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GEOtifilH scenes.
By Judge Augustus Baldlvin Longstreet.
The Weekly Jeffersonian begins to
day 'the serial publication of that mel
low old classic, “Georgia Scenes,”
written by Judge Augustus Baldwin
Ixmgstreet. No writer has ever more
faithfully portrayed the manners and
customs of a people than Judge Long
street in this delightful volume. It
was a favorite of our fathers and
grandfathers, but a generation is com
ing on which knows it not. We feel
that The Weekly Jeffersonian is ren
dering a genuine service to its readers
in rescuing this Southern classic
from oblivion. Each chapter
complete in itself, and yet the whole
is bound together by a common in
terest which gives it unity.
Judge Longstreet was born in Au
gusta, Ga., in 1790. He was graduat
ed from Yale, and, after practicing
law, became a Judge of the Supe
rior Court in 1822. After several
years on the bench, he resumed the
practice of his profession and then
Preface to the First Edition.
The following sketches were writ
ten rather in ‘the hope that chance
would bring them to light -when time
'would give then an interest, than in
ithe belief 'that they would afford
any interest to thei readers of the
present day. I knew, however, that
the chance of their surviving the au
thor would be increased in propor
tion to their popularity upon their
first appearance; and, therefore, I
used some little art in order to rec
ommend them to the readers of my
own times. They consist of noth
ing more than fanciful combinations
of real incidents and characters; and
throwing into those* scenes, which
would be otherwise dull and insipid,
some personal incident or adventure
of my own, real or imaginary, as it
would best suit my purpose; usually
real, but happening at different times
and under different circumstances
from those in which they are here
represented. I have not always, how
ever, taken this liberty. Some of the
scenes are as literally true as the
frailties of memory would allow
them to be. I commenced the pub
lication of them, in one of the ga
zettes of the State, rather more than
a year ago; and I was not more
plelased than astonished to find that
they were well received by readers
generally. For the last six months
I have been importuned by persons
from all quarters of the State to
give them to the public in the present
form. This volume is purely a con
cession to their entreaties. From
private considerations, I was ex
tremely desirous of concealing the
author, and, the more effectually to
do so, I wrote under two signatures.
These have now become t 6 closely
interwoven with the sketches to be
separated from them, without an ex
pense of time and trouble which I
am unwilling to incur. Hall is the
writer of those sketches in which
men appear as the principal actors,
and Baldwin of those in which wom
en are the prominent figures. For
the “Company Drill” I am indebted
to a friend, of whose labors I would
took up editorial work in Augusta,
where he established The Sentinel,
which was merged with The Chroni
cle. In 1838 he became a Methodist
Minister, and in a year was made
president of Emory College. At dif
ferent periods he was engaged in col
lege work in Louisiana, Mississippi,
and iSouth Carolina. He died in Ox
ford, Misa., in September, 1870. He
had a reputation as a speaker and as
a vehement States’ Rights man. He
was a voluminous writer but his
hame is based on a single book,
tonojieorgia Scenes,” originally pub
lished in newspapers and afterwards
issued in book form in the South.
They were finally published in New
in 1840, and attracted great
attention. After entering the min
istry the author is said to have dis
owned the second edition and tried
to destroy the first. A generation
of appreciative readers feel)
ful that he did not succeed.
gladly have availed myself oftener.
The reader will find in the object of
the sketches an apology for the mi
nuteness of detail into which some
of them run, and for the introduc
tion of some things into them which
would have been excluded were they
merely the creations of fancy.
I have not had it in my power to
superintend the publication of them,
though they issue from a' press in
the immediate vicinity of my resi
dence. I discovered that, if the
work was delayed until I could have
an opportunity of examining the
proof-sheets, it would linger in the
press until the expenses (already
large) would become intolerable.
Consequently there may be many ty
pographical errors among them, for
which I must crave the reader’s in
dulgence.
I cannot conclude these introduc
tory remarks without reminding
those who have taken exceptions to
the coarse, inelegant and sometimes
ungrammatical language which the
writer represents himself as occa
sionally using, that it is language
accommodated to the capacity of the
person to whom he represents him
self as speaking.
THE AUTHOR.
GEORGIA THEATRICS.
If my memory fail me not the
10th of June, 1809, found me, at
about 11 o’clock in the forenoon, as
cending a long and gentle slope in
what was called “The Dark Corner”
of Lincoln. I believe it took its
name from the moral darkness which
reigned over that portion of the
country at the time of which I am
speaking. If in this point of view
it was but a shade darker than the
rest of the county it was inconceiv
ably dark. If any man can name a
trick or sin which had not been
committed at the time of which I
am speaking, in the very focus of
all the county’s illumination (Lin
colnton), he must himsejf be the
most inventive of the tricky, and
the very Judas of sinners. Since
that time, however (all humor aside).
THE WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
Lincoln has become a living proof
“that light shineth in darkness.”
Could I venture to mingle the solemn
with the ludicrous, even for the pur
poses of honorable contrast, I could
adduce from this county instances of
the most numerous and wonderful
transitions, from vice and folly to
virtue and holiness, which have ever,
perhaps, been witnessed since the
days of the apostolic ministry. So
much, lest it should be thought by
some that what I am about to relate
is- characteristic of the county in
which it occurred.
Whatever may be said of the mor
al condition of the Dark Corner at
the time just mentioned its natural
condition was anything but dark. It
smiled in all the charms of spring;
and spring borrowed a new charm
from its undulating grounds, its lux
uriant woodlands, its sportive
streams, its vocal birds, and its
blushing flowers.
Rapt with the enchantment of the
season and the scenery around me,
I was slowly rising the slope, when 1
was startled by loud, profane, and
boisterous voices, which seemed to
proceed from a thick covert of un
dergrowth about two hundred yards
in the advance of me, and about one
hundred to the right of my road.
“You kin, kin you?”
“Yes, I kin, and am able to do it!
800-00-oo! Oh, wake snakes, and
walk your chalks! Brimestone and
—fire! Don’t hold me, Nick iStoval!
The sight’s made up, and let’s go at
it. my soul, if I don’t jump
down his throat, and gallop every
chitterling out of him before you
can say 1 quit ’! ”
“Now, Nick, don’t hold him! Jist
let the wild-cat come, and I’ll tame
him. Ned’ll see me a fair fight,won’t
you, Ned?”
“Oh, yes; I’ll see you a fair fight,
blast my old shoes if I don’t!”
“That’s sufficient, as Tom Haynes
said when he saw the elephant. Now
let him come.”
Thus they went on, with countless
oaths interspersed, which I dare not
even hint at, and with much that I
could not distinctly hear. In Mer
cy’s name, thought I, what band of
ruffians has selected this holy season
and this heavenly retreat for such
pandemonian riots! I quickened my
gait, and had come nearly opposite
to the thick grove whence the noise
proceeded, when my eye caught in
distinctly, and at intervals, through
the foliage of the dwarf-oaks and
hickories which intervened, glimpses
of a man or men, who seemed to be
in a violent struggle;* and I could
occasionally catch those deep-drawn,
emphatic oaths which men in con
flict utter when they deal blows. I
dismounted and hurried to the spot
with all speed. I had overcome about
half the space which separated it
from me, when I saw the combatants
come to the ground, and, after a
short struggle, I saw the uppermost
one (for I could not see the other)
make a heavy plunge with both his
thumbs, and at the same instant T
heard a cry in the accent of keenest
torture, “Enough! My eye’s out!”
I was so completely horrorstruck,
that I stood transfixed for a moment
to the spot where the-ery met me. The
accomplices in the hellish deed which
had been perpetrated had all fled
at my approach; at least I suppose
so, for they were not to
“Now, blast your
soul,” said the victor (a
eighteen years old) as he rosW ’’A; ’’
the ground, “come cuttin’
shines ’bout me agin, next time I
come to the Courthouse, will you!”
At this moment he saw me for the
first time. He looked excessively
embarrassed, and was moving off,
when I called to him, in a tone im
boldened by the saeredness of my
office and the iniquity of his crime,
“Come back, you brute! and assist
me in relieving your fellow-mortal,
whom you have ruined forever!”
My rudeness subdued his embar
rassment in an instant; and, with
a taunting curl of the nose, he re
plied, “You needn’t kick before
you’re spurr’d. There aba "'t nobody
there, nor ha’nt been, nother. I was
jist seein’ how I could ’a’ font.” So
saying, he bounded to his plough,
which stood in the corner of tb** in*
fence about fifty yards beypnd
battle ground.
And, would you believe it, genne
reader! His report was true. All
that I had heard and seen was noth
ing more nor less than a Lincoln re
hearsal; in which the youth who had
just left me had played all the parts
of all the characters in a Courthouse
fight.
I -went to the ground from which
he had risen, and there were the
prints of his two thumbs, plunged up
to -the balls in the mellow earth,
about the distance of a man’s eyes
apart; and the ground around was
broken up as if two stags had been
engaged upon it.
HALL.
THE VALUE OF REFORMATORIES.
Because a man opposes a reform
atory for youthful criminals does not
always mean that he is hard-hearted.
It may be that he has old fogy ideas
and is living partly in the past. A
correspondent to the Waxhaw Enter
prise tells of some sad cases, that
wouldn’t be so sad if there had been
a reformatory. These are only a few
out of many similar cases: “Twenty
years ago a poor illegitimate boy,
badly clothed, stole a pair of pants
worth about $1.50 from a merchant
at Monroe. He was tried, convicted
and sent to the state prison twelve
months. From the day he returned
until now he has kept the law, so far
as I know. I saw him go to the bal
lot box, ticket in hand, to exercise
his political freedom. But a chal
lenge stared him in the face. The
poor fellow put down the ticket and
walked away sorrowful. North Car
olina says to that poor fellow, ‘You
shall not vote, but you must pay tax,
if it takes the last mouthful of your
bread.’ ” I saw two boys tried in the
courts of Union county. They were
about thirteen and fifteen years of
age respectively, and were tried for
breaking into the dinner buckets of
some road hands. I learned that
the mother of the poor boys was dead
and that there had been trouble
when the next mamma came along,
and so the boys resloved to run
away. The jury found them guilty
and when the judge sentenced them
to the roads it not only brought
tears to their old father’s eyes but to
the eyes of Mr. Jerome (their coun
sel) as well. Today in our state
prison there is a poor motherless
girl, twelve years of age, from Cabar
rus county who killed a man whose
object was her ruin. Her sentence
was twelve years. What will that
girl be at the expiration of her term?
—Marshallville, N. C.» “Our Home.”