SOUTHERN SIDELIGHTS.'

This book is a valuable contribution to the subject of Southern institutions. It is written in a fairly attractive style, and every page gives evidence of faithful research and manifest efforts at impartiality. Nor has Mr. Ingle lacked preparation for the performance of his task. A native of Baltimore and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University, he has latterly found in a successful career as journalist in the city of Washington extraordinary opportunities for prosecuting those studies whose collected results appear in the present volume. He has been able to rescue from many original sources, a mine of the richest material possible relating to life in the South before the war, while copious appendices fairly bristle with statistics of unusual interest and importance. Undoubtedly the book will be read and enjoyed, not only by Southerners, but by people everywhere who are desirous of more thoroughly understanding the civilization of a section that has played a very great rôle in our national history.

Mr. Ingle divides his book into nine chapters of which the most interesting, probably, are those entitled respectively, "Traits of the People," "Phases of Industry," "The Educational Situation," "Literary Aspirations,” “The Peculiar Institution," and "The Crisis."

After describing the various classes in old Southern society our author undertakes to show that although the South was unusually influential in the work of expanding the territory of the United States, that section received only a small portion of the land, relatively speaking, when the partition took place. We think he is not altogether clear

1Southern Sidelights. A picture of social and economic life in the South a generation before the War. By Edward Ingle, A.B. [Library of Economics and Politics.] New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 1896. 8 vo. PP 373.

on this point. Surely the South was part of the country. Nor do we think it is altogether correct to say that the admission of Florida and Texas made no material changes in Southern civilization. The Seminole war appears to have created a decided war spirit in the Southeast, while the aċquisition of the Republic of Texas certainly gave fresh hopes to the slave power by opening up all sorts of opportunities for aggressive movements against Mexico. On these points, however, there is much controversy, and Mr. Ingle's portraiture of the social side of Southern life is, after all, of more importance than his efforts in the field of political history. Nor does he claim that his book is a history.

With regard to the position of women in the Old South, our author gives the traditional view in a style that might be improved: "Southerners held their women in honor and respect, and showed them a deference that was sincere, though having for an outsider, an appearance at times of exaggeration, and which was not always enjoyed by the 'poor white' class. No patience was had with plans to bring women into competition with men in public life; but a generalization of the Pauline advice to the Corinthian Church did not hinder the mother from developing a valuable administrative capacity in domestic affairs, or from exercising a gentle but peaceful sway over husband and sons, while she set the example of virtue and modesty for the daughters." On the other hand, the men of the South, accustomed to life in the open air and skilled in the use of arms, were self-reliant and martial, while the nature of their occupations tended to make them honorable rather than calculating. Hospitality was universal; but, of course, it was more noticeable in the country than in the towns.

Mr. Ingle calls cotton, sugar, and tobacco the Southern trinity, the first of which was king. Curiously enough, the introduction of the fleecy staple and that of slavery were almost coeval, while the invention of the cotton-gin created the destiny of the South. Our author has some well-considered remarks on Southern agricultural history; but we think

that if he had explained more fully the lack of means of communication in the South, the explanation of the suprem

acy

of cotton would have been more obvious. It could always be sold, or in the language of the plantation, "it was as good as gold." And ready money was needed, for the South had in colonial days been taught to seek its supplies abroad, and this dependence was continued when the North took the place of the mother-country.

Then, again, Mr. Ingle might have found in climatic influences important factors that entered into the industrial conditions of the Southern States. Each of the great staples was better adapted to the warmer portions of the country than the cooler, and each could be more profitably cultivated on a large scale than on a small one. When capital had once been invested in lands and slaves, it became fixed, and with the development of other regions, could not have been easily put into new industries, even if this had been desired. In spite of these drawbacks, however, the history of the Southern States shows that factories of one sort and another sprang up in many parts of the South. There were machine-shops in Virginia, cotton-mills in South Carolina and in Georgia, salt-works in Florida, a bagging factory in Louisville, a gingham-mill in Alabama, and paper-mills in several other States. In the matter of wages it is interesting to note that in 1851 the average combined wages of males and females in the cotton-mills of Massachusetts were $46.50 a month, and in South Carolina $22.24. The average for each class, in Mr. Ingle's opinion, was higher in the North than in the South. Curiously enough, it is further pointed out that it was not unusual for manufacturing corporations both to own slaves and to employ them as operatives in the mills. There seems to have been no opposition to employing the whites and the blacks in the same factory, although the two races do not appear to have worked in the same departments. Owing to the predominance of agriculture manufacturing interests languished, and when the latter began to take on new life it

was mainly along lines “requiring limited skill on the part of operatives or employees, such as mining, tanning, lumbering, and other primary transformations of raw material."

Mr. Ingle makes out a better showing for the South in the field of commerce and trade than in that of manufactures, although, as the years passed by, the North outstripped the South in the race for commercial supremacy. Absence of urban conditions of course retarded growth along these lines, and in spite of subscription to railway enterprises and dazzling schemes without number to improve Southern commerce, business could not be much improved in the cities, and planting grew less and less profitable. Another drawback was the imperfect development of the credit system; when so many fortunes were lost in the ruin of State banks one should not be surprised that one or two of the Southwestern States had constitutional prohibitions against. the establishment of banks.

A curious illustration of the gradual substitution of the North for England as a base of supplies for the Southern States is afforded by the following figures taken from Mr. Ingle's book: "Massachusetts in 1790-'91 exported $2,519,651, worth of goods; New York, $2,505,465; Maryland,. $2,239,691; Virginia, $3,131,845; and South Carolina $2,693,268. Within ten years New York had distanced Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and the individual Southern States just mentioned; and within twenty years Maryland had exports as valuable as those of Virginia and South Carolina combined. In 1815-'16 New York again was far in advance of the other States, South Carolina showed a tendency to regain its old position of equality with Maryland and Virginia, and the second of those neighboring States was ahead of the first." In the same period there was noticeable a great development of the coastwise trade. But the agricultural character of the South made it become more and more dependent upon other sections, industrially and commercially. Yet it is singular to find that in those States. where commerce, manufactures, and agriculture were more

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evenly balanced, there does not appear to have been as great a desire for political independence of the North as elsewhere.

Turning now to less material matters, one should not be surprised to find in a country as sparsely settled as the South was, where tutors were largely in vogue, and where, in colonial days particularly, it was customary among the wealthier planters to send their sons to school and college in England, that popular education was for a long time at a very low ebb. It was found, for example, in 1840 that sixty-three per cent. of the illiteracy of the country among adult whites was in the South. But in the several explanations of this unfortunate phenomenon Mr. Ingle sees encouragement rather than discouragement. History shows that the South was interested in the cause of education, and although the free school system was rather imperfectly developed, various academies, colleges, and universities indicated a concern for education. Some of these universities, like those of Virginia and North Carolina, for instance, exerted a great influence; and their strength was much increased when the love of section, becoming stronger than that of country, caused many parents to remove their sons from colleges in the North and to place them in Southern institutions. No reference, it may be remarked, is made to the South Carolina college, which stood very high before the war.

Public libraries amounted to very little in the Old South, and even now they do not appear to be much appreciated; but this was doubtless the result of the absence of town-life. One should remember, however, that private libraries, on the other hand, were both numerous and valuable. Among the collections of books to which the public had access, Mr. Ingle mentions those of the Petersburg Library Association, the Savannah Library Association, the Charleston Library Association, and the Apprentices' Library of the same city. The showing of the South was very poor, if we are to accept the statement that in 1860, of the 27,730 libraries of a public nature in the United States,