Everything Worn Out

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 31, 1865

Everything Worn Out.

A CORRESPONDENT who had been traveling through the South since the war ended, gives the following picture of affairs:

"The dwelling-houses of the South present a strange appearance in their furniture and household equipments. Everything has been mended, and generally in the rudest style. Window glass has given way to thin boards, and these are in use in railway coaches and in cities. Furniture is marred and broken, and none has been replaced in four years. Dishes are cemented in various styles, and half the pitchers have tin handles. A complete set of crockery is never seen, and in very few families is there enough to set a table in a manner approaching gentility. A set of forks with whole tines is a curiosity. Clocks and watches have nearly all stopped. Carpets have gone for army blankets. Pianos, where they are owned, are terribly out of tune. Clothing, including hats, bonnets, and ladies' and children's shoes, are nearly all homemade. Hair brushes and tooth brushes are all worn out, combs are broken and are not yet replaced. Pins, needles, thread, and a thousand such articles, which seem indispensable to housekeeping, are very scarce. Even in weaving on looms, corn-cobs have been substituted for spindles. Few have pocket-knives. In fact, everything that has been an article of sale at the South, is wanting now. At the tables of those who were once esteemed luxurious providers, you will find neither tea, coffee, sugar, nor spices of any kind. Even candles, in some cases, have been replaced by a cup of grease, in which a piece of cloth is plunged for a wick. The problem which the South has had to solve has been, not how to be comfortable during the war, but how to live at all. The state of things which this indicates will not disappear rapidly. Neither this season nor the next can bring the era of comfortable living. All are reduced to the same level; all are poor together."