62 JEALOUSY OF WEALTH. [CHAP. XXIV. 



him personally, have a vulgar jealousy of his riches, and take for 

 granted that his pride must be great in proportion. In a recent 

 election for Clarke county, the popular candidate admitted the up 

 right character and high qualifications of his opponent, an old friend 

 of his own, and simply dwelt on his riches as a sufficient ground 

 for distrust. &quot;A rich man,&quot; he said, &quot; can not sympathize with 

 the poor.&quot; Even the anecdotes I heard, which may have been 

 mere inventions, convinced me how intense was this feeling. One, 

 who had for some time held a seat in the Legislature finding him 

 self in a new canvass deserted by many of his former supporters, 

 observed that he had always voted strictly according to his instruc 

 tions. &quot; Do you think,&quot; answered a former partisan, &quot;that they 

 would vote for you, after your daughter came to the ball in them 

 fixings ?&quot; His daughter, in fact, having been at Mobile, had had 

 a dress made there with flounces, according to the newest Parisian 

 fashion, and she had thus sided, as it were, with the aristocracy 

 of the city, setting itself up above the democracy of the pine woods. 

 In the new settlements there the small proprietors, or farmers, are 

 keenly jealous of thriving lawyers, merchants, and capitalists. One 

 of the candidates for a county in Alabama confessed to me that he 

 had thought it good policy to go every where on foot when soli 

 citing votes, though he could have commanded a horse, and the 

 distances were great. That the young lady, whose &quot;fixings&quot; I 

 have alluded to, had been ambitiously in the fashion, I make no 

 doubt ; for my wife found that the cost of making up a dress at 

 Mobile was twenty dollars, or four times the ordinary London 

 price ! The material costs about the same as in London or Paris, 

 At New Orleans the charge for making a gown is equally high. 

 I often rejoiced, in this excursion, that we had brought no 

 servants with us from England, so strong is the prejudice here 

 against what they term a white body-servant. Besides, it would 

 be unreasonable to expect any one, who is not riding his own 

 hobby, to rough it in the backwoods. In many houses I hesi 

 tated to ask for water or towels, for fear of giving offense, 

 although the yeoman with whom I lodged for the night allowed 

 me to pay a moderate charge for my accommodation. Nor 

 could I venture to beg any one to rub a thick coat of mud off 



