The foundation of the general’s former home at Mulberry Grove may still be seen.  It was in this house that Eli Whitney invented the cotton-gin.  Whitney was a tutor in the Greene family after the general’s death, and it was at the suggestion of Mrs. Greene that he started to try and make “a machine to pick the seed out of cotton.”  It is said that Whitney’s first machine would do, in five hours, work which, if done by hand, would take one man two years.  This was, of course, an epoch-making invention and caused enormous commercial growth in the South, where cotton-gins are as common things as restaurants in the city of New York.  Which reminds me of a story.

A northern man was visiting Mr. W.D.  Pender, at Tarboro, North Carolina.  On the day of the guest’s arrival Mr. Pender spoke to his cook, a negro woman of the old order, telling her to hurry up the dinner, because he wished to take his friend down to see the cotton-gin.  “You know,” he explained, “this gentleman has never seen a cotton-gin.”

The cook looked at him in amazement.

“Lor’!  Mistuh Penduh,” she exclaimed.  “An’ dat man look like he was edjacated!”

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Another item in Savannah history is that John Wesley came over about the middle of the eighteenth century to convert the Indians to Christianity.  It was not until after this attempt, when he returned to England, that he began the great religious movement which led to the founding of the Methodist Church.  George Whitfield also preached in Savannah.  Evidently Wesley did not get very far with the savages who, it may be imagined, were more responsive to the kind of “conversion” attempted in South Carolina, by a French dancing-master, who went out from Charleston in the early days and taught them the steps of the stately minuet.

Another great event in Savannah history was the departure from that port, in 1819, of the City of Savannah, the first steamship to cross the Atlantic.  If I may make a suggestion to the city, it is that the centennial of this event be celebrated, and that a memorial be erected.  Inspiration for such a memorial might perhaps be found in the simple and charming monument, crowned by a galleon in bronze, which has been erected in San Francisco, in memory of Robert Louis Stevenson.  A ship in bronze can be a glorious thing—­which is more than can be said of a bronze statesman in modern pantaloons.

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More lately Savannah initiated another world-improvement:  she was the first city to abolish horses entirely from her fire department, replacing them with automobile engines, hook-and-ladders, and hose-carts.  That is in line with what one would expect of Savannah, for she is not only a progressive city, but is a great automobile city, having several times been the scene of important international automobile road races, including the Grand Prize and the Vanderbilt Cup.