To sit by a stream Where tle waters call loud, Than to be as I am Just one man in a crowd. That hurries and tries To win a goal Whose mark is a, dollar Lord, bless my old soul. Lord bless my old soul! I am longing today For old hills I have climbed And a daisy gnomned way. That I used to know well, Where the honey bees buzz, And a daisy gnomed way.P ltew what day it was, Without asking dad: When I drifted along, Through days and through ways That were bordereg-with song. Oh boy, little boy Never long to grow old; The erook in the streAn, And the cat birds thasold, And the 'days that gde by Are unnoticed and swift Where the birds sing their sweetest And golden leaves drift Are better than glory: re'ietter tan gold -Or,al thev6orld holds, For the =in that is old. Oh Memory! Memoty, thou hast pwer to lift the veil and let the spirit jead usbak to the fairy land of van afed yemrs. In memory, I am stand i1g in thejealy -thi$ies on the hills where afterwards dear wife and I lived-and lov@d. "Robed in the dreamy light of ,di, tant years, In clustered joys serene of other years Here friendship lights the fire and every heart Sure of itself and .sure of all the .rest Dares to be true." As. I gaze, "Remembrance wakes with all her busy train'' and I see the siriall inviting, pretty dignified village, beautiful for -situation, nest ling between,the creeks, and inefuding Major Nance's, the Academy, Ban dusiari and Cedar springs, fourteen springs, can you find them now ? We see the Fernarides hotel, the largest ho>use in the village, the old court house, Nathan A. Hunter's and Cap tain Jack Caldwell 's on the hill south of the village, the old locust tree and many others.. Of'the times that i now write about, there- -were only ft-six residences in the village. VWfit a splendid peo-! pie were the 'inhabitants. The vil lage was the abiding place of the most potent, moral and religious sentiment -a minimum of vice-private virtues exacted in the people. The men serv-, ed God and their country, were hon-; est; hearty, clean in thought and speech; ethe frantic rush for wealth almost .unknown, and life was one of enjoyment- without extravagance. 'Tis pleasant to remember them, the ma trons were sweet tempered, loving and lovely-the maidens were as sweet asi perfumed morning flowers, delicate as! wild' roses. I see five or six couples of lads and lasses smiling like pure sunshine, riding, dashing over the roads, the lasses virtuous in their ra diant beauty. and frolicing in the eestaev of life's happy morning. eheeks full of roses, lips full of laughter and heart full of song, a bou qjuet of youth and beauty. now sedate matrons, or gone beyond. In the early thirties, there were love feasts in the M. E. church. It is only lately that I have heard of one in Texas, from Rev. Peter Nicholson, a blind preacher eighty-five years old, from the Pedee country, S. C. A no ble old man, and I hhve never seen or heard of a class-leader in Texas, yet in this little village of some six hun dred white people. there are four va rieties of Methodists. I remember two love feasts in the olden times in Newberry. The exhor tations were full of love a'Ad energy, you did not feel the brazenness of words without emotion: the hollow ness-of eloquence behind which lies no love. Old time hymns to old time tunes shook the raf,ers: they were full of Christian love, such love as Rev. Henry Drummond describes in his sermon on the greatest thing, "It was not a thing of enthusiastic emo tion, but was a rich, strong, vigorous expression of sound Christian charac ter, a palpitating, quivering, sensitive, living love." It develops a sea of emotion, and without emotion, no love, without love, no happiness-no religion. Some shouted, others sat quiet in the raptiire of repose. Some elap their hands, others: laugh and somo weep with teais rolling from their eyes, laughter and tears are close companions, a few fainted. There was a seltliement of Scotch Irish, who worshipped at Kings Creek, A. R. P. church; they were a God laying, pious people, learnel in Moses; the:-Psalms, and shorter cate clism. The exiled Scots settled in the north of Ireland, hence were calleid Scoteh-Irish. "They were a people more moved by logic than rhetoric; more attract ive by acute reasoning, than enthus tastic appeals." In an early day, the predominant races in Newberry were Scotch-Irish, and that grand old Ge'rman race (mis Wailed, Dutch). You could tell -a man's race by his name, but they so inter married that .ethe- name was no index to a man's predominant face. No wonder by reason of this that the 3ountry stood ampng the first for in teigenee, energy industry and:moral xcellence. Among the Seotch-frish were the Crossons. Thomas, the first one was the father of two sons, Alexander and John (my grandfather). Alexander was the progeritor of thl King's Criek Crossons, and was a queer and ~ood old man. Once riding ujp hasti ly to his "son, he cried out in his wrath, "Oh Tom! oh Tom!'' Quoth Tom; "What's the matter daddy?'" your sister Ell has run away and mar ried Bill Price, and I am going to the 'Why your sister Ell has run away Hugh and John, and four' daughters. Thomas was badly bent.; had large in telligent features, was a conscient-ious industrious, energetic Christian- man, drawn as a juror for the* term at' which Graham was to be tried for stealing Jee Caldwell 's negro, the punishment being degh. Uncle Tom didn't know whether he could di at a juror in the ease iuntil he consulted Moses. In Exodus, 21st chapter, 16th verse, he found that Moses. wrote, "And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hands, he surely .shall be put to death." He was then ready to try Graham. H'e had one son, James N.. and two daughters, Margaret and .Jane. 'I now leave my kin, but will hereafter write more about them.. There are three familieg of Sloans, long Jimmie, elder at Head Springs and l'ong Jimmie 's Jennie, Short Jim mie, elder at Cannon ?s - Creek anid Short Jimmie 's Jennie. Red Breech'es .Jimmie. but no Jennie. Some one had robbed Short Jim mie 's potato bank. Two negroes, Is rael, belonging to the preacher, and Aaron to Mr. S. The. preacher, S, Newt Crosson and Ben McGraw were present; Israel acquitted proof against Aaron when S. proposed pray er. S. announced "Well, Aaron, af ter taking counsel of the Lord we find you guilty.'' Newt unrolled a leather strap, but S. would have none of it, and with a bunch of knotty damson plum switches. adminstered to Aaron forty lashes. I f Israel and Aaron are living, they will remember. W. P>. D)eWalt, a grandson of' Tap low Harris. was at school in Newber ry when the war betwen the states be gan. Some time afterwards he re turned to his home in Texas. His father, N. B. DeWalt, had (lied in the army' in Virginia, in tirst regi ment, Texas Infantry. W. B. joined my company F, Fourth Texas Caval ry. He was a true and gallant sol dier In a letter to me he stated that THE TYPEWRITER GIRL'S LOT I A STENOGRAPHER'S STORY OF DISAPPOINTED HOPES. Many Women Attracted to New York In Search of Big Salaries and Great Opportunities-Low -Pay and Hafd Work the Rule-Causes of 'Un rest. Written by One of Them. New York. March 10.-From seven until nine in the morning you may see them, in the streets, on the surface ears,. the elevated, the subway, every-. where in fact, these; stenographers of New York. They crowd out of the down-town elevated and subway sta tions in great throngs, and, hasten ing feverishly along through the nar -row, crowded streets, are finally suck ed in by the yawning doors of the enormous buildings that lower at each other across the dirt and tumult of the street. From'five to seven at night they are again seen, pouring. out of the great doors, crowding into the stations, hanging to straps in the'trains and cars; until at last the business traffic subsides and they disappear, only to turn up again on the following morn ing at the accustomed place and time. They are of all types and nationali ties* young and' old, pretty and plain, stylish and shabby, gay and sombre. last year on .one acre he raised 2,200 watermelons, averaging forty pounds in weight. (I send you herewith a dipping from a paper about it.) A Bumper Melon Crop. Two thousand and two hundred wa; termelons, weighing an average of foij pounds eaeh, to one acre of land is a pretty good- crop for a dry year in Falls county.. That is the record kept,by W.'B.,DeWalt who lives near Reagan. Mr. DeWalt is siity years old,. says he has been growing watermelons since he was 15 years of age, except ing the time he wIas in the army and he' knrows something 'about the melon business. He declares this is the largest single acre erop he ever saw, thiough he does not claim it to be the biggest one ever produced. . Think of it, eighty thousand pounds of-melons to one acre-of dirt! That is forty.-four tons' and about five' car loads.' sThe net yi-oceeds of the melons sold, footed up about $100.00,- though there 'werg some 700.of the melons that were gven away. The -seed plauted was -Alabama sweets. Mr. DeWalt would like to know if any other Falls county far mer can show as good a yield for this year. W. B. is a fine, intelligent, indus trious, Christian man, and has a very interesting family. I am pleased to count him as my friend. Sam Kennerly has moved to Orange and I miss him much. No one to talk to about Newberry. As I grasped his hand to bid him good-bye in the dusk of the evening, a little tear trickled out of the corner of my left eye-my weeping eye. ''There is no love like t.he good old love, The love that sweetheart gave us, We are old, old men, yet we pine again For the precious grace-God save us. So we dream and dream of the good old times And our hearts grow. tenderer, Astoedear old dreams, bring sooth ing gleams Of Heaven away off yonder.'' J. M. Crosson. P. S.-Since writing the foregoing, I founid this in the Houston Post: Mr.. Collinis. the pr.eacher. said: 'The icve feast tonight is looked, forward to with much interest. This old cus to of 'eating bread and water,' a custom peculiar to Methodism, seems to have gone out of fashion in most of the city churches, (and I might have .added, in country churches.) I want, us to gather Friday night in loving~ communion in this simple old ser vice.'' [ would have enjoyed being thmre There is the tall, stylishly dressed attractive girl. and again the weary middle aged wonan who has lost her youth inl the service. Many Women Attracted to New York. A great num)er of these women are, if course. native New Yorkers, but there is a large and constantly grow ing percentage of women from the West and South. most of them stenog raphers. who leave their homes, if they have any. and come here to New York, attracted by the rumors of big alaries and great opportunities that re to be found here. Are there such, [ wonder, and if so. how are they ob Lained? A girl comes here, say from one of the Western towns, to look for work as stenographer. First of all she has Lo get a room and arrange for board > some description. She discovers that the very low est rate for which she can get boacd and room is $7 a week, and if she takes a room without board it will -ost her not less than $3 a week, if it is fit to live in. Perhaps if her re 4erve stock of money is very small he decides that she cannot pay $3, nd instead takes a room of the size > a. large packing case opening on an air shaft or lighted only by a sky light. There will not be rooin in this ox for anything more than a couch bed, a dresser and her trunk, and they ire a tight fit. This new unexpected environment somewhat depresses tier at first, but 3he feels quite certain that it will be 5nly temporary. Having unpacked ter trunk and disposed of her be [ongings as well as possible in this limited space, she starts out to look Cor some of the "great opportuni ies' Tricks of Agencies. On. reading over the advertising .Vlamns of the papers -she finds there ire whole columns of "stenographers wanted.?" and also whole eolumns~ of tenographers who want - work. She hinks this is rather strange, but does ao allow her mind to dwell too much )n the stenographers who want work ind turns her whole attention to the ?eople who want stenographers. Most of these advertisers require an answer by letter. She writes a' care ully penned and' worded reply to a romising advertisement that reads something like this: "Splendid posi ion for educated, refined young wo nan stenographer-liberal salary- to right person.'' In reply she receives a postal card asking her to call at So and So's agency, whither' she at once betakes Lersef, hoping that this may prove to be something good. Arrived there s finds that the agent has only a $6 place vacant but is. expecting. a splendid opening to occur shortly with~ a well known firm. If she jill pay $1 as a registration fee the agent will consider himself under a pe'rsonal obligation to find her just such a place- as she- desires, and she must come in agaih tomorrow' sure. When she has gone the agent sets to work to concoct another adver tisement, this time intended for the 'Situations Wanted'' column. This new advertisement will read some what after this fashion: A refined, educated and thorough ly experienced stenographer, law, lit erary, medical or brokerage experi-1 ene, wants position .with first-class firm. Moderate salary to start in. The Average Luck. This probably catches the eye of somebody in search of a stenographer, then the agent tries to bring the two together. If he succeeds in getting them to come to an agreement the re sult is that the girl takes a place at a much smaller salary than she had been willing to work for, and has to pay the proceeds of her- first week's work to the agerit who has been of such service to her. . If he does not succeed. the girl gets no work andl tries againi. probably paying $1 to an ote1r aIQ-enit or1 to twot (or three other aunts. Ocasionially. uf cours5e, a girl who cmls a strange'r to the city is lucky~ enough to drop into a well paying )lace but such success is rare. The usual experience is 'one of long hunt ing, answering advertisements and calling On agZencies, working in crowd ed' noisy offices for $6 or $7 a we~ek; no bein .a to e omething bet ter. and 'ither staying on there and degenerating into a mere typewriter drudge. or constantly changing about in the vain hope each time that the change may be for the better. 6 Unrest Among Stenographers. People outside of the city hear about the constant demand for sten ographers in New York; if they could atch a glimpse of the hundreds of unemployed women who throng the office of one typewriter company ev ery morning they might change their minds about this. Perhaps one cause rf the prevalent opinion that stenog raphers are very much in demand here is the fact that there is constant unrest in the stenographic world. The workers are continually leav ing their places and seeking else where, only to repeat the performance when the'new place has, in its turn, become unbearable. It might be in teresting to know why this is so. 'A fact to be noted first of all in re ard to this phenomenon is that it is not the careless, incompetent and un educated stenographers who are con tinually eddying about in this un settled way, but the superior class of workers, the educated, conscientious, intelligent, thoughtful women, who make it a point to know their busi ness and are there to perform it. This is the class of women who do keep their places. - This., too. is ,the class of women who after a time become anxious to et out of stenography and the busi ness world altogether, and get into some other line of work that will take them as far away from it .as possible. The main reasons for this are as fol lows. Low Pay; Careless Employers. First of all, as I have said, it is ex tremely difficult to' get a place that pays any sort of respectable salary. The little eighteen-year'old New York _irl who lives with her pafents fOds it about all she can do to 'dress and buy lunches and car fare~ on. the salary- that is paid her. Wh' then is the girl to do .who is entirely de pendent upon herself, and has to pay for board and lodging at New York rates? The superior woman stenographer hear's that there is a great call for educated and cons'eientious workers in New York and she hastens here only to find that her class is entirely swamp)ed by the overwhelming num ers of illiterate, and .often careless and empty-headedl young girls, most of them having homes in th'e city, who are glad to work for $6, $7 and $8 a week. She finds, moreover, that the aver ag New York business man is not peetrating enough to distinguish be twen her -and the members of this latter class: and that even if he did he would not be inclined to give her any pre'ference, as he himself is usual lv most sadly lacking in education ; and since he does not know enoigh to use good English himself, or write a properly constructed letter, he can sarcely be expected to know whether his stenographer does so or not. What.. he requires is rapidity, the ability, in fact, to do two person 's work, and if the applicant is very rapid, both in her stenography and her typewriting, she may perhaps 'zet a business position that is fairly re munerative. But unfortunately many such business positions are accompa nied by grave disadvantages. Lower Pay; Better Surroundings. The office is probably noisy and dirty and constantly invaded by men who smoke, vile tobacco, wear their hats, trangress every rule of grammar; and plentifully sprinkle their conver sation with slang and profanity. If they have occasion to address her they do so in an offhand, impersonal way *as though she were a machine put there for general~use, or in a person al way that is infinitely more offens On the(~ o)ther hand, it our steniog' 'aphr tinds that she cannot stand this atmosphlere, and takes a place in the editorial depar'tmi'ent of some pub lishing house, or as p)rivate secretary to some man engaged in educational o' literary work or something of that dlesrition, while she finds the sur roundings more congenial and less trying to her nerves and sensibilities, ealso find that the salary dimin ishes in proportion as the surround ings improve. In addition to this, she knows that no matter what sort of place shi takes or how long she stays in it she can. never rise to be anything but a sten ographer. She may be a very intelli gent and capale woman. but no mat ter how much she gets to know about the business she will still have to sit and take letters from the dictation of some cigar smoking assistant man ager who perhaps knows a good deal less about it than she. Poorly Trained Stenographers. One hears constant complaints on the part of business men of the care lessness and unreliability of stenog raphers, and,- although there are in New York thousands upon thousands of conscientious, hard working, cap able girls, who earn a great deal more than they get, yet it is undoubtedly a fact -that there are thousands upon thousands of. stenographers who are not worth their salt.. But there'is no telling what'they might be if they were properly educated and prepared for their work, and'then sufficiently paid for their services and treated in a proper, busipess-like manner. The trouble just at present seems to be that a girl is forced out into the world before she has any weapons wherewith to fight it, or even defend hei-self fr;n it. She no sooner gets thron-lh the public school which, good ness knows, teaches her little enough than she is sent to a busines college for three or six months, and is then considered fully equipped to earn her living. Thereupon a business man, who wants to get his work done for next to nothing, engages her as steno grapher; and then he finds that the work is done badly he feels himself immensely injured and titterly voices his complaint from the housetop. This -sort of thing might. be par donable if it existed only among fam ilies that really could not afford to give their daughters. better advant ages; but such is not the case. I. know of one man who.is a college pro fessor drawing a good income; whose daughter, aged 17, is a stenographer in a down-town office on a salary of $7 a week. Daughters of the Well To Do Who Work. And such cases are not at all rare the ranks of stenographers are not by any means recruited exclusively from poor~ families. It seems to be the ac epted thing .just now among all class es, except the very rich, that as soon as the daughters are equipped, be it ever so poorly, to earn a livelihood they are sent out to do so, and the fathers who brought. them into the world-' consider themselves thence-' forth freed from all responsibility. Girls, too, are impatient to get out and "earn their own living,'' for of course, the father and brothers are earning much less than they would be doing if there were no women in the business world, and hence the girl feels that it is as much her duty as it is her brother's to start out and sup port herself. A person who does not 'o about among business o a have no idea of the immense nam...rs of women that are employed in them. I know of one publishing house on Twenty-third street that does a fairly large publishing business. In the com bined departments of this -place, with the exception of the shipping depart-i ment, there are three males employed, the publisher himself, the business manager and the office boy. The rest of the work is done by about forty women. who work there day after day for $5, $6, $7, $8 and perhaps as high as $12 a week, and the two wo men who oversee them get $15 each. Woman's Rush Into Business. I do not intend to enlarge here upon the great social problem that this condition of affairs entails, nor on the sort of preparation. physical, mental ad moral, that it is giving to the wo mni who are to be the wives of'this g ~eeraltion and the mothers of the inex. What I haveaimed to do in this article is merely to enumerate the facts adlet each person who reads it draw his own conclusions. A few years ago when women first started going into business lEfe in great numbers there was plenty of very fine talk floating about regard ( Cnnuned on Fourth Page.)