FARMERS' REGISTER— REVIEW OF TilE ESSEX ADDRESS. 



301 



''Who to avoid the drifting snow and driving sleet, 

 would leave the land of pleasant sleigh-rides, and 

 happy winter evenings, to breath tlie sirocco, which 

 sweep's from tJie Gulf of Mexico for weeJis together, 

 up the boiindiess valley, loaded with the fetid exhala- 

 tions of a thousand bayous and swamps?" — p. 14. 



These are mere specimens of the justice done 

 bj- our author to tho great West. We would 

 remark that we have travelled some tens of thous- 

 ands of miles in the W'est, and have not seen any 

 "signs" of what he speaks of; and that during 

 tAvent}^ years residence and travel in the Wes!, 

 Ave never saw a lamily towards whom even chan- 

 ty needed to feel any compassion on account of 

 want of shelter, or fuel, or substantial clothing, or 

 wholesome food. Can the doctor say more oi" Essex 

 County? But the West can defend itself. We 

 feel ourselves called upon, howev"er, to notice more 

 particularly some statements respecting the South. 

 The doctor seems more anxious to say hard things 

 of the South, little as the tide of emigration from 

 New England is towards it, than ol' the West. 

 We regret that he did so; but we have the privi- 

 lege of reply. How could the doctor feel justified in 

 the use of such language as the ibliovving I — 



"Upon better information, I found that instead of rais- 

 ing fine cattle without labor, they could scarcely raise 

 them at all; that their beef was poor, and a Georgia 

 cow scarcely yielded more miik than a New England 

 goat; and that instead of green pastures all the year, 

 grass hardly grows, and they scarcely know what a 

 green pasture is." — ^p. 10. 



Did the doctor know that the finest beeves in the 

 United States were grazed on the South Branch 

 of Potomac, ami that no country produced more 

 fine cattle than the mountainous districts of Vir- 

 ginia, and the upper part of Georgia? Does not 

 the doctor wish he had not written such words ? 

 Every Southron knows such statements to be veiy 

 dill'erent irom his own knowledge. His remarks 

 in regard to the health of the South are not any 

 more fair, tliough more specious and plausible. 

 Hear our author: — 



"Along our southern coast, Virginia, the Carolinas and 

 Georgia, present for the most part, for eighty or one 

 hundred miles from the sea, pine barrens, sandy plains 

 and swamps, abounding in noxious insects, and VLUom- 

 ous reptiles. A single swamp lying in Georgia and 

 Florida, is one hundred and eighty miles in circumfer- 

 ence; and no degree of fertility, or an everlasting sum- 

 mer, could compensate for the pestiferous exhalations, 

 which during many months of the year load every 

 breeze with pestilence and death. Another medical 

 friend, who spent a summer in Charleston, South Caro- 

 lina, informs me that though the city is extremely un- 

 heal th}^ compared with northern cities, yet the country 

 around it, is vastly more so. Very few white people 

 live in, and as few as possible attempt to cross over the 

 level country for sixty or seventy miles back of Charles- 

 ton in summer. To go beyond the ramparts of the 

 city, especially in the night time, is for many months 

 almost certain death ! Now v/liat degree of fertility 

 added to our soil, would compensate for such an atmos- 

 phere?" — p. 11. 



The noxious insects referred to are, we suppose, 

 some more musquitoe^s, and the venemous reptiles 

 mvipt be, we suppose, snakes. We have long re- 

 sided in the South, and although we have never 

 been to London, yet we have been to Boston and 

 to Charleston too. We ha\x also travelled by day 

 and by night, over swamps and rivers and through 



"l ine" woods, (there are no "pine barrens") yet 

 did we never tread upon, nor were Ave ever in 

 danger of bemg bitten by one of the venemous 

 rejitiles. But a large swamp is so terrible to our 

 author ! Especially one in Georgia, "one hundred 

 and eighty miles in circumference ! " seems to 

 be very alarming. Does our author know that 

 swamps in the South contain not stagnant but 

 running water ? If not he ought to learn. Does 

 he know that people of great age are Ibund living 

 all around them ? No portion of the United States 

 can surpass the South in furnishing instances of 

 great longevity. That there are diseases preva- 

 lent in our climate, to which the New England 

 states are very much strangers is certain; but then 

 we generally know how to manage them. One 

 physician in a low county near the Great Dismal 

 Swamp, (be not startled at the name) had in his 

 practice in one year eighty cases of bilious fever, 

 yet did he not lose one patient. Has it never occur- 

 red to the doctor that "the land of pleasant sleigh- 

 rides" was also a land of pining consumptions, 

 mflammatory rheumatisms, unmanageable pleuri- 

 sies, &c. '? AVe know but little of such things in 

 the South. It ought not to be forgotten too, that 

 during the prevalence of diseases peculiar to the 

 South, many of our jieojile travel even to Essex 

 County, and go to Boston too, and when they 

 come home and make speeches before Agricultu- 

 ral Societies, they a,re careful not to tell scare-crow 

 tales about New England. And did net consump 

 tions, &c., drive our Northern brethren to the 

 South sometimes, we fear that such speeches as 

 the one under re\dew would leave us hardly any 

 friends in New England. 



On page 17 of this address is a most unworthy 

 insinuation, viz: that it is a common thing for slave 

 holders to spend their time "at horse races or bar- 

 bacues." Were this true, we are yet to learn that 

 a "sleigh-ride" is less cruel than a "horse race," or 

 that the manners and morals prevalent in "sleigh- 

 rides," exceed in elegance or purity those of a 

 barbacue. We confess ourselves as much op- 

 posed to all frolics as the good people of Essex 

 County can possibly be. But we do consider it 

 unworthy of any prolessional gentleman to be so 

 ignorant of Southern manners and habits, as to 

 sujipose we have in use no modes of employing 

 our leisure time besides those already alluded to, 

 and in addition telling stories in long "happj^ win- 

 ter evenings." If we had learned the language 

 of DowningvHlle, we would saj' that our "dander 

 was raised" v.'hen we read the following: — 



"Over all the Southern countr}^ you might search in 

 vain for an assembly like this. An industrious yeo- 

 manry is there unknown." 



We confess that we felt emotions of a just in- 

 dignation when we read those words. We felt 

 as our autlior would feel if we were to assert the 

 same things respecting Essex County. And yet 

 we could assert it with as much truth as has our 

 author. It is painful to us to notice such looseness 

 and boldness of assertion. Our author's views of 

 sLavciy are as different from what we suppose to 

 be correct. Hear him: — 



"There the taskmaster brandishes his lash, and the 

 slaves labor beneatii a burning sun, curse the race that 

 fatten and luxuriate u])on their toil, and whet the ap- 

 petite of revenge and the scythe of death for a day 

 of future retribution. Fatliers and mothers of New 



