The element of time, however, was not immediately important. The
Morning Chronicle provided him an ample income. The money available for
this investment was part of his wife's patrimony. It was invested in a
local cotton mill, which was paying ten per cent., but this was a
beggarly return compared with the immense profits promised by the
offered investment,--profits which would enable his son, upon reaching
manhood, to take a place in the world commensurate with the dignity of
his ancestors, one of whom, only a few generations removed, had owned an
estate of ninety thousand acres of land and six thousand slaves.
This letter having been disposed of by an answer accepting the offer,
the major took up his pen to write an editorial. Public affairs in the
state were not going to his satisfaction. At the last state election his
own party, after an almost unbroken rule of twenty years, had been
defeated by the so-called "Fusion" ticket, a combination of Republicans
and Populists. A clean sweep had been made of the offices in the state,
which were now filled by new men. Many of the smaller places had gone to
colored men, their people having voted almost solidly for the Fusion
ticket. In spite of the fact that the population of Wellington was two
thirds colored, this state of things was gall and wormwood to the
defeated party, of which the Morning Chronicle was the acknowledged
organ. Major Carteret shared this feeling. Only this very morning, while
passing the city hall, on his way to the office, he had seen the steps
of that noble building disfigured by a fringe of job-hunting negroes,
for all the world--to use a local simile--like a string of buzzards
sitting on a rail, awaiting their opportunity to batten upon the
helpless corpse of a moribund city.
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