The New South Part 6

Lately some of the town and city churches have been developing the social and humanitarian side of religious work, but the greatest number manage to collect only enough money to keep the organization alive. They are like engines which can get up enough steam to turn the wheels slowly and painfully but lack sufficient power to do effective work. In fact, there is strong opposition to any pastor who attempts to influence the decision of the congregation on any social question. Many towns and rural communities have several churches, though their population and wealth may be hardly large enough to support one properly. This condition, however, is not peculiar to the South. Here and there in the country districts a new type of pastor has appeared. He is a good farmer himself, interested in better farming and able to discuss fertilizers and methods with his parishioners. He is not afraid that prosperity will turn his members away from their church duties but considers that improving the economic conditions of the neighborhood is quite as vital a part of his work as ministering to their spiritual needs. Largely because of the work of some of these men the exodus to the towns has slackened in some neighborhoods and contributions to the work of the church have been greatly increased.

This movement from country to town has become a serious matter in some localities. The social level of neighborhoods once attractive because of the presence of families of intelligence and character has fallen. The land of the families which have moved to towns has been turned over to tenants, either whites of a lower status or negroes, the standards of the community have suffered in consequence, and the atmosphere of some of these communities has become depressing. Such conditions, however, are not peculiar to the South but have been observed in central New York and in New England. Better roads, the motor car, and improvement in communications have helped to check this cityward movement, and, on the whole, the educational, economic, and social standards of the country districts generally are higher than they were ten years ago.

Generally speaking, the South is a law-abiding section. This is true even when the negroes are included, and as the prohibitory laws are enforced more strictly, it is becoming increasingly true. The chain gang which was so common years ago has been discontinued in hundreds of counties, chiefly for lack of convicts, though partly for humanitarian reasons. The offenses of the negro were, for the most part, petty larceny, gambling, and offenses against public order. Affrays are certainly less frequent since the spread of prohibition, and larceny seems to be decreasing, though statistics of crime are few and unreliable. The gambling is usually nothing more than "c.r.a.ps," or "African billiards" as they call it now. Among the whites, offenses against property are few. In many rural counties a white man is seldom charged with theft, fraud, or forgery. A white man is occasionally arraigned for "disposing of mortgaged property," or for malicious mischief, including the destruction of property.

The homicide rate, however, is high. Generally the figures given include the negro, and he is somewhat more homicidal than the white, but the white rate is among the highest in the world. Blood feuds actually exist in the Southern Appalachians, though perhaps their number is not so large as is commonly believed. The moonshiner's antipathy to revenue officers leads him to use firearms upon occasion, but homicide occurs also in intelligent communities where the general tone is high. Individuals of excellent standing in business or professional life sometimes shoot to kill their fellows and in the past have usually escaped the extreme penalty and often have avoided punishment altogether. It would seem that life is held rather cheaply in many Southern communities.

Until recently much of the South has remained a frontier, as some of it is to this day, and in frontier communities men are accustomed to take the law into their own hands and are reluctant to depend upon inadequate or ineffective police protection. Despising physical cowardice, the individual prides himself upon his ability to maintain his rights and to protect his honor without calling for a.s.sistance. Frontiersmen are quick to resent an affront, and when their veracity is impugned they fight. The word "lie" is not considered a polite mode of expressing dissent. All over the South, in every cla.s.s of society, one finds this sensitiveness to an accusation of lack of veracity. Such a theory of life dies hard. The presence of a less advanced race is perhaps not conducive to self-control. The dominant race, determined to maintain its position of superiority, is likely to resent a real or fancied affront to its dignity. A warped sense of honor, a sort of belated theory of chivalry, is responsible for some acts of violence. A seducer is likely to be called to account and the slayer, by invoking the "unwritten law," has usually been acquitted. Such a case lends itself to the display of flamboyant oratory, and the plea of "protecting the home" has set many murderers free. Perhaps the South is becoming less susceptible to oratory; at all events this plea now sometimes fails to win a jury. Defendants are occasionally convicted, though the verdicts are usually rendered for manslaughter and not for murder.

Public sentiment is not yet ready, however, to declare every intentional homicide murder. Some point to the low rate of white illegitimacy as a justification of the deterring force of the "unwritten law," not realizing that such a defense it, really a reflection upon womanhood. Others allow their detestation of physical cowardice to blind them to the danger of allowing men to take the law into their own hands. The individualism of the imperfectly socialized Southerner does not yet permit him to think of the law as a majestic, impersonal force towering high above the individual. It is true that the Southerner is law-abiding on the whole, but he usually obeys the laws because they represent his ethical concepts and not because of devotion to the abstract idea of law.

There is danger, however, in the attempt to state dogmatically what the Southerner thinks or believes. There is much diversity of opinion among the younger Southerners, for many questions are in a state of flux, and there is as yet no point of crystallization. There is no leader either in politics or in journalism who may be said to utter the voice of the South. In the earlier part of this period Henry Watterson, of the Louisville Courier-Journal, spoke almost with authority. The untimely death of Henry W. Grady, editor of the Atlanta Const.i.tution, deprived the South of a spokesman and he has had no successor. There is no newspaper which has any considerable influence outside the State in which it is published, and few have a circulation throughout even their entire State. There are several newspapers which are edited with considerable ability, on the political side at least, but none has a circulation sufficiently large to make it a real power. All are more or less parochial. The country papers, which are frankly and necessarily local, exercise more influence than the papers of the cities, though the circulation of the latter is increasing.

The Southerner is reading more than he once did. Some of the national weeklies have a considerable circulation in the South, and the national magazines are read in increasing numbers. Good bookstores are not common, for the people generally have not learned to buy many books since they have been able to afford them. The women's clubs, however, interest their members in the "best-sellers" and pa.s.s these books from one to another. Some members may always be depended upon to purchase serious books as their contribution to the club. The number of public libraries in the South is considerable, and the educational administration of several of the States is striving to put a well-selected library into every public school[1].

[Footnote 1: North Carolina has established over five thousand of these school libraries. The State pays one-third of the cost, the county one-third, and the patrons of the school the remainder. Additional volumes are furnished by the same plan.]

The Southerner is not only reading more books, but he is also writing more. A man or woman who has written a book is no longer a curiosity. In the closing decade or two of the nineteenth century the work of a group of Southern writers led a distinguished critic to rank them as the most significant force in American letters. Such a high valuation of the writers of the present day could hardly be made, but there is a much larger number than formerly whose work is acceptable. Members of college faculties, and others, produce annually numerous books of solid worth in science, history, biography, economics, and sociology. Volumes of recollections and reminiscences interesting to the student of the past appear, and much local and state history has been rescued from oblivion. Some theological books are written, but there is little published on national questions. The output of verse is small, and few essays are published. As few Southerners are extensive travelers, there are necessarily few books of travel and description. Though most of the people live in a rural or semi-rural environment, very little is printed dealing with nature. There are many writers of fiction, though few can be called artists.

The New South is full of contradictions and paradoxes. It is living generations of social and economic changes in decades, and naturally all the people do not keep an even pace. One may find culture that would grace a court alongside incredible ignorance; distinguished courtesy and sheer brutality; kindness and consideration of the rights and feelings of others together with cruelty almost unbelievable. In some sections are to be found machines belonging to the most advanced stage of industry, while nearby are in operation economic processes of the rudest and most primitive sort. One who knows the South must feel, however, that its most striking characteristic is hopefulness. The dull apathy of a generation ago is rapidly disappearing, and the South lifts up its eyes toward the future.

THE REPUDIATION OF STATE DEBTS

The debt of Mississippi was small and that of Texas was not excessive, and neither made any attempt to repudiate the obligations. The $4,000,000 issued in Florida for state aid to railroads was large for the small population and the scanty resources of that State, but this issue was declared unconst.i.tutional by the Supreme Court of Florida. The Reconstruction debt of Alabama was large, about $20,000,000, besides accrued interest which the State could not pay. In 1873, the carpetbag government attempted to fund these bonds at twenty-five cents on the dollar. The Funding Act of 1876 repudiated $4,700,000 outright, reduced the bonds loaned to one railroad from $5,300,000 to $1,000,000, gave land in payment of $2,000,000 more, scaled other bonds one-half, and funded still others at par excluding interest. About $13,000,000 in all was repudiated and the State was left with a debt of less than $10,000,000[1].

[Footnote 1: W.A. Scott, The Repudiation of State Debts, p. 63, but see also W.L. Fleming, Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama, p. 580 ff.]

During 1868 and 1869 bond issues to the amount of nearly $28,000,000 were authorized in North Carolina, but not all of this amount was issued. From the $13,313,000 which was outstanding at the end of the carpetbag regime, the State had received little or no benefit. Interest was not paid upon this sum or upon the previous issues, and the total debt increased rapidly. Unsuccessful attempts to compromise with the creditors were made in 1874 and 1875, but not until 1879 was the matter settled. The Reconstruction bonds were repudiated outright, and the legitimate debt of the State was funded at from fifteen to forty cents on the dollar. No provision was made for the unpaid interest. This compromise did not include the pre-war bonds issued to aid the North Carolina Railroad. This corporation was a going concern, and as the result of a suit the stock had been sequestrated. A compromise with the holders of these bonds was made at eighty per cent of par and interest. As a result of this wholesale repudiation the debt of the State was so reduced that it could be carried. In all over $22,000,000 besides other millions of accrued interest were repudiated.[1]

[Footnote 1: J.G. de R. Hamilton, Reconstruction in North Carolina, pp. 448-449, 659-661.]

Not all of the creditors of the State accepted the compromise at once, but the offer was left open and, as the years went on and the State showed no signs of a change of intention, the bondholders gradually recognized the inevitable. In 1893, nearly fifteen years after this offer had been made, more than $1,000,000 of the old bonds were still outstanding. In 1901, a New York firm presented to the State of South Dakota ten of the cla.s.s which had been made convertible at twenty-five cents on the dollar. That State brought suit in the Supreme Court of the United States and collected the amount sued for.[1] No progress has been made in collecting the special tax bonds issued during Reconstruction though some New York bond houses hope against hope, and the Council of the Corporation of Foreign Bondholders in its annual reports plaintively regrets the perversity of this and other Southern States.

[Footnote 1: South Dakota v. North Carolina, 192 U.S. Rep., p. 286]

South Carolina presented such a carnival of incompetence and corruption that the total amount of bonds issued has never been accurately determined. Apparently there was a valid debt of about $6,666,000 in 1868, which was increased to about $29,000,000 within three years. The carpetbag Legislature of 1873 repudiated $6,000,000 of this debt, and attempted to compromise the remainder at fifty per cent, but the State could not carry even this reduced amount. Judicial decisions destroyed the validity of some millions more, and finally the debt, reduced to something more than $7,000,000, was funded. The debt of Georgia was increased directly and by indors.e.m.e.nt of railroad bonds. The Legislature of 1872 declared $8,500,000 void and in 1875 repudiated about $600,000 more.

Louisiana suffered most from excessive taxation. At the beginning of the carpetbag period the debt was about $11,000,000, but railroad and levee bonds were issued rapidly. Though a const.i.tutional amendment in 1870 forbade the State to contract debts in excess of $25,000,000, the Legislature went steadily on until in 1872 the debt was variously estimated at from $41,000,000 to $48,000,000. In 1874, when W.P. Kellogg was Governor, the State began to fund valid obligations at sixty cents on the dollar. By action of the courts the debt was reduced to about $12,000,000 bearing interest at seven percent. The State could not pay the interest on this sum, and the const.i.tutional convention of 1879 made drastic reductions in the interest rate. Both New York and New Hampshire, acting ostensibly for themselves but really in behalf of their citizens, brought suit, but the Supreme Court threw out the cases on the ground that the actions were attempts to evade the const.i.tutional provision forbidding a citizen to bring an action against a State. The bondholders still refused to accept the reduction, and the Supreme Court in 1883 described the ordinance as a violation of the contract of 1874 but a violation without a remedy. Meanwhile the Legislature, after consultation with the bondholders, had agreed to a slight increase in the rate of interest; and in 1884, this compromise was ratified by an amendment to the const.i.tution.

The debt of Arkansas was not so difficult to settle. The issue of about $7,500,000 for railroads and levees during Reconstruction was declared unconst.i.tutional in 1877-78, and the so-called Holford bonds, issued in aid of banks, were repudiated by the const.i.tutional convention of 1884. The total amount repudiated and declared void by the courts was nearly $13,000,000. Tennessee also struggled with a debt which it was unwilling and perhaps unable to pay. The amount, which in 1861 was about $21,000,000, incurred princ.i.p.ally in aid of railroads and turnpikes, was largely increased under Republican rule, and most of the money received for the bonds was stolen or wasted. No interest had been paid during the War, and the accrued interest was funded in 1865, 1869, and 1873. The debt was somewhat reduced by permitting the railroads to pay their debt in state bonds which they purchased cheaply on the market. Other defaulting railroads were sold, but the State still could not meet the interest. Many discussions with the creditors were held, but the people had the idea that much of the debt was fraudulent and they consequently voted down proposals which they thought too liberal to the creditors. The question temporarily split the Democratic party, but after much discussion a long act was pa.s.sed in 1883 which finally settled the matter. A part of the debt, with interest, was funded at 76 to 80 cents on the dollar. The major part was funded at 50 cents on the dollar with interest thereafter at three per cent.

The financial difficulties of Virginia excited more interest than did those of any other commonwealth, for this State had the largest pre-war debt. Its $33,000,000 with accrued interest had amounted to about $45,000,000 in 1870. In 1871 the question of settlement was taken up; one-third of the debt was a.s.signed to West Virginia, and the remainder was funded into new bonds bearing interest at five and six per cent. The coupons were made receivable for taxes and other debts due the State. The amount recognized was beyond the ability of the State to pay, and many members of both parties felt that some compromise must be made. So many of the coupons were paid in for taxes that money to keep the Government going was found with difficulty. Various attacks on the privilege were made, but these "coupon killers" were usually declared unconst.i.tutional by the Supreme Court of the United States. Meanwhile the contest had split the State. Some were in favor of paying the whole debt according to the agreement of 1871; others wished to reduce the interest rate; while the radicals wished to repudiate part of the debt and reduce the rate of interest upon the remainder. The last named faction, under the leadership of H.H. Riddleberger, organized a political party known as the Readjusters and in 1879 captured the Legislature. Riddleberger then introduced a bill which scaled down the debt to less than $20,000,000, but it was vetoed by the Governor. Two years later the new party captured both Governorship and Legislature and sent General William Mahone to the United States Senate, where he usually voted with the Republican party.

The Legislature repa.s.sed the Riddleberger bill, which the creditors refused to accept, and an ingenious "coupon killer." Similar acts were pa.s.sed in 1886 and 1887. The United States Supreme Court, before which these acts were brought, p.r.o.nounced them unconst.i.tutional in that they impaired the obligation of contracts, but the Court also stated that there was no way in which the State could be coerced. Meanwhile the credit of the State was nonexistent, and all business suffered. In 1890 a commission reported in favor of compromising the debt on the lines of the Riddleberger Act and, in 1892, $19,000,000 in new bonds were exchanged for about $28,000,000 of the older issue. Interest was to be 2 per cent for ten years and then 3 per cent for ninety more.

West Virginia steadfastly refused to recognize the share of the debt a.s.signed to her on the ground that the princ.i.p.al part had been incurred for internal improvements in Virginia proper, and that one-third was an excessive proportion. The matter dragged along until the Supreme Court of the United States decided in March, 1911, that the equitable proportion due by West Virginia was 23.5 per cent instead of one-third. West Virginia, however, made no move to carry out the decision, and in 1914 Virginia asked the Court to proceed to a final decree. A special master was appointed to take testimony, and on June 14, 1915, the Supreme Court announced that the net share of West Virginia was $12,393,929 plus $8,178,000 interest. The State, by a compromise with Virginia in 1919, a.s.sumed a debt amounting to $14,500,000.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Many of the references for the period of Reconstruction are also valuable for the subject of this volume, as it is impossible to understand the South today without understanding the period which preceded it. Much enlightening material is to be found in W.L. Fleming's Doc.u.mentary History of Reconstruction (2 vols., 1906-07) and in the series of monographs on Reconstruction published by the students of Professor W.A. Dunning of Columbia University, among which may be mentioned J.W. Garner's Reconstruction in Mississippi(1901); W.L. Fleming's Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama (1905); J.G. de R. Hamilton's Reconstruction in North Carolina (1914); C.M. Thompson's Reconstruction in Georgia, Economic, Social, Political, 1865-1872 (1915).

GENERAL WORKS

Some of the older books are interesting from the historical standpoint, but conditions in the South have changed so rapidly that these works give little help in understanding the present. Among the most interesting are A.W. Tourgee's Appeal to Caesar (1884), based upon the belief that the South would soon be overwhelmingly black. Alexander K. McClure, in The South; its Industrial, Financial and Political Condition (1886), was one of the first to take a hopeful view of the economic development of the Southern States. W.D. Kelley's The Old South and the New (1887) contains the observations of a shrewd Pennsylvania politician who was intensely interested in the economic development of the United States. Walter H. Page's The Rebuilding of Old Commonwealths (1902) is a keen a.n.a.lysis of the factors which have hindered progress in the South.

No recent work fully covers this period. Most books deal chiefly with individual phases of the question. Some valuable material may be found in the series The South in the Building of the Nation, 13 vols., (1909-13) but not all of this information is trustworthy. The Library of Southern Literature (16 vols., 1907-1913), edited by E.A. Alderman and Joel Chandler Harris, contains selections from Southern authors and biographical notes. Albert Bushnell Hart's The Southern South (1910) is the result of more study and investigation than any other Northerner has given to the sociology of the South, but the author's prejudices interfere with the value of his conclusions. The late Edgar Gardner Murphy in Problems of the Present South (1904) discusses with wisdom and sanity many Southern questions which are still undecided. A series of valuable though unequal papers is The New South in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 35 (1910). Another cooperative work which contains material of value is Studies in Southern History and Politics, edited by J.W. Garner (1914). Why the Solid South, edited by H.A. Herbert (1890), should also be consulted. A bitter arraignment of the South as a whole is H.E. Tremain's Sectionalism Unmasked (1907). The best book on the Appalachian South is Horace Kephart's Our Southern Highlanders (1913). William Garrott Brown's The Lower South in American History (1902) contains some interesting matter.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

There are several excellent works on cotton and the cotton trade, chief among which are M.B. Hammond's The Cotton Industry (1897) and C.W. Burkett and C.H. Poe's Cotton, its Cultivation, Marketing, Manufacture, and the Problems of the Cotton World (1906). D.A. Tompkins, in Cotton and Cotton Oil (1901), gives valuable material but is rather discursive. J.A.B. Scherer, in Cotton as a World Power (1916), attempts to show the influence of cotton upon history. Holland Thompson in From the Cotton Field to the Cotton Mill (1906) deals with the economic and social changes arising from the development of manufacturing in an agricultural society. With this may be mentioned A. Kohn's The Cotton Mills of South Carolina (1907). M.T. Copeland's The Cotton Manufacturing Industry of the United States (1912) has some interesting chapters on the South. T.M. Young, an English labor leader, in The American Cotton Industry (1903), brings a fresh point of view. The files of the Manufacturer's Record (Baltimore) are indispensable to a student of the economic progress of the South.

THE NEGRO QUESTION

The number of books, pamphlets, and special articles upon this subject, written by Northerners, Southerners, negroes, and even foreigners, is enormous. These publications range from displays of hysterical emotionalism to statistical studies, but no one book can treat fully all phases of so complex a question. Bibliographies have been prepared by W.E.B. Du Bois, A.P.C. Griffin, and others. W.L. Fleming has appended a useful list of t.i.tles to Reconstruction of the Seceded States (1905).

F.L. Hoffman, a professional statistician of German birth, in Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro (1896), has collected much valuable material but all his conclusions cannot be accepted without question. Special Bulletins on the negro are published by the United States Census Bureau, of which the issues for 1904 and 1915 should especially be consulted. Some of the Publications of Atlanta University contain valuable studies of special localities or occupations.

Several negroes have written histories of their race. George W. Williams's History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880, 2 vols. (1883), is old but contains material of value. William H. Thomas, in The American Negro (1901), is pessimistic as to the future because of the moral delinquencies of his people. Booker T. Washington's The Story of the Negro, the Rise of the Race from Slavery (1909), on the other hand, emphasizes achievements rather than deficiencies and is optimistic in tone. Of this writer's several other books, the Future of the American Negro (1899) is the most valuable. Kelly Miller has written Race Adjustment (1908) and _An Appeal to Conscience (1918), besides many articles and monographs all marked by excellent temper. On the other hand, W.E.B. Du Bois, in The Souls of Black Folk (1903) and in his other writings, voices the bitterness of one to whom the color line has proved an "intolerable indignity."

Ray Stannard Baker in Following the Color Line (1908) gives the observations of a trained metropolitan journalist and is eminently sane in treatment. William Archer, the English author and journalist expresses a European point of view in Through Afro-America (1910). Carl Kelsey's The Negro Farmer (1903) is a careful study of agricultural conditions in eastern Virginia. A collection of valuable though unequal papers is contained in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science under The Negro's Progress in Fifty Years, No. 138 (1913) and America's Race Problem (1901).

One of the first Southerners to attack the new problem was A.G. Haygood, later a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, who published Our Brother in Black, His Freedom and His Future (1881). P.A. Bruce, in The Plantation Negro as a Freeman (1888), has done an excellent piece of work. Thomas Nelson Page, in The Negro, The Southerner's Problem (1904), holds that no good can come through outside interference. William B. Smith's The Color Line (1905) takes the position that the negro is fundamentally different from the white. Alfred Holt Stone, in Studies in the American Race Problem (1908), has given a record of his experiences and reflections as a cotton planter in the delta region of Mississippi, while Patience Pennington (pseud.) in A Woman Rice-Planter (1913) gives in the form of a diary a nave but fascinating account of life in the lowlands of South Carolina. Edgar Gardner Murphy, whose Problems of the Present South has already been mentioned, discusses in The Basis of Ascendancy (1909) the proper relations of black and white. The t.i.tle of Gilbert T. Stephenson's Race Distinctions in American Law (1910) is self-explanatory.

EDUCATION

No complete history of education in the South has been written. The United States Bureau of Education published years ago several monographs upon the separate States. Edgar W. Knight has written an excellent history of Public School Education in North Carolina (1916). Carter G. Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 (1915), E.A. Alderman's J.L.M. Curry, a Biography (1911), and R.D.W. Connor and C.W. Poe's Life and Speeches of Charles Brantley Ayc.o.c.k (1912) are illuminating. J.L.M. Curry's A Brief Sketch of George Peabody and a History of the Peabody Education Fund through Thirty Years (1898) gives an excellent idea of the situation after Reconstruction. The General Education Board; an Account of its Activities, 1902-1914 (1915) contains interesting facts on the educational situation of today. The reports of the state Departments of Education, of the United States Bureau of Education, of the Conference for Education in the South, and of the Peabody, Slater, and Jeanes Funds should be consulted. The two volumes on Negro Education, United States Bureau of Education Bulletins Nos. 38 and 39 (1916) are invaluable. There are also histories of some of the state universities and of the church and private schools.

FICTION

Some of the best historical material on the changing South is in the form of fiction. A number of gifted writers have pictured limited fields with skill and truth. Mary Noailles Murfree (pseud., Charles Egbert Craddock) has written of the mountain people of Tennessee, while John Fox, Jr. has done the same for Kentucky and the Virginia and West Virginia mountains. George W. Cable and Grace King have depicted Louisiana in the early part of this period, while rural life in Georgia has been well described in the stories of Joel Chandler Harris, better known from his Uncle Remus books. In The Voice of the People (1900) Ellen Glasgow has produced, in the form of fiction, an important historical doc.u.ment on the rise of the common man. In The Southerner (1909) Nicholas Worth (understood to be the pseudonym of a distinguished editor and diplomat) has made a careful study of conditions in North Carolina between 1875 and 1895, while Thomas Dixon in The Leopard's Spots (1902) has crudely but powerfully drawn a picture of the campaign for negro disfranchis.e.m.e.nt in that State.

In his Old Judge Priest stories, Irvin S. Cobb has described the rural towns of Kentucky; and Corra Harris from personal experience has given striking pictures of the rural South princ.i.p.ally in relation to religion. The short stories of Harris d.i.c.kson portray the negro of the Mississippi towns. The stories of Thomas Nelson Page and of Ruth McEnery Stuart should also be mentioned. Owen Wister has drawn a striking picture of Charleston in Lady Baltimore (1906), while Henry Sydnor Harrison in Queed (1911) and his later stories has done something similar for Richmond.