has survived so many vicissitudes and calamities, and entered upon
an extraordinary career of prosperity, is sufficient evidence of the
territorial necessity of a large city just at this point on the river.
The student of social science will find in its history a striking
illustration of the relation of sound sanitary and business conditions
to order and morality. Before the war, and for some time after it,
Memphis was a place for trade in one staple, where fortunes were quickly
made and lost, where no attention was paid to sanitary laws. The cloud
of impending pestilence always hung over it, the yellow-fever was always
a possibility, and a devastating epidemic of it must inevitably be
reckoned with every few years. It seems to be a law of social life that
an epidemic, or the probability of it, engenders a recklessness of life
and a low condition of morals and public order. Memphis existed, so to
speak, on the edge of a volcano, and it cannot be denied that it had a
reputation for violence and disorder. While little or nothing was done
to make the city clean and habitable, or to beautify it, law was weak
in its mobile, excitable population, and differences of opinion were
settled by the revolver. In spite of these disadvantages, the profits of
trade were so great there that its population of twenty thousand at the
close of the war had doubled by 1878. In that year the yellow-fever came
as an epidemic, and so increased in 1879 as nearly to depopulate the
city; its population was reduced from nearly forty thousand to about
fourteen thousand, two-thirds of which were negroes; its commerce was
absolutely cut off, its manufactures were suspended, it was bankrupt.
There is nothing more unfortunate for a State or a city than loss of
financial credit. Memphis struggled in vain with its enormous debt,
unable to pay it, unable to compromise it.
Under these circumstances the city resorted to a novel expedient.
It surrendered its charter to the State, and ceased to exist as a
municipality. The leaders of this movement gave two reasons for it, the
wish not to repudiate the city debt, but to gain breathing-time, and
that municipal government in this country is a failure. The Legislature
erected the former Memphis into The Taxing District of Shelby County,
and provided a government for it. This government consists of a
Legislative Council of eight members, made up of the Board of Fire
and Police Commissioners, consisting of three, and the Board of Public
Works, consisting of five. These are all elected by popular vote to
serve a term of four years, but the elections are held every two years,
so that the council always contains members who have had experience. The
Board of Fire and Police Commissioners elects a President, who is the
executive officer of the Taxing District, and has the power and duties
of a mayor; he has a salary of $2000, inclusive of his fees as police
magistrate, and the other members of his board have salaries of $500.
The members of the Board of Public Works serve without compensation. No
man can be eligible to either board who has not been a resident of
the district for five years. In addition there is a Board of Health,
appointed by the council. This government has the ordinary powers of
a city government, defined carefully in the Act, but it cannot run the
city in debt, and it cannot appropriate the taxes collected except for
the specific purpose named by the State Legislature, which specific
appropriations are voted annually by the Legislature on the
recommendation of the council. Thus the government of the city is
committed to eight men, and the execution of its laws to one man, the
President of the Taxing District, who has extraordinary power. The final
success of this scheme will be watched with a great deal of interest
by other cities. On the surface it can be seen that it depends upon
securing a non-partisan council, and an honest, conscientious President
of the Taxing District—that is to say, upon the choice by popular vote
of the best eight men to rule the city. Up to this time, with only
slight hitches, it has worked exceedingly well, as will appear in a
consideration of the condition of the city. The slight hitch mentioned
was that the President was accused of using temporarily the sum
appropriated for one city purpose for another.
The Supreme Court of the United States decided that Memphis had not
evaded its obligations by a change of name and form of government. The
result was a settlement with the creditors at fifty cents on the dollar;
and then the city gathered itself together for a courageous effort and a
new era of prosperity. The turning-point in its career was the adoption
of a system of drainage and sewerage which transformed it immediately
into a fairly healthful city. With its uneven surface and abundance of
water at hand, it was well adapted to the Waring system, which works
to the satisfaction of all concerned, and since its introduction
the inhabitants are relieved from apprehension of the return of a
yellow-fever epidemic. Population and business returned with this sense
of security, and there has been a change in the social atmosphere
as well. In 1880 it had a population of less than 34,000; it can now
truthfully claim between 75,000 and 80,000; and the business activity,
the building both of fine business blocks and handsome private
residences, are proportioned to the increase in inhabitants. In 1879-80
the receipt of cotton was 409,809 bales, valued at $23,752,529; in
1886-87, 603,277 bales, valued at $30,099,510. The estimate of the Board
of Trade for 1888, judging from the first months of the year, is 700,000
bales. I notice in the comparative statement of leading articles of
commerce and consumption an exceedingly large increase in 1887 over
1886. The banking capital in 1887 was $3,300,000—an increase of
$1,560,000 over 1886. The clearings were $101,177,377 in 1877, against
$82,642,192 in 1880.
The traveller, however, does not need figures to convince him of the
business activity of the town; the piles of cotton beyond the capacity
of storage, the street traffic, the extension of streets and residences
far beyond the city limits, all speak of growth. There is in process of
construction a union station to accommodate the six railways now meeting
there and others projected. On the west of the river it has lines to
Kansas City and Little Rock and to St. Louis; on the east, to Louisville
and to the Atlantic seaboard direct, and two to New Orleans. With the
building of the bridge, which is expected to be constructed in a
couple of years, Memphis will be admirably supplied with transportation
facilities.
As to its external appearance, it must be said that the city has grown
so fast that city improvements do not keep pace with its assessable
value. The inability of the city to go into debt is a wholesome
provision, but under this limitation the city offices are shabby,
the city police quarters and court would disgrace an indigent country
village, and most of the streets are in bad condition for want of
pavement. There are fine streets, many attractive new residences, and
some fine old places, with great trees, and the gravelled pikes running
into the country are in fine condition, and are favorite drives. There
is a beautiful country round about, with some hills and pleasant
woods. Looked at from an elevation, the town is seen to cover a
large territory, and presents in the early green of spring a charming
appearance. Some five miles out is the Montgomery race-track, park,
and club-house—a handsome establishment, prettily laid out and planted,
already attractive, and sure to be notable when the trees are grown.
The city has a public-school system, a Board of Education elected by
popular vote, and divides its fund fairly between schools for white and
colored children. But it needs good school-houses as much as it needs
good pavements. In 1887 the tax of one and a half mills produced $54,000
for carrying on the schools, and $19,000 for the building fund. It was
not enough—at least $75,000 were needed. The schools were in debt. There
is a plan adopted for a fine High-school building, but the city needs
altogether more money and more energy for the public schools. According
to some reports the public schools have suffered from politics, and are
not as good as they were years ago, but they are undoubtedly gaining in
public favor, notwithstanding some remaining Bourbon prejudice against
them. The citizens are making money fast enough to begin to be liberal
in matters educational, which are only second to sanitary measures in
the well-being of the city. The new free Public Library, which will be
built and opened in a couple of years, will do much for the city in this
direction. It is the noble gift of the late F. H. Cossitt, of New York,
formerly a citizen of Memphis, who left $75,000 for that purpose.
Perhaps the public schools of Memphis would be better (though not so
without liberal endowment) if the city had not two exceptionally good
private schools for young ladies. These are the Clara Conway Institute
and the Higby School for Young Ladies, taking their names from their
principals and founders. Each of these schools has about 350 pupils,
from the age of six to the mature age of graduation, boys being admitted
until they are twelve years old. Each has pleasant grounds and fine
buildings, large, airy, well planned, with ample room for all the
departments—literature, science, art, music—of the most advanced
education. One finds in them the best methods of the best schools, and a
most admirable spirit. It is not too much to say that these schools
give distinction to Memphis, and that the discipline and intellectual
training the young ladies receive there will have a marked effect upon
the social life of the city. If one who spent some delightful hours in
the company of these graceful and enthusiastic scholars, and who would
like heartily to acknowledge their cordiality, and his appreciation of
their admirable progress in general study, might make a suggestion, it
would be that what the frank, impulsive Southern girl, with her inborn
talent for being agreeable and her vivid apprehension of life, needs
least of all is the cultivation of the emotional, the rhetorical, the
sentimental side. However cleverly they are done, the recitation of
poems of sentiment, of passion, of lovemaking and marriage, above all,
of those doubtful dialect verses in which a touch of pseudo-feeling
is supposed to excuse the slang of the street and the vulgarity of the
farm, is not an exercise elevating to the taste. I happen to speak of
it here, but I confess that it is only a text from which a little sermon
might be preached about “recitations” and declamations generally, in
these days of overdone dialect and innuendoes about the hypocrisy of
old-fashioned morality.
The city has a prosperous college of the Christian Brothers, another
excellent school for girls in the St. Agnes Academy, and a colored
industrial school, the Lemoyne, where the girls are taught cooking and
the art of house-keeping, and the boys learn carpentering. This does not
belong to the public-school system.
Whatever may be the opinion about the propriety of attaching industrial
training to public schools generally, there is no doubt that this sort
of training is indispensable to the colored people of the South, whose
children do not at present receive the needed domestic training at
borne, and whose education must contribute to their ability to earn
a living. Those educated in the schools, high and low, cannot all be
teachers or preachers, and they are not in the way of either social
elevation or thrifty lives if they have neither a trade nor the taste to
make neat and agreeable homes. The colored race cannot have it too often
impressed upon them that their way to all the rights and privileges
under a free government lies in industry, thrift, and morality. Whatever
reason they have to complain of remaining discrimination and prejudice,
there is only one way to overcome both, and that is by the acquisition
of property and intelligence. In the history of the world a people
were never elevated otherwise. No amount of legislation can do it. In
Memphis—in Southern cities generally—the public schools are impartially
administered as to the use of money for both races. In the country
districts they are as generally inadequate, both in quality and in the
length of the school year. In the country, where farming and domestic
service must be the occupations of the mass of the people, industrial
schools are certainly not called for; but in the cities they are a
necessity of the present development.
Ever since Memphis took itself in hand with a new kind of municipal
government, and made itself a healthful city, good-fortune of one kind
and another seems to have attended it. Abundant water it could get from
the river for sewerage purposes, but for other uses either extensive
filters were needed or cisterns were resorted to. The city was supplied
with water, which the stranger would hesitate to drink or bathe in, from
Wolf River, a small stream emptying into the Mississippi above the city.
But within the year a most important discovery has been made for
the health and prosperity of the town. This was the striking, in the
depression of the Gayoso Bayou, at a depth of 450 feet, perfectly
pure water, at a temperature of about 62°, in abundance, with a head
sufficient to bring it in fountains some feet about the level of the
ground. Ten wells had been sunk, and the water flowing was estimated at
ten millions of gallons daily, or half enough to supply the city. It
was expected that with more wells the supply would be sufficient for
all purposes, and then Memphis will have drinking water not excelled in
purity by that of any city in the land. It is not to be wondered at that
this incalculable good-fortune should add buoyancy to the business, and
even to the advance in the price, of real estate. The city has widely
outgrown its corporate limits, there is activity in building and
improvements in all the pleasant suburbs, and with the new pavements
which are in progress, the city will be as attractive as it is
prosperous.
Climate is much a matter of taste. The whole area of the alluvial land
of the Mississippi has the three requisites for malaria—heat, moisture,
and vegetable decomposition. The tendency to this is overcome, in a
measure, as the land is thoroughly drained and cultivated. Memphis has
a mild winter, long summer, and a considerable portion of the year
when the temperature is just about right for enjoyment. In the table
of temperature for 1887 I find that the mean was 61.9°, the mean of the
highest by months was 84.9°, and the mean lowest was 37.4°. The coldest
month was January, when the range of the thermometer was from 72.2° to
4.3°, and the hottest was July, when the range was from 99° to 67.30.
There is a preponderance of fair, sunny weather. The record for 1887
was: 157 days of clear, 132 fair, 65 cloudy, 91 days of frost. From this
it appears that Memphis has a pretty agreeable climate for those who do
not insist upon a good deal of “bracing,” and it has a most genial and
hospitable society.
Early on the morning of the 12th of April we crossed the river to the
lower landing of the Memphis and Little Rock Railway, the upper landing
being inaccessible on account of the high water. It was a delicious
spring morning, the foliage, half unfolded, was in its first flush of
green, and as we steamed down the stream the town, on bluffs forty feet
high, was seen to have a noble situation. All the opposite country for
forty miles from the river was afloat, and presented the appearance of
a vast swamp, not altogether unpleasing in its fresh dress of green. For
forty miles, to Madison, the road ran upon an embankment just above the
flood; at intervals were poor shanties and little cultivated patches,
but shanties, corn patches, and trees all stood in the water. The
inhabitants, the majority colored, seemed of the sort to be content with
half-amphibious lives. Before we reached Madison and crossed St. Francis
River we ran through a streak of gravel. Forest City, at the crossing of
the Iron Mountain Railway, turned out to be not exactly a city, in the
Eastern meaning of the word, but a considerable collection of
houses, with a large hotel. It seemed, so far in the wilderness, an
irresponsible sort of place, and the crowd at the station were in
a festive, hilarious mood. This was heightened by the playing of a
travelling band which we carried with us in the second-class car, and
which good-naturedly unlimbered at the stations. It consisted of a
colored bass-viol, violin, and guitar, and a white cornet. On the way
the negro population were in the majority, all the residences were
shabby shanties, and the moving public on the trains and about the
stations had not profited by the example of the commercial travellers,
who are the only smartly dressed people one sees in these regions.
A young girl who got into the car here told me that she came from
Marianna, a town to the south, on the Languille River, and she seemed
to regard it as a central place. At Brinkley we crossed the St. Louis,
Arkansas, and Texas road, ran through more swamps to the Cache River,
after which there was prairie and bottom-land, and at De Valle’s Bluff
we came to the White River. There is no doubt that this country is
well watered. After White River fine reaches of prairie-land were
encountered—in fact, a good deal of prairie and oak timber. Much of
this prairie had once been cultivated to cotton, but was now turned to
grazing, and dotted with cattle. A place named Prairie Centre had been
abandoned; indeed, we passed a good many abandoned houses before we
reached Carlisle and the Galloway. Lonoke is one of the villages of
rather mean appearance, but important enough to be talked about and
visited by the five aspirants for the gubernatorial nomination, who were
travelling about together, each one trying to convince the people that
the other four were unworthy the office. This is lowland Arkansas,
supporting a few rude villages, inhabited by negroes and unambitious
whites, and not a fairly representative portion of a great State.
At Argenta, a sort of railway and factory suburb of the city, we crossed
the muddy, strong-flowing Arkansas River on a fine bridge, elevated so
as to strike high up on the bluff on which Little Rock is built. The
rock of the bluff, which the railway pierces, is a very shaly slate. The
town lying along the bluff has a very picturesque appearance, in spite
of its newness and the poor color of its brick. The situation is a noble
one, commanding a fine prospect of river and plain, and mountains to the
west rising from the bluff on a series of gentle hills, with conspicuous
heights farther out for public institutions and country houses. The
eity, which has nearly thirty thousand inhabitants, can boast a number
of handsome business streets with good shops and an air of prosperous
trade, with well-shaded residence streets of comfortable houses; but
all the thoroughfares are bad for want of paving, Little Rock being
forbidden by the organic law ( as Memphis is ) to run in debt for city
improvements. A city which has doubled its population within eight
years, and been restrained from using its credit, must expect to suffer
from bad streets, but its caution about debt is reassuring to intending
settlers. The needed street improvements, it is understood, however,
will soon be under way, and the citizens have the satisfaction of
knowing that when they are made, Little Rock will be a beautiful city.
Below the second of the iron bridges which span the river is a bowlder
which gave the name of Little Rock to the town. The general impression
is that it is the first rock on the river above its confluence with
the Mississippi; this is not literally true, but this rock is the first
conspicuous one, and has become historic. On the opposite side of the
river, a mile above, is a bluff several hundred feet high, called Big
Rock. On the summit is a beautiful park, a vineyard, a summer hotel, and
pleasure-grounds—a delightful resort in the hot weather. From the top
one gains a fair idea of Arkansas—the rich delta of the river, the
mighty stream itself, the fertile rolling land and forests, the
mountains on the border of the Indian Territory, the fair city,
the sightly prominences about it dotted with buildings—altogether a
magnificent and most charming view.
There is a United States arsenal at Little Rock; the Government
Post-office is a handsome building, and among the twenty-seven churches
there are some of pleasing architecture. The State-house, which
stands upon the bluff overlooking the river, is a relic of old times,
suggesting the easy-going plantation style. It is an indescribable
building, or group of buildings, with classic pillars of course, and
rambling galleries that lead to old-fashioned, domestic-looking State
offices. It is shabby in appearance, but has a certain interior air of
comfort. The room of the Assembly—plain, with windows on three sides,
open to the sun and air, and not so large that conversational speaking
cannot be heard in it—is not at all the modern notion of a legislative
chamber, which ought to be lofty, magnificently decorated, lighted from
above, and shut in as much as possible from the air and the outside
world. Arkansas, which is rapidly growing in population and wealth, will
no doubt very soon want a new State-house. Heaven send it an architect
who will think first of the comfortable, cheerful rooms, and second
of imposing outside display! He might spend a couple of millions on
a building which would astonish the natives, and not give them as
agreeable a working room for the Legislature as this old chamber. The
fashion is to put up an edifice whose dimensions shall somehow represent
the dignity of the State, a vast structure of hall-ways and staircases,
with half-lighted and ill-ventilated rooms. It seems to me that the
American genius ought to be able to devise a capitol of a different
sort, certainly one better adapted to the Southern climate. A group of
connected buildings for the various departments might be better than
one solid parallelogram, and I have a fancy that legislators would be
clearer-headed, and would profit more by discussion, if they sat in a
cheerful chamber, not too large to be easily heard in, and open as much
as possible to the sun and air and the sight of tranquil nature. The
present Capitol has an air of lazy neglect, and the law library which
is stored in it could not well be in a worse condition; but there is
something rather pleasing about the old, easy-going establishment that
one would pretty certainly miss in a smart new building. Arkansas has an
opportunity to distinguish itself by a new departure in State-houses.
In the city are several of the State institutions, most of them
occupying ample grounds with fine sites in the suburbs. Conspicuous
on high ground in the city is the Blind Asylum, a very commodious,
and well-conducted institution, with about 80 inmates. The School
for Deaf-mutes, with 125 pupils, is under very able management. But I
confess that the State Lunatic Asylum gave me a genuine surprise, and if
the civilization of Arkansas were to be judged by it, it would take high
rank among the States. It is a very fine building, well constructed and
admirably planned, on a site commanding a noble view, with eighty
acres of forest and garden. More land is needed to carry out the
superintendent’s idea of labor, and to furnish supplies for the
patients, of whom there are 450, the men and women, colored and white,
in separate wings. The builders seem to have taken advantage of all the
Eastern experience and shunned the Eastern mistakes, and the result
is an establishment with all the modern improvements and conveniences,
conducted in the most enlightened spirit. I do not know a better large
State asylum in the United States. Of the State penitentiary nothing
good can be said. Arkansas is still struggling with the wretched lease
system, the frightful abuses of which she is beginning to appreciate.
The penitentiary is a sort of depot for convicts, who are distributed
about the State by the contractors. At the time of my visit a
considerable number were there, more or less crippled and sick, who had
been rescued from barbarous treatment in one of the mines. A gang were
breaking stones in the yard, a few were making cigars, and the dozen
women in the women’s ward were doing laundry-work. But nothing appeared
to be done to improve the condition of the inmates. In Southern prisons
I notice comparatively few of the “professional” class which so largely
make the population of Northern penitentiaries, and I always fancy that
in the rather easy-going management, wanting the cast-iron discipline,
the lot of the prisoners is not so hard. Thus far among the colored
people not much odium attaches to one of their race who has been in
prison.