Show mississippi DR A boon to me meny ny poor beope who live along the bennies A alight slight itse in the mississippi up in n kentucky Xen tucky said an old river man la Is a blessing to many of the poorer classes of njg city A three inch rise up above brings down a vast of driftwood and at the floating docks of at the ferry landings great batts are formed you actu see the boya boys every evening armed alth with ions long poles with a spike in one end and a coll coil of 0 ropo at the other end spearing the gund places pl cee of timber just as a whaler harpoons a whale they grow particularly espert epert and I 1 one boy a lay or two ago who could hit a log la in the center the first throw and bring it to b bk bink ink this meant a supply of fuel many of the parents of these little ones cannot buy the fuel necessary essary to keep them warm and the river furnishes it sometimes and sometimes it does not much of the timber has been freshly cut and left by the cutters over night when the river comes along rod lands it here I 1 saw two fine ash logs yesterday enough to keep a family going tor for a week and the water had bad scarcely soaked through tho bark of planks there Is 19 a great plenty and also some barrels and all kinds of things the river la Is no respecter of timber or persons for that matter and bringa down the farmers barrel halt half filled with pork just as readily as a waterlogged water logged and useless trunk of a cypress tree it has often been a source of wonderment to me we how many people do actu actually ill live from the products of the river I 1 have never seen the figures agures as to what proportion at 0 the population of the 1 valley talley subsist on or fish and eft their wood from the overflows I 1 bate been from st paul to new orleans bevar timea times and at all of the river tows tow s you will find tha boys ready for the overflow season this however ap plies 11 more particularly to the section ot of the river below st louis but all along there Is toe we fishing industry less of it here than elsewhere because of the proximity of salt water but above here it Is a nourishing flourishing business seeing the boys spearing reminds me of the case of a man who agreed to pay the negro fifty cec a a day if it he would collect driftwood tor for him him the negro worked faithfully and the man was selling the timber at a big profit of course finally at the end of two yera ye ra after the white man had grown too proud and too well off oft to work the negro found he had just the same right to the timber the while white man had and he was the maddest creatura creature in the boundaries of the united states he Is not over it ae you in tact fact he was so disgusted be he will not catch wood even tor for himself A mans woman Is 1 the kind that can ran take ba hie into camp whenever she feels like it |