and wild cats were chased by parties of hunters, who kept hounds of Irish and English blood. In the contiguous counties of Dallas, Greene, Lowndes and Montgomery, race courses were maintained, and from the plantations of the Goldsbys, Hunters and Spragues, the Witherses and Tayloes, descendants of Diomede and Glencoe, of Margrave and Chateau Margaux came for public trials ere setting out for entrance at Mobile, New Orleans and Charleston, where they were sure to win laurels. Nobody was in a hurry. In all the land food, raiment and cover overhead were secure to every soul alive. The repose of society arose from its security, and not from lethargy. But of all social pleasures, that of exchange of visits, irregular, and unannounced in advance, between families, to continue for a day or a week, spent with music, riding and dancing, was most important. Never was there a higher school for personal conscience and truthfulness than in this universal habit of the people. A more arid abode for selfishness or "ism" could not be found. A common standard of good breeding could alone qualify the individual, man or woman, to make a friend's house his or her home for a time limited only by the individual's capacity to entertain and be entertained. There were other incentives, also, to the peculiar individuality of the people. Each home was complete within itself. A co-partnership in cotton planting was exceedingly rare, each planter operating on his own account a business dependent on his own energy and tact, and skies overhead. all people of enterprise and wealth, these were the most sincere, the most faithful to their business obligations, and least tempted to be untrue. They had nothing for barter among themselves. A wagon load of cotton bales, bound for a distant market, was the only contribution to the market, except two loads or more. He who sold beef or butter sprung a suspicion of economy incompatible with that hospitality which would not count the cost, and thus impeached community rights. So it came about that politics became a subject of personal belief. There was neither barter nor trade involved in political opinion. To belittle a gentleman's politics was a direct impeachment of his intellect, or an aspersion cast upon his honor. So came about the resort to the duello, with its known technicalities, its deliberate averments, protestations and delays

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