f West Virginia. Its business enterprise and thrift, its
excellent geographical and commercial position, its healthiness
notwithstanding its bad drainage, or rather no drainage, have induced a
growth almost phenomenal. Churches, factories, and commodious
storehouses have spread the town rapidly over the beautiful valley in
which it lies. The United States government has been lavish in its
expenditure upon a handsome building for court, custom, and post-office
purposes; and to it flock, especially when court is in session, as
motley an assortment of our race as ever assembled at legal mandate.
Moonshiners, and those who regard whiskey-making, selling, and drinking
as things that ought to be as free as the air of the mountain and
licenses as unheard-of impositions of a highly oppressive government,
that would "tax a feller for usin' up his own growin' uv corn," and
courts as "havin' a powerful sight uv curiosity, peekin' into other
fellers' business," afford ample opportunities for the exercise of
judicial authority.

A long mountaineer was before a dignified judge of the United States
Court for selling liquor without a license. He had bought a gallon at a
still,--as to the locality of which he professed profound
ignorance,--carried it thirty miles, and peddled it out to his
long-suffering and thirsty neighbors. Every native being a natural
informer, the story was soon told: arrest followed, a march of fifty
miles over the mountains, and a lengthy imprisonment before trial.
Following the advice of his assigned counsel, he pleaded guilty. Being
too poor to pay a fine, and having an unlimited family dependent upon
their own exertions,--which comprises the sum of parental responsibility
among the natives,--the judge released him on his own bail-bond, and
told him to go home. He deliberately put on his hat, walked up to his
honor, and said, "I say, jedge, I reckon you fellers 'ill give me 'nough
money to ride hum an' pay fer my grub, 'cause 'tain't fair, noway. You
fetched me clar down yere, footin' it the hull way, an' now you're
lettin' me off an' tellin' me to foot it back. 'Tain't fair, noway.
You-uns oughter pay me fer it." And he went off highly indignant at
having his modest request refused.

There is much of the primitive not outgrown as yet by Charleston: it has
put on a long-tailed coat over its round-about. The gossipy telephone
is ahead of the street-cars; gas-works supply private consumers, while
the citizens w