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Widow's Pension |
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In some regions the great problem of life is to raise two dollars and a half during the year for county taxes. Being pauper counties, they are exempt from State taxation. Jury fees are highly esteemed and much sought after. The manufacture of illicit mountain whiskey "moonshine" was formerly, as it is now, a considerable source of revenue to them; and a desperate self destructive subsource of revenue from the same business has been the betrayal of its hidden places. There is nothing harder or more dangerous to find now in the mountains than a secret still. Formerly, also, digging " sang, " as they call ginseng, was a general occupation, For this, of course, China was a great market. It has nearly all been dug out now except in the wildest parts of the country, where entire families may still be seen "outranging." They took it into the towns in bags, selling it at a dollar and ten cents perhaps a dollar and a half a pound. This was mainly the labor of the women and the children, who went to work barefooted, amid briers and chestnut burrs, copperheads and rattlesnakes. indeed, the women prefer to go barefooted, finding shoes a trouble and constraint. It was a sad day for the people when the “sang" grew scarce. A few years ago one of the counties was nearly depopulated in consequence of a great exodus into Arkansas, whence had come the news that there "sang" was plentiful. Harper’s News Monthly Magazine THROUGH THE CUMBERLAND GAP ON HORSE BACK. HOME DIRECTORY JOHNSON TWO MY DAD'S PAGE COATES ROSE THACKER
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