"So?—O yes, perhaps, but not zis country."
"What are you?"
"Italian."
"Do you live here?"
"Yes."
"Are there many Italians in Natchez?"
"Yes—some many—seven. All big dam rascaal. Yes. Ha! ha! ha! True. Dam rascaal all of us."
"What do you do for a living here?"
"For me it is a cigar-store; fruit; confectionary."
"And the rest?"
"Oh, everytzing. I don't expect dem be here so much long now."
"Why—what will they do?"
"Dey all go to Cuba. Be vawr zair soon now. All go. All dam rascaal go, can go, ven ze vawr is. Good ting dat for Natchez, eh? Yes, I tzink."
He told me the names of the players; the violinist, an Italian, he asserted to be the best in America. He resided in Natchez, I understood, as a teacher; and, I presume, the town has metropolitan advantages for instruction in all fashionable accomplishments. Yet, with a population of 18,601, the number of children registered for the public schools and academies, or "Institutes," of the county seat, is but 1,015; and among these must be included many sent from other parts of the State, and from Arkansas and Louisiana; the public libraries contain but 2,000 volumes, and the churches seat but 7,700.[1]
Franklin, the next county in the rear of the county in
- ↑ This may be compared with the town of Springfield, county of Sangammon, Illinois, in which, with a population of 19,228 (nearer to that of Natchez than any other town I observe in the Free States), the number of registered school children is 3,300, the public libraries contain 20,000 volumes, and the churches can accommodate 28,000 sitters.
