The Iron Furnace or Slavery and Secession (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1863. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VII. SOUTHERN CLASSES--CRUELTY TO SLAVES. Sandhillers--Dirt-eating--Dipping--Their Mode of LivingPatois---Rain-book--Wife-trade--Coming in to see the Cars--Superstition--Marriage' of Kinsfolks--Hardshell Sermon--Causes which lead to the Degradation of this Class--Efforts to Reconcile the Poor Whites to the Peculiar Institution--The Slaveholding Class--The Middle Class--Northern Isms--Incident at a Methodist Minister's House--Question asked a Candidate for Licensure--Reason of Southern Hatred toward the North--Letter to Mr. Jackman--Barbarities and Cruelties of Slavery--Mulattoes--Old Cole--Child Born at Whipping-post--Advertisement of a Keeper of Bloodhounds--Getting Rid of Free Blacks--The Doom of Slavery--Methodist Church South. The sojourner in the Slave States is struck with the wretched and degraded appearance of a class of people called by the slaveholders, "poor white folks/' and "the tallow-faced gentry/' from their pallid complexion. They live in wretched hovels, dress slatternly, and are exceedingly filthy in their habits. Many of them are clay or dirt-eaters, which is said to cause their peculiar complexion. Their children, at a very early age, form this filthy and disgusting habit; and mere infants may be found with their mouths filled with dirt. The mud with which they daub the interstices between the logs of their rude domicils, must be frequently renewed, as the occupants pick it all out in a very short time, and eat it. This pernicious practice induces disease. The complexion becomes pale, similar to that occasioned by chronic agiie and fever. Akin to this is the practice of snuff-dipping, which is not confined exclusively to females of the poor white caste, though scarcely one in fifty of this class is exempt from the disgusting h...