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Valley Virginian: December 4, 1867 Go To Page : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

The True Woman
(Column 07)

Summary: This article describes the "perfect" woman. She who "accepts the place that properly belongs to her in the social system," not those who are "womanly in form but not in spirit" are the best.

Full Text of Article:

Who shall line for us the picture of a true, good woman--the pride and the paragon of her own sex, and the ambition of the other; of the woman young, beautiful, healthful--well-informed, but not pedantic, who can talk well, listen well, sing well, play well, walk well and dress well; who is neither flirt nor pride; who knows neither too much nor too little; whose lips are innocent of slang, and whose heart is pure from evil thought; who is polished in manners, and affectionate in disposition; beloved of the old, the darling of the young; shy, modest, retiring; and commanding all the world's homage, without demanding the homage of anybody?

It must not be considered that the youthfulness of such a woman is absolutely necessary to her loveliness. Youth is a great blessing and a great charm; but, age is also a blessing--do we not wish to grow old? and a great adornment if it be combined with goodness. The beauty of the mind grows with the revolving years, and makes a woman of seventy, with mind and manners and innate gentleness, more beautiful than sweet seventeen can be, if the mind and the manners are wanting, and the tenderness that should be in every womanly heart is displaced by a masculine tone of thought, behavior or conversation.

Though all the women are not such as every man at the poetical period of life has pictured in his imagination, there are thousands in every country who resemble the ideal, if not in accomplishments and education--for these are not within the reach of everyone--yet by outward grace of person, and inward purity of soul. All the flowers that bloom in the fair garden of humanity are not of equal delicacy and brilliancy; for nature, that has room for the magnolia, the lily, has room also for the violet, the bluebell, and the daisy, and loves her humblest children as well as her proudest.

Nothing in the world--at least to the male eye--equals in pleasantness the face and form of a bashful and virtuous woman, looking up to a man for support and guidance, and giving him her true affection in return. Nothing, on the other hand, is more disagreeable than the bold virago, womanly in form but not in spirit, who would storm the citadel of your politeness to extort your homage viret armis, and who, by every movement of her features and glance of her eyes, even if she do not utter a syllable, betrays that she is puffed up with conceit and selfishness, and is too ignorant to distinguish between a churl and a gentleman, or to accept the place that properly belongs to her in the social system.

Our Situation, Vol. 3, No. 1, of the Valley Virginian
(Column 02)

Summary: The editors look back on two years at the Valley Virginian, the political events it has documented as well as the expansion and growth of the paper.

Full Text of Article:

Two years ago the first number of the Valley Virginian was issued. It entered upon its career in times most trying to our people. They had hardly realized that a mighty Revolution was at an end; that our "cause was lost," and that a new race for life--a struggle against fate, had commenced. The Virginian has gone with its people during these two years of "trial and tribulation." It has, with a peculiar pride, noted their heroic struggles, their wonderful energy, and, from week to week, chronicled the almost marvelous recuperation of the Great Valley. It has had its days of gloom and despondency, as its readers have, and it was no easy task to carry a cheerful face and a hearty "God send you speed," to them every week. Still it has grown with them and prospered as they prospered.

In looking back over the two years struggle, we would do injustice to our feelings, did we not express our thanks to a people who have sustained us so generously, and, proudly point them to a subscription list increased from 600 to 1400, to the paper improved, enlarged and reduced in price--an established Institution of the Valley of Virginia.

Questions of great interest to our people will soon be forced upon their attention. The Valley Virginian, in the future as in the past, Independent in all things, "will be devoted to what it considers the best interests of the Valley and of Virginia." Its synopsis of the proceedings of Congress, the "Hunnicut Convention" and other important news will be as full as required, so as not to destroy the usual variety of the paper. We ask but a continuance of the support that has made the Virginian what it is. We will spare no effort to keep it so and improve it.

Our Scallawags
(Column 02)

Summary: This item from the Dispatch suggests that Federal patronage alone is prompting some southern whites to support the rights of African Americans. "If the patronage should be withdrawn, these loyal vagabonds would soon cease to clamor for negro suffrage."

Origin of Article: Dispatch

Appointments of Committee for the Seventh Magisterial District
(Column 02)

Summary: The paper prints the names of men selected by the Conservative Voters of Augusta to serve as vote organizers for the Seventh Magisterial District. Kenton Harper, Superintendent of the District, orders them to organize the voters of each neighborhood by tens, each organizer being responsible for getting his ten men to the polls. The organizers will also register any voters who have not yet done so. "No white man of common intelligence, with the proper instincts of his race, can fail to appreciate the fearful magnitude of the impending crisis. If we neglect the peaceful means in our power to defeat the iniquity meditated against us, history affords no adequate example of the horrors to which we, as a people, will be subjected. Let us be wise then, in time, and exert our utmost energies to avert them."
(Names in announcement: William D. Anderson, I. J. Parkins, William Crawford, William Shumate, John A. Patterson, William Gamble, U. D. Poe, Dr. Trevoy, Samuel Bell, Theophilus Gamble, Thomas Burke, Levi Fishburn, Benjamin Hawkins, Richard Hamrick, John Seawright, Cyrus Brown, Jacob Shreckhise, Bethuel Herring, S. D. Trotter, James Jordan, Dr. William Crawford, Dr. William Bell, William Wilson, Christian Eakle, James Poague, R. A. Curry, Peter Johnston, Courtney Roller, P. Link, W. P. Sheets, Jacob Rollar, Josiah Neff, J. C. Webb, Peter Echard, Frank Farrow, George Calhoon, Peter F. Houff, Joseph N. Woodward, Stuart Crawford, Thomas P. Willson, William Howell, P. Dice, Kenton Harper)

The Associate Continues his Talk with the People of Alleghany. The Question of Labor is the One That Most Concerns Us.
(Column 03)

Summary: This excerpt from the Covington Times argues that African Americans are the best solution to the labor problem. Blacks want material comfort and prosperity, not political rights, the author insists. If southern land owners would only ensure that their tenants can make a decent living, then radicalism will be rejected and both races will live in harmony.

Full Text of Article:

The result of the war brings home to our doors a question which Europe has not been able to solve satisfactorily, after the lapse of ages--the question of free labor.

Slavery is abolished. The negro is free. Our large farms remain, and they must be worked. It can only be done by the importation of foreign, or by making a respectable laborer of the negro. We are for Cuffee. We were raised with him, owned him, respect him. He was true to us in war, and we shall be true to him in peace. What he wants in a state of freedom or slavery is plenty of friend, Bagby's "bacon and greens," and not a "yankee school-marm" with "catechism" and "psalms," and hymns, and spiritual songs, and "wooden-bacon hams," served up with the "right of suffrage." He, to be sure, has become a little spoiled lately, by his associations, but he will soon learn to keep better company, and be a "wiser and better man." Bear with his follies and his fooleries yet a little longer. He sought neither freedom or suffrage. His greatness has been thrust upon him. He'll survive it, and, like water, seek his level, and his "old master's home" again. We must be patient with him until the yankee gets tired of insulting us, by making a fool of him, and look after his welfare. By so doing we will ultimately take care of our own interest. "The bottom rail cannot remain on top." He must resume the "banjo" and the "hoe" and we must try and make him a happy, contented and prosperous laborer. How is it to be done? Let us forget the elections for the moment, and look at the question from a stand-point worthy of Virginians and of men. We know that it is no blind instinct that attaches the idea of respectability to the possession of a home and of property, of a locus standi in the community, promotes the feeling of self-respect and establishes a standard of conduct which conduces to and gives a claim to outward respect. We must, therefore, sell him, at a mere song, or give him ten or twenty acres of land on the skirts of our farms. The possession of a home will fix him to the spot, destroy the gregariousness of his nature, keep him from towns, and make him proud and industrious. Having a home we must give him work, see that he does it, and above all, that we pay him a fair price for it. Of the 4,000,000 of French peasant proprietors they possess only an average of eight and a half acres each, and of them Mr. Mills says, "The situation of the peasant proprietors is propitious to every elevating influence and to every moral virtue," whilst of the poor Irish tenant, who has no moral status, because he has no moral stimulus, he says--"almost alone among mankind, the Irish cottier is in a condition that he can scarcely be better or worse off by any act of his own. If he was industrious or prudent, nobody but his landlord would gain; if he is lazy or intemperate, it is at his landlord's expense. A situation more devoid of motives to either labor or self-command, imagination itself cannot conceive." We improve, by our plan, Sambo's condition over either the French peasant or the Irish cottier. We make his work profitable to himself and to us. make him a quiet and useful citizen and not a drone and a curse. Answer the question: "What is to become of and what will we do with the negro, and increase the value of the landed property of Virginia without detriment to Sambo or his former master, who had the misfortune to be born white?" We shall be glad to hear from any one who has thoughtfully and honestly considered the subject.

Marriages
(Column 06)

Summary: M. B. Smart and Miss Sallie Ast, both of Staunton, were married on December 3rd by the Rev. J. A. Latane.
(Names in announcement: M. B. Smart, Sallie Ast, Rev. J. A. Latane)

Marriages
(Column 06)

Summary: Capt. Vernon Getty, of Georgetown, D. C., and Miss Eliza Stevenson, oldest daughter of R. W. Stevenson of Staunton, were married in Staunton at Trinity Church on November 27th by the Rev. James A. Latane.
(Names in announcement: Capt. Vernon Getty, Eliza Stevenson, R. W. Stevenson, James A. Latane)

Marriages
(Column 06)

Summary: J. J. Foster, of Richmond, and Miss Rebecca Porterfield Taylor, daughter of Edwin M. Taylor, were married at the home of the bride's father on November 28th by the Rev. J. A. Latane.
(Names in announcement: J. J. Foster, Rebecca Porterfield Taylor, Edwin M. Taylor, Rev. J. A. Latane)

Marriages
(Column 06)

Summary: Col. Charles S. Peyton, of Staunton, married Miss Sallie E. Bramham, of Albemarle, on November 21st by the Rev. W. P. Farish.
(Names in announcement: Col. Charles S. Peyton, Sallie E. Bramham, Rev. W. P. Farish)

Deaths
(Column 06)

Summary: Mrs. Rebecca L. Watts, wife of Major John B. Watts of Staunton, died at the residence of her father, John Seawright, on November 28th.
(Names in announcement: Rebecca L. Watts, Major John B. Watts, John Seawright)

[No Title]
(Column 01)

Summary: 510 guests stayed at the American Hotel, Staunton, during the month of November.

The Majesty of the Law Vindicated
(Column 02)

Summary: The Mayor imprisoned for ten days James Rosell, a Freedman, for stating publicly that "a negro couldn't get the same justice before the Mayor that a white man could and who ever said he could was a d---d liar." The remark occurred after the Mayor had tried a Freedman for larceny which was not denied. Upon hearing of Rosell's remarks, the Mayor returned to the court and had him arrested. Rosell also had to post security bond in real estate and two hundred for twelve months of good behavior. "The offender is a mail carrier and a son of a respectable freedman, Phillip Rosell, late a Delegate to the Convention in Richmond, who afterwards approved of the Mayor's action. Let this be admonition to all, white or colored, that they must obey the law and respect its proper administration."
(Names in announcement: James Rosell, Phillip Rosell)