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but in 1880 we had but 16 mills. We had eight knitting mills in 1905. The industry is but started in Ala bama, but it is a healthy, vigorous infant, and the chances are that it will continue to grow, because every mill in this state shows excellent net earnings. In the Alabama mills in 1905 the number of women employed was 3,337 and the number of childien 3,094, or just about one-half of the total number of wage-earners in the cotton mills of the state. The annual earnings of the 3,094 children was in 1905 but $403,175, or at the av erage rate of $l3O a year, or $2.50 a week. —Birmingham Age-Herald. REFUSE COTTON IN NEW YORK. Although we shipped away in the fiscal year cotton to the value of $481,1660,11, yet Liverpool is ship ping cotton to us. A steamer has just arrived in New York toting back 2,000 bales of cotton. It is Ameri can cotton. Let no one think, however, that we had overworked the export feature of the cotton trade, and that Europe is sending back cotton because of a sur feit of it. Nothin gos the kind has occurred or will occur. The 2,000 bales in question is rub bishy cotton gathered together from last year’s crop. It is not spinnable. It is not deliverable in Liverpool or in any cotton market in the world save in New York. The New York cotton exchange's rules admit of the delivery of rubbish, and the world’s refuse cotton begins to be sent to New York. The sending of rubbishy cotton to New York is of little importance alongside of the fact that the New York cotton exchange controlled by New England spinners is conspiring to cut down the price of all cotton. July contracts are quoted in New York at 11.80; in New Orleans, at 12.50, both professedly based on mid dling cotton, but in New York de liveries of any old stuff are permitted, and the quotations of the New York cotton exchange thus become farcical. It is to be hoped that Liverpool will continue to unload its rubbishy cotton on New York. Let the nature of the New York conspiracy against Southern producers be fully made known, and then all who handle cot ton will come to see that the less the South has to do with the New York Cotton exchange the better it will get along.—Birmingham Age-Herald. EXPERIMENT WITH COTTON. In a report just made public, Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agricul ture, states the investigations in the production of races of cotton having longer and better fiber are being con tinued along two lines: 1. The mak ing and testing of hybrids between various short-staple varieties and the Sea Island or long staple cottons, and, 2. The straight selection of certain short-staple varieties which show a tendency to produce fairly long lint. A number of hybrid-) have been secured having lint rang ing from one and one-quarter to one and five-eighths inches in length, which have fairly large bolls that open wide and are easy to pick. Some of these hybrids have been bred in isolated patches for several years and carefully selected, also that at the present tims they re- WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. produce themselves nearly true to type. Some further selection is ne cessary before these varieties are ready for general cultivation, but they give promise of being of great value.. The experiments started fine • years ago in the selection of certain standard short staple varieties to in crease the length of lint without hybridization have yielded somewhat striking results. Two experiments —one, a selection from Russell Big -8011, and the other from Jones’ im proved—have yielded new types hav ing lint averaging about one-fourth inch longer than the parental strains, while in other respects the varieties do not appear to be materially changed. From the tests thus far made these new varieties seem to be as productive as the ordinary stan dard short staple, and produce a fiber of much greater value. Limited quantities of the seed of these two sorts will be placed with co-operative growers next season for trial and further seed propagation.—Griffin News. GOOD PRICE FOR COTTON AS SURED. There is every indication now that the short cotton crop in the South is going to be a blessing to South Carolina and especially upper South Carolina. The government report of the crop condition, printed in this newspaper yesterday, shows that the condition in South Carolina is 79 against a ten-year average of 82 or only 3 points behind. The condition in the entire South is 72 against a ten-year average of 83. The greatest deficiency is in the big cotton pro ducing states further west. This has already begun to cause a higher price. It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good and we in upper South Carolina are going to get the benefit of it. We are going to raise a crop, if nothing unforeseen shall occur, according to present indica tions as shown by the government report, only three points below the av erage, and on account of the general crop being eleven points below the average, we will get the benefit of the high price caused thereby. r course, nobody can undertake to pre dict what the price of cotton is go ing to be at a future time; but th«n> seems to be good reason now f> r thinking that it is going to be ver .’ high this fall. Cotton in Spartanburg county has made great improvement in the past two or three weeks since the warm weather began. There is some fine looking cotton to be seen. The far mers are giving it the very best at tention, knowing that every slalk is going to be worth probably more than in many years. We believe that Spartanburg is going to raise a fair crop and we feel assured that our farmers are going to get a fi m price for it. Even if the crop is short there is the compensating ad vantage of a reduction in the gather ing expenses, which are consider able. October cotton in New York went to 12.12 and January 12.23 on the announcement of the government re port. There are plenty of level-head ed men who believe cotton will be worth 15 cents this fall and not a few who predict 20 cent cotton. We believe it is not at all improbable that what started out looking like a disastrous year to our farmers, will turn out to be one of the most pro fitable periods that many of them ever saw. —Spartanburg Journal. Hon. Thos. E. Watson, Thomson, Ga. Dear Sir: Enclosed find a spe cial in The Constitution regarding why Southern people do not apply for positions in the government ser vice. As you wrote a very instruct ive editorial on why people do not enter the army and navy, I thought perhaps you would be interested in why Southern white people do not enter the civil service. If you care to investigate the mat ter a little, I believe you could write an article that would be startling and I think you could in the end ad vise the president that if he will adopt a decent policy and average pay that he could get all the white applicants he desired. Now in the first place, negroes are given all the preference in high po sitions that they are allowed bv Southern sentiment to fill. For in stance, Collector Rucker, of Atlanta, and Deveaux, of Savannah. No white man wants to work under a negro, consequently they avoid po sition headed by a negro. But if a white man is so unfor tunate that he is willing to submit to negro rule in order to earn a liv ing and stands the examination for position under one of them, he will be denied the place no matter what grade in the examination he makes, if there is a negro at all to whom it can be given. Now, some time ago Dexeaux, of Savannah, needed an other man, an examination was held to fill the place. Two pitiful white men and one ne gro stood the examination. Both white men made a better grade than the negro, yet they were skipped and the place given to a negro. You can find this to be true by investi gating at Savannah. This same method has been pur sued in every branch of the civil service until nearly every man in it is a negro. In Savannah, Ga., there are about four negro letter earners to one white, and in Montgomery, Ala., the carriers are nearly, if not quite, all negroes. The Georgia Road, on which you live, has only three or four white men mail clerks and about ten or twelve negroes. In other words a white man is de nied a chance to earn a living sim ply because he is a white man. This looks hard, considering that the white man discovered the country, worked hard to build it up and spilt his blood to defend it from the sav age Indians within and the greedy English without. If a white man succeeds, as a few do, in getting a government position, he must sit by the negro all day at a desk and if a boss comes in with a friend the negro must be introduced in his presence, and if Judson Lyons ap pears the white man must be made acquainted with him and he can’t say a word. Wonder if the same can be said of a woman. I am informed that so many of the city carriers are negroes that white men can’t join the association. It seems also that negroes will cap- ture the railway mail cars. There they handle the mail and sometimes lie on the mail sacks; the sacks are then put off at stations and disease scattered, for the sacks are never washed. Around the depots of all Southern cities, day and night, filthy negroes may be seen sleeping on mail sacks. The mail sacks should be fumigated. A negro is not a success in a cot ton factory, nor in a mail car; one white man can do as many let ters as two negroes. So the tax pay ers would save thousands of dollars if these places were filled by white men. A white man who could work his job no better than a negro would be discharged. A negro living in Columbus, Ga., was fired from the railroad ma ; l cars for stealing. He was afterward given a job in Macon in the post office as a mail earner. I do not know his name, but you can find this « to be true, if you decide to write a piece in your magazine on th? subject. Mr. Watson, I have sent you this because I would like to hear from you on the subject and thought per haps it had not occurred to you to write on the question. If you do decide to write an editorial, you can take what I have here written you as hints, and you can find out wheth er true or not by investigating. A FRIEND. SAM HOUSTON. (Continued from Page Three.) iar life, and died in a few years in the home which he had made. He left No Indian Children but the family of his wife was a large and notable one, and his neph ews and nieces are numerous in the tribe, some of them distinguished by their influence and intelligence. To his credit Houston never forgot his friendship with the Cherokees or en deavored to ignore his life among them. After his election to the Unit ed States senate he was fervent in advocating their interests and in de fending them from injustice. Not only as the special champion of this tribe, but in an intelligent under standing of the Indian question, and the wisdom as well as the justice of honesty and consideration, he Mas far beyond the majority of the pub lic men of his time, and particularly of the spirit of border greed and prejudice, which is by no means yet extinct. Like some of the army offi cers who had shared their tears and learned to admire their bravery and faithfulness, he was the friend of the Indians from sympathy as well as a sense of uprightness and honor, and respected their barbaric virtues as he understood the elements of their char acter. His rooms were always open to the Cherokee delegations when they arrived in Washington, and he was their friendly companion as well as the sharer of their councils and their advocate at the Indian bureau and mi the floor of congress. His regards were paid with lasting reverence. He has a peculiar place in the remem brance and tradition of the Cherokee people as their faithful and powerful friend, and his name is perpetuated as an honorable patronymic in the younger generations, like that of Wil liam Penn. fc-* • « I . PAGE SEVEN