Last, and greatest, of the lately rebellious States, is Texas. Every variety of soil can be found there, from the richest alluvial deposits along the river bottoms, down to the deserts in the northwestern part of the State, where a wolf could not make an honest living. All the grains of the Northern States can be produced. Cotton, tobacco, and sugar-cane are raised in large quantities, and the agricultural capabilities of Texas are very great. Being a new State, its system of internal communications is not good. Texas has the reputation of being the finest grazing region in the Southwest. Immense droves of horses, cattle, and sheep cover its prairies, and form the wealth of many of the inhabitants. Owing to the distance from market, these animals are generally held at very low prices.
Shortly after its annexation to the United States, Texas became a resort for outcasts from civilized society. In some parts of the Union, the story goes that sheriffs, and their deputies dropped the phrase “non est inventus” for one more expressive. Whenever they discovered that parties for whom they held writs had decamped, they returned the documents with the indorsement “G.T.T.” (gone to Texas). Some writer records that the State derived its name from the last words of a couplet which runaway individuals were supposed to repeat on their arrival:—
When every other land rejects us,
This is the land that freely takes us.
Since 1850, the character of the population of Texas has greatly improved, though it does not yet bear favorable comparison to that of Quaker villages, or of rural districts of Massachusetts or Connecticut. There is a large German element in Texas, which displayed devoted loyalty to the Union during the days of the Rebellion.
An unknown philosopher says the world is peopled by two great classes, those who have money, and those who haven’t—the latter being most numerous. Migratory Americans are subject to the same distinction. Of those who have emigrated to points further West during the last thirty years, a very large majority were in a condition of impecuniosity. Many persons emigrate on account of financial embarrassments, leaving behind them debts of varied magnitude. In some cases, Territories and States that desired to induce settlers to come within their limits, have passed laws providing that no debt contracted elsewhere, previous to emigration, could be collected by any legal process. To a man laboring under difficulties of a pecuniary character, the new Territories and States offer as safe a retreat as the Cities of Refuge afforded to criminals in the days of the ancients.