Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 January 1903 — Down in Texas. [ARTICLE]

Down in Texas.

Dear Journal—lt is not the most cordial weloome at a publio inn, even if the best. We bided a night at Texarkana on the border line. The prospect from the oar window in Arkansas showed a level forest for the most part. We also took a daylight run to Palestine and again stayed until morning. A oar ride showed the city of a sacred name to be a place of some ten thousand souls. The old town containing the court house aud jail is one mile from the new about the depot. The land from Texarkana to Palestine looks less forbidding. A dual system oi sohools, churches and social life destroys the push and progress of the south. The day train was late and we oame here in the night. This is easily the largest and riohest city in the state of Texas. The water supply is from deep artesian wells. Three of them yield hot sulphur water of a temperature of 106 degrees. There, is here the largest Military Post (Sam Houston.) There are many pretty parks and eleotrio oars to all. We are 660 feet above sea level, while the government post is one hundred feet higher. We are a little over one hundred miles from the Rio Grande. The San Antonia river is here obout one-half as large as our Iroquois and meanders the city with thirteen miles, within the corporation, spanned by twenty bridges. The percentage of the African is about ten. The city is orderly and well governed. We arrived on Sunday morning during holiday week, which in the south is celebrated much as we do the 4bh of July. The new year was hailed with a fusilade of fire and cannon oraokers, as well as many real guns. The gift feature is not so prominent as with us. We have bad two cloudy, rainy days, while all others were bright. This morning there was a frost, following a rain on yesterday. The roses looked a little sickly but the leaves remain green. Sulphur Wells hotel is connected by a oovered bridge with the bath building. It is managed by graduates of the Battle Greek Sanitarium and is said to cure rheumatism and its associate troubles. The hotel campus is filled with pecan and haokberry trees. In these trees are singing our home birds, among which we note the meadow lark, the robin, the wood thrush, the groesbeak and wood pecker. We are not yet convinced but Jasper is the best county and Rensselaer the best little city of which we can speak from actual knowledge. 8. P. Thompson. San Antonia, Tex., Jan. 2,1903.