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facts and fancies for the fireside
A RARE OLD BOOK.
We have in our possession an nu
eount-book kept by the firm of Thos.
H. White & Co., who did a business
of general merchandise at Wrights
boro, Ga., in 1828.
Their stock in trade was miscel
laneous. They dealt in everything
that a country community could
need. From molasses to muslin,
from gold chains to coffee, from
brandy to calico, from shoes to pare
goric, from potatoes to silk, .from
crockery ware to kid gloves, and
parched groundpeas, you could get
anything you chose from Ihos. H.
White & Co.
Dead these many years, are the
members of the firm —dead are their
wives and children.
Dead are the customers who
bought and sold.
Dead is the town of Wrightsboro
—a decaying monument of by-gone
wealth and prosperous traffic.
From page to page in the Book of
Accounts of this long-forgotten firm
is written an undeniable record of
the life and times of the. people of
Georgia in 1828.
Beyond all power of contradiction
we ean gather the facta which illus
trate the home life of the folks of
that remote period. We can take
this old hook and follow the farmers
to the village store and see vhat
they bought, and what they paid
for it.
We can form a pretty clear idea of
how the Doziers, Reeses, Scotts, Pet
its, Parhams, Harrisons and Win
freys lived and managed in these
primitive days.
The first thing which impresses us
with these customers of the store is
that all the accounts are marked set
tled in full at the end of the year.
In nearly every instance the set
tlement is by cash. In a verv few
eases, the settlement is by note.
It has been our luck during the
last fifteen year’s to examine dozens
of account-books of ova merchant
clients, and the difference in this re
spect between the (record of 1828
and that of recent years is amazing.
So far as regards the showing of
accounts paid off at the end of the
year, we venture to say that there is
not a merchant in Georgia today
whose books will bear comparison
with these.
The people paid because they were
able to pay. In ninety-nine cases out
of a hundred when a man is able
to pay his debts he pays them.
Another thing that impresses us
with these accounts is that they are
small: people lived at home and
boarded at the same place.
If there ip any corn, meat or meal
charged up on the 300 and odd pages
of this book we have not been able
to find it!
This is an eloquent fact. • .
What, then, did these people buyl
They bought salt, calico, gin,
spool thread, molasses, muslin, whis
key, pepper, ribbons, shoes, brandy,
candles, hats, knives, gin, nails, rope,
hoes, brandy, plow lines, paregoric,
magnesia, whiskey, cotton-cards>
shearing, shirting, gin, bagging, bub
tons, powder, shot, brandy, plates,
cups, saucers, whiskey, indigo, eombs,
tobacco, gin, blankets, snuff, paper,
branky, knitting-needles, calomel,
cinnamon, whiskey, brandy and gin.
Our forefathers (to tell the plain
and simple truth) had no objection
to a dram. We have been slightly
scandalized at seeing the frequency
with which these venerable ances
tors of ours bought every sort of
liquor, from cider to brandy. Never
did they buy much at a time—not
enough to hurt them we are quite
assured —but apparently they never
left the store of Thos. H. White &
Co. without dampening their whis
tles with some kind of exhilarating
tipple.
Those were days when every man
could make his own liquor:—no In
ternal Revenue Taxes, no Deputy
Marshals to intrude. Consequently
whiskies were plentiful, pure and
cheap. , i
Brandy sold at this country store
for one dollar per gallon, gin for
one dollar and a quarter; whiskey
for seventy-five cents to one dollar.
Tea was worth two dollars per
pound; coffee, twenty-five cents;
sugar, sixteen cents. A paper of
needles cost 12 1-2 cents; a spool of
thread, 18 cents; a paper of pins,
18 3-4 cents. Coarse brogan shoes
sold for $1.50. Bleached shirting
for 43 cents per yard. Fine brogans
for $2.62. Almanacs sold for 12 1-2
cents; cheese at 18 cents, almonds
37 1-2 cents, oranges 12 1-2 cents.
Molasses cost 75 cents. Raisins,
31 1-4 cents. Cigars 31 1-4 cents per
dozen. Powder, 75 cents per pound.
Shot, 12 1-2 cents; goobers sold for
12 1-2 cents per quart, homespun for
31 1-2 cents per yard, bagging for
25 cents per yard, twine at 50 cents
per pound. Tobacco was 37 1-2 cents
per pound, calico 50 cents per yard,
muslin one dollar, ribbon 62 1-2 cents.
“Anti-Tariff Jeans” sold for.one dol
lar per yard.
Nails were 12 1-2 cents per pound,
blankets, $1.37 each.
Hampton Wade is charged, on
October 17, 1828, with $5.56 for the
ginning of 3 bags of cotton.
Elvin Wright is credited, November
8, 1828, by 426 lbs. seed eotton at
$2 per hundred.
Thomas Dozier, Senr., is credited,
Dec. 5, 1828, by “wheat and flour,
SIL
Henry W. Massengale is credited
on Oct. 31, 1828, by “75 lbs. seed
cotton, $1.50.”
Comparing all these prices with
those of the present it will be seen
that the variations are remarkable.
Many things are no cheaper today
than they were then. Allowing for
the difference in the quality of the
goods, very few of the articles named
are really any lower now than then.
The calico, jeans, blankets and
shoes of that day were very different
goods from the calico, jeans, blankets
and shoes of today.
One of the interesting things about
this old account-book is that it con
tain* an account against Mrs. Martha
Ball—whose husband was thq real
inventor of the cotton-gin,
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
Fulton was not the inventor of the
steamboat though he gets the credit
of it; Howe was not the real inven
tor of the printing-press which bears
his name, nor was Eli Whitney the
real inventor of the cotton-gin,
though he gets the credit of it.
T. E. W.
SAW NAPOLEON’S RETREAT.
Remarkable Career of Man Who Has
Reached the Age of 105.
One hundred and five years old,
Rabbi Barnett Wolnisky, on Sun
day night at his gread-grand
daugtter’s marriage danced the wild
steps of two Russian dances, perform
ing this feat despite a lameness which
compels him to wear one shoe with
a sole an inch thicker than that of
the other.
His eyes, that watched Napoleon’s
broken legions straggle westward
again in the Russian snows ninety
five years ago, shone as brightly on
fifty-four of Rabbi Wolnisky’s de
scendants on Sunday night. His legs
which carried him briskly in boyish
panic from the French soldiers in
1812, twinkled almost as merrily in
Forsyth street in 1907, as he pranced
with his great-great-grandchildren in
the Zeide mit die Einiklach and later
broke into the wild rhythm of the
Komarishki.
The only thing that tired Rabbi
Wolnisky on Sunday night was the
length of time he had to go without
his pipe. He smokes before he gets
up, he smokes all day and he smokes
after he goes to bed. He had plenty
of tea at the wedding, where he per
formed his remarkable terpsichorean
feats, however, and he needed it, for
his daily quota is about forty big
glasses, brewed strong, and taken
without milk. He drinks no water
and no liquor as a rule, though he
takes both in times of emergency.
One meal daily, consisting of soup,
bread, and a little meat, is his only
food, and is set for him at noon.
Bom in Bobrine, in the state of
Grodno, Russian Poland, he moved
about with his parents in his early
youth, and so came to see the ice
beaten regiments of .the Little Cor
poral falling back from Moscow.
Marrying early, he settled in Anti
pole and traded in liquors, most of
his life in Russia being spent in the
Phinizy & Co.
COTTON FACTORS
Augusta, Georgia
*
HIGH CLASS SECURITIES
Amon ir others, we mention a small block of stock in cne of the largest and most conserva
tive banking institutions in the t-outh, which will increase 460.00 per share in the next year.
This is of interest to large or small investors and will be on the market but a short time. You
wid find this a genuine banrain. Call or write
CHAS. E. THOMPSON, Stocks and Bonds. 204 Equitable Bldg., Atlanta, Ga.
wholesale liquor business. He pros
pered, and twelve children came to
him and his first wife, who died be
fore he left bis Russian home for
America, about twenty-five years
ago, with two sons, thet first of his
family to seek these shores.
Wolnisky’s business ruin in Anti
pole began when Alexander 11. was
assassinated in 1881. Alexander TIT.,
who was by nature inclined to mild
measures, fell under the influence of
the leaders of the old regime, and in
a period of repression which the ac
tivity of the revolutionaries seemed
to demand the Russian soldiery were
more aggressive than ever.
Cor sacks broke into Wolnisky’s
establishment in 1881, drank all they
could swallow, and opened every bar
rel in his well-filled cellar. When
they went on their way he was
ruined. He at once determined to
leave the country.
In the East Side here he was im
mediately recognized as a person of
extraordinary learning, and he was
elected rabbi of the Eldridge Street
Synagogue, which place he held for
many years, retiring only two years
ago upon the death of his second
wife.
Wolnisky’s second wife was twen
ty-two years old when, at the age
bf sixty-five, he married her. They
had fifteen children. He has ninety
twio living direct descendants, of
whom fifty-four are in this city or
state or in New Jersey. The others
are in Russia. His descendants have
been increasing at a rate of twelve
a year for two or three years. He
knows the name of every one of
them and never forgets their birth
days.
He rises every morning at 4 o’clock
and has a few glasses of tea and a
pipeful of Mohoke tobacco, import
ed from Russia, for breakfast. He
uses three pipes, one for the street,
one for the house and a third for
smoking in bed. This last has a big
bowl and a long stem, the bowl rest
ing on the floor. He has never been
ill, but eight years ago was run down
while crossing Canal street by a fire
chief’s buggy. A wheel passed over
his ankle, breaking the bones, and
when it healed that leg was a trifle
shorter than the other, making it nec
essary to wear on it a shoe with a
very thick sole. —New York Herald.
PAGE ELEVEN