Traits of American Humour Volume 3

Forty years ago, Augusta, Ga., presented a very different appearance from the busy and beautiful city of the present day. Its groceries, stores, and extensive warehouses were few in number, and the large quantities of cotton and other produce, which are still conveyed thither, were transported entirely by waggons. The substantial railroad, which links it with the richest and most beautiful regions of the empire state of the South, was a chimera, not yet conceived in the wild brain of Fancy herself; and many of the improvements, luxuries and refinements, which now make it the second city in the state, were then “in the shell.” Yet, by the honest yeomanry of forty years ago, Augusta was looked upon as Paris and London are now viewed by us. The man who had never been there was a cipher in the community—nothing killed an opinion more surely, nothing stopped the mouth of “argyment” sooner, than the sneering taunt: “Pshaw! you ha’n’t been to Augusty.” The atmosphere of this favoured place was supposed to impart knowledge and wisdom to all who breathed it, and the veriest ass was a Solon, and an umpire, if he could discourse fluently of the different localities, and various wonders, of Augusty. The farmers of the surrounding country paid a yearly visit to Augusta, and having sold their “crap” of the great Southern staple, and laid in their stock of winter necessaries, returned home with something of that holy satisfaction with which the pious Mohammedan turns his face homeward from Mecca. The first step upon arriving in the city was to lay aside their “copperas-coloured,” fabrics of the wife’s or daughter’s loom, and purchase a new suit of “store-clothes.” These were immediately donned, and upon returning home were carefully embalmed, nor again permitted to see the light until the next Sunday at “meetin’,” when the farmer, with head erect and ample shirt-collar, strutted up the aisle, the lion of the occasion, the “observed of all observers” till the next Sabbath, when his neighbour returning with his new suit, plucked off his laurels and twined them green and blooming upon the crown of his own shilling beaver.