THE NORTH CAROLINA RAILWAY AND THE ASYLUMS.
A. D. 1845.
No single year in human records has been more prolific of
change and social advancement than that which witnessed the
overthrow of King Louis Phillipe in France and the general
upheaval of all Europe. It seemed that the spirits of the
sixteenth century had revisited the earth, and that men were
everywhere resolved on revolution or amendment.
1848.
2. North Carolina formed no exception to this general impulse of
Christendom. A wise and patriotic disregard of old sectional and
party traditions first led to the assumption by the State of a
controlling part in the great work of internal improvement. The
railroads that had been previously constructed from different
points to Roanoke River, were all in a deplorable condition.
3. The Raleigh and Gaston route was so decayed and impaired in
its equipments that a whole day was consumed in the passage of a
mail train over the eighty miles traversed. The Seaboard route
to Portsmouth, Virginia, was prostrate and out of use. The
Wilmington Road, though it was in somewhat better plight, was
still served by feeble engines, which drew a few trains slowly
along the track, ironed no more heavily than the wheels of a six-
horse wagon.
4. The additional fact that no railway went further west than the
village of Raleigh, also prevented the accumulation of such
travel and traffic as to repay the outlay of construction and
equipment. The Wilmington Road furnished the great route between
the North and South, and in that way won richer returns than
lines leading to the interior.
5. The long deferred hopes of Western North Carolina were at last
to be realized. Ex-Governor Morehead and others besought the
Legislature for the State's aid in a great line which should
connect Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh and Goldsboro. This was
to be called the "North Carolina Railroad," and was to be two
hundred and forty miles long.
6. Eastern men, as a general thing, opposed this bill, but it was
earnestly supported by William S. Ashe, of New Hanover, and
others, in the House of Representatives; and, having passed that
body, it was sent to the Senate. The vote in the upper House
resulted in a tie. Calvin Graves, of Caswell, was Speaker. He
had been a life-long Democrat, and knew that the people of his
County were opposed to the State's aiding the proposed road, but
he nobly discharged what he thought to be his duty, and, by his
casting vote, the bill became a law.
7. This great step in building up the material prosperity of the
Commonwealth did not satisfy the desires of this memorable
Assembly. Measures that had been adopted at the previous session
for the establishment of an institution for the education of the
deaf, dumb and the blind children of the State were extended;
and, at the earnest solicitation of Miss Dorothea Dix, of New
York, a further appropriation was made for the erection of a
hospital for the insane.
8. Miss Dix devoted her life to the amelioration of this
unfortunate class of people. In North Carolina, as generally in
the Republic, there had been no better disposition of lunatics
than their confinement in the loathsome dungeons of county jails.
Numbers who might have been restored to reason and usefulness
were, in this way, condemned to the horrors of perpetual
insanity. Instead of the comforts, kindness and restoration now
to be found in the management of the Insane Asylums, the poor
lunatic lay in chains in the murderer's cell and howled out his
life amid the darkness and foetid exhalations of the hell to
which he was doomed.
9. North Carolina was thus manfully meeting the requirements of
both civilization and humanity; for as the condition of their
highways affords the truest test of a people's advancement in
civilization, so, also does the provision made for the care and
comfort of the unfortunate and helpless afford the highest
evidence of a people's progress in humanity.
10. In this memorable session of 1848-49, a still further
exemplification of the wisdom of the North Carolina Legislature
was seen in their statute for the protection of married women.
Before that time the husband acquired by marriage absolute title
to his wife's personal estate and a life interest in her real
property, and these interests he could sell without her consent.
He could also restrain her of her personal liberty.
11. The statute of this year provided that the husband's interest
in the wife's lands should not be subject to sale by the husband
without her full and free consent and joinder in the conveyance.
This was to be attested by a privy examination and certificate
appended to the deed conveying such lands.
12. A further much needed improvement took place when the ancient
English rules allowing the husband the right of personal
chastisement were also abolished, and this infamous badge of
inferiority numbered among the things of the past.
13. There have been periods in the history of all communities
when extraordinary development was witnessed. The overthrow of
one ancient abuse leads to the correction of another; and thus,
in the awakening sympathies of the hour, reformations give way to
a new and higher humanity.
QUESTIONS.
1. What is this lesson about? What is said of the period now reached?
2. How was North Carolina feeling the general impulse of improvement?
3. In what condition were the railroads?
4. How far west were the railroads reaching? Which of the roads
was obtaining most travel?
5. What important railway is now mentioned? What was to be its extent?
6. Can you describe the passage of the "Railroad Bill" through the Legislature?
7. What charitable institutions were provided for at this
session? Through whose instrumentality was the appropriation
made for the Insane Asylum?
8. What devotion did Miss Dix give to this subject? What had
been the disposition of the insane before this?
9. What is said of these internal improvements?
10. What other important law was enacted at this session? Can
you tell something of the rights of married women previous to
this time?
11. What were the provisions of the new law?
12. What was indicated by these acts of the State?
13. What reflections are made upon this era?