154 The Winning of the West 



also a large influx of people drawn from the worst 

 immigrants that perhaps ever were brought to Amer- 

 ica the mass of convict-servants, redemptioners, 

 and the like, who formed such an excessively unde- 

 sirable substratum to the otherwise excellent popu- 

 lation of the tide-water regions in Virginia and the 

 Carolinas. 54 Many of the Southern Crackers or 

 poor whites spring from this class, which also in the 

 backwoods gave birth to generations of violent and 

 hardened criminals, and to an even greater number 

 of shiftless, lazy, cowardly cumberers of the earth's 

 surface. They had in many places a permanently 

 bad effect upon the tone of the whole community. 



Moreover, the influence of heredity was no 

 more plainly perceptible than was the extent of in- 

 dividual variation. If a member of a bad family 

 wished to reform, he had every opportunity to do 

 so; if a member of a good family had vicious pro- 

 pensities, there was nothing to check them. All 

 qualities, good and bad, are intensified and accentu- 

 ated in the life of the wilderness. The man who in 

 civilization is merely sullen and bad-tempered be- 

 comes a murderous, treacherous ruffian when trans- 

 planted to the wilds; while, on the other hand, his 

 cheery, quiet neighbor develops into a hero, ready 

 uncomplainingly to lay down his life for his friend. 

 One who in an Eastern city is merely a backbiter 

 and slanderer, in the Western woods lies in wait for 



54 See "A Short History of the English Colonies in Amer- 

 ica," by Henry Cabot Lodge (New York, 1886), for an ac- 

 count of these people. 



