When now we turn and
look five miles above, there on the edge of town are five
houses of prostitutes,--two of blacks and three of whites; and
in one of the houses of the whites a worthless black boy was
harbored too openly two years ago; so he was hanged for
rape. And here, too, is the high whitewashed fence of the
"stockade," as the county prison is called; the white folks
say it is ever full of black criminals,--the black folks say that
only colored boys are sent to jail, and they not because they
are guilty, but because the State needs criminals to eke out its
income by their forced labor.
Immigrants are heirs of the slave baron in Dougherty; and
as we ride westward, by wide stretching cornfields and stubby
orchards of peach and pear, we see on all sides within the
circle of dark forest a Land of Canaan. Here and there are
tales of projects for money-getting, born in the swift days of
Reconstruction,--"improvement" companies, wine compa-
nies, mills and factories; most failed, and foreigners fell heir.
It is a beautiful land, this Dougherty, west of the Flint. The
forests are wonderful, the solemn pines have disappeared,
and this is the "Oakey Woods," with its wealth of hickories,
beeches, oaks and palmettos.
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