The accumulations which, before the war, they would have invested in land and negroes, they now invested in stocks, bonds, and city tenements, or in the different branches of trade, or of manufactures.

The impetus thus given to the expansion of the towns was accelerated by the construction of new railroads, and by the additions of Northern capital attracted by the opportunities offered for investment in a comparatively undeveloped territory. While North Carolina still possesses not a single large city, its map is dotted with old towns whose prosperity has been advanced by these combined influences, and with new, which have been created altogether by these influences. In Virginia, the same fact is observed-the cities have grown, towns have become cities, and villages towns. Most of the stations along the several lines of railway are now small trading or manufacturing centres.

While the families which gave the country life of the Upper South under the old system so much distinction were deserting their ancestral homes and neighborhoods, the men and women who belonged to a lower position in society remained citizens of the communities in which their people before them had resided perhaps for generations. Formerly, when a large proprietor was seeking to push out the boundaries of his estate, he purchased the little homesteads of the yeomen who were seated about him. These yeomen then, in most cases, emigrated either to the West or to the Southwest. Throughout the

Upper South one can often still trace in the thick woods the almost obliterated marks of where these yeomen formerly lived; the scattered stones of the fallen chimney, the depression in the earth where the foundation for the cabin had been dug, the sink indicating the site of an ancient grave-such are a few memorials of the past system. But the whirligig of

time has brought in a radical change. Under the present régime, it is not the large proprietor who is buying the estates of the yeomen, but the yeomen who are buying the estate of the large proprietor; it is his ancestral home, not the yeoman's, which is falling to decay and ruin. Practically there is now no emigration of small landowners from the Upper South simply because the opportunities for improving their fortunes by acquiring the most fertile soil are no longer closed to them by the barriers formerly raised by the presence of a wealthier class.

If any one whose recollections go back to the period of slavery wishes to see how far the social revolution in the Upper South has reached, let him mingle with the people in the rural churches or at the county seats; let him attend such a popular occasion as a political barbecue or a public meeting for the promotion of some local interest. Not often will fall on his ear there names famous in the social or political past of that region of country; for the bearers of these names he must inquire among the congregations of the city and town churches, in the halls of the city clubs, or in the lecture rooms of colleges and schools.

Present Social Life of the City.

Under the régime of slavery, the social life of the country dominated the social life of the town. It is now the reverse-the social life of the town completely overshadows the social life of the country. Under the new system, the only substitute for the refined and cultivated society which formerly existed in all the older communities of the Upper South is to be observed in the centres of urban population. But the flavor of that old social life has not been transmitted to the new because of the influences of an altered environment. The simplicity, heartiness,

and liberality of the social spirit of those times, (when hospitality, made easy by troops of carefully trained slaves, and an inexhaustible profusion of supplies, was looked upon as a sacred duty, and when family ties were recognized to a remote degree of consanguinity)—has been greatly diminished by constant intercourse with the world at large, by a revolution in ideas and pursuits, and by the strain of a more strenuous existence.

There was in that old society practically no ostentation, no pretension, no imitation of alien habits and customs. It had a highly developed character of its own, which was only rendered possible by the comparative isolation of the country life of that day. Social rules, standards, and points of view inherited from a remote period, customs descending from a distant ancestry, underwent little change because the life remained unruffled by the social currents of Europe and the North. The present social life of the Upper South is far more obedient to the dictates of the world at large; far more sensitive to the altering fashions-intellectual and moral-of that world; far more inclined to be docile, ductile, responsive, and imitative. It follows that the highest social life of that region—as represented in its cities today-is more pretentious, more ostentatious.

This is also because the social competition is now more acute. During the existence of slavery, new families were not constantly rising to prominence, since the chance of improving private fortunes was then narrow in the country owing to the absence of trade and commerce. Agriculture, which the bulk of the people followed, failed to offer any quick means of accumulating a great estate. In the modern cities of the Upper South, on the other hand, extraordinary capacity for business finds in the bank, counting room, and factory, a certain field in which to

gather up money; and in a commercial community, it is the possessor of this capacity who is most apt to be held up to the admiration of all as the man who has won the highest success in life. The founders of large fortunes and their immediate families are naturally socially ambitious, and this disposition has its first expression in more or less display; a powerful tone is thus set by a class which was practically unknown in the rural society of the Upper South in former times. But while the members of this class have diminished the simplicity, and, perhaps, the refinement, of the present highest social life of that region, the spirit which they have spread abroad has, in other ways, made that social life more varied, more alert, and much less provincial. Society has become a race open to all aspirants who combine social energy and ambition with the necessary fortune. There are no barriers to such qualities backed by such advantages. Ancestry counts for much less than formerly unless the person claiming a distinguished descent can show other substantial credentials to consideration.

Under the past régime, as we have already pointed out, when the resident of the city succeeded in accumulating a fortune, he was always inclined to invest the greater part of it in a country estate and slaves; and on retiring from trade, he withdrew permanently to this new home. Under the present régime, should a rural estate be purchased by a wealthy banker, merchant or manufacturer, it would be only for use and enjoyment during the prevalence of the heated season. It is either for temporary diversion only, or for the preservation of his family's health during the most trying months of the year. The country is no longer recruited from the city except during this very brief period.

Present Social Life of the Country.

It is not strange that it should not be. The social life of the rural districts throughout the year is simply the social life of the small landowners. As a rule, the yeomen cultivate their ground with their own hands; they have no assistance either in their fields, or in their homes, beyond what is furnished by the members of their own families, and, in consequence, they have to pay out little money except for the few manufactured supplies which they need. How steadily they are accumulating is proven, not only by the rapid subdivision of lands now in progress, but also by the increase in the number of local banks; there is not a small town, hardly a village, in the Upper South, which does not contain one or more institutions of this kind supported by the deposits of the farmers and planters in the surrounding country. As this rural population acquires property, they are learning to value more the advantages which the possession of means assures there is a steady improvement in the character of their homes, of their vehicles, and of their teams.

They have also a growing sense of the importance of education. The public school system has stimulated their desire for knowledge-one of the most significant and promising aspects of the condition of the rural communities to-day is the number of newspapers and periodicals to which the people subscribe, a disposition strongly encouraged by the convenience of the rural free delivery. The remarkable increase in the attendance of students in the colleges and higher schools of the Upper South is largely due to this advance in the thrift of the small landowners, and to their more ardent appreciation of the value of education. Before the war, this class of Southern citizens derived their only political education, as a