Newspaper Page Text
t
I
[Entered at the
in Atlanta, Qa., tor Transportation through the United States Mails
at Second Class Rates. J
twice a
'"'ToWI YOL. m.
ATLANTA, GA., APRIL 15, 1884. . NO. 12.
[FLORIDA] * 1 * * * * * *
ii'
ON THE UPPER ST. JOHN’S.
Florida.
" e Present on this page a picture of the
e egant steamboat Florida, the only one
° the Mississippi river pattern in Flori-
* a - It runs between Palatka and Enter
prise in connection with the Iron Steam-
K>at Line. The St. John’s river is nar
row and crooked, and extremely pictur-
esime. With such a boat as the •‘Flori-
' a to travel in, we do not wonder at
e glowing descriptions by tourists of a
ri P up the St. John’s. Florida was dis
covered on Easter Sunday, and derives
1 s name from the Spanish words for that
a > > I’ascua Floridia or Feast of Flow-
* rs ‘ I* 8 popular name is the Peninsula
j' ate ’ because the greater portion of it
j? r | ns a Peninsula stretching toward the
aiamas, having the Atlantic on one
'' and the Gulf of Mexico on the
.., er ‘ ^ greatest breadth, from the
mi! 1 ? to the p erdido river, is 360
es i its greatest length, 400 miles;
e average breadth of the peninsula
lion, 120 miles; area, 60,000 square
es. Florida was first made known to
ropeans by Ponce de Leon, who land-
near St. Augustine in 1512. The
,andof Flowers” is attracting more
ention every year, and the influx of
mlation and capital increases with
iry season. Florida has a magnificent
iral influence of the Cocoanut.
uch is the quaint title of an article in
May issue of the Popular Science
nthly, by Grant Allen. That distin-
shed author says:
1 But the worst thing about the cocoa-
; palm, the missionaries always say,
he fatal fact that, when once fairly
rted, it goes on bearing fruit uninter-
,tedly for forty years. This is very
moral and wrong of the ill-conditioned
e, because it encourages the idyllic
[ynesian to lie under the palms all
r long, cooling his limbs in these*
lasionally, sporting with Amaryllis w
the shade, or with the tangles of Neiera’s
hair, and waiting for the nuts to drop
down in due time, when he ought (ac
cording to European notions) to be kill
ing himself with hard work under a
blazing sky, raising cotton, sugar, indi
go, and coffee, for the immediate benefit
of the white merchant, and the ultimate
advantage of the British public. It
doesn’t enforce habits of steady industry
and perseverance, the good missionaries
say; it doesn’t induce the native to feel
that burning desire for Manchester piece
goods and the other blessings of civili
zation which ought properly to accom
pany the propaga ionof the missionary
in foreign parts. You stick your nut in
the sand; you sit by a few years and
watch it growing; you pick up the ripe
fruits as they fall from the tree; and you
sell them at last for illimitable red cloth
to the Manchester piece goods merchant.
Nothing could be more simple or more
satisfactory. And yet it is difficult to
see the precise moral distinction between
the owner of a cocoanut grove in the
South Sea Islands and the owner of a
coal mine or a big estate in commercial
England. Each lounges decorously
through life after his own fashion; only
the one lounges in a Russia leather chair
at a club in Pall Mall, while the other
lounges in a nice soft dust heap beside
a rolling surf in Tahiti or the Hawaiian
Archipelago.”
Our young friend, Alex. S. Thweatt,
editor of the Railway and Steamthip Ga
zette, is making a decided success of his
journal. The last issue contains hand
some cuts of conductors Harry Hill, of
the Georgia Railroad; W. D. Sandwich,
of the Atlanta and West Point Railroad,
and B. B. Cubbage, of the Central.
Success to the Gazette and its progressive
editor.
Small farms are in demand. Those
having them for sale will find our col
umns an excellent advertising medium.
