By L.E. Huggins
Marshville, Dec. 17—Citizens of the town were reminded a few days ago of a time when Marshville was known as Bever Dam, with the accent on the “Dam,” when the crew that is placing water and sewer lines ran their ditching machines into a pile of timbers in the street between J.T. Garland & Company’s and the Gion Drug Stores, said timbers being a part of the famous wine cellar under Pony’s grog shop. The timbers were buried a few feet under the ground and had been there until they turned into fat pine, securely holding their place and serving as perhaps the only relic of former days in the town of what is now Marshville and reminding citizens of a time when there was at least one free-for-all fight a week in the town of Beaver Dam, around which Uncle Edmund Davis, a pioneer Baptist minister, used to say you could smell hell for a mile in any direction.
Developments in Marshville during recent years are serving to remind people by way of contrast of the advancement of civilization and likewise progress in Marshville, the laying of water and sewer lines being among the most marked steps. And then we are to have three splendid church edifices at an early date. The Presbyterian congregation has already completed a modern $25,000 to $30,000 structure of brick construction, and the Baptists and Methodists are raising funds, deciding on plans and getting ready to start the erection of modern houses of worship next spring. With the splendid high school building, the new cotton mill and scores of new residences gong up, Marshville’s future is assured, as evidenced by recent lot sales in which residence properties sold at high figures, especially those located on the Wilmington-Charlotte highway, which is to be hard-surfaced through town next spring.
Dr. Blair’s Visit to Cuba
Dr. M.P. Blair, who returned a few days ago from Havana, Cuba, where he attended a meeting of Seaboard surgeons, relates some very interesting observations in the island city, one of which might be intensely interesting to Union county tax payers at present. Dr. Blair says that the Cubans have no land tax to pay and that taxes of all kinds are raised through gambling arrangements, the Government exacting a certain per cent of all money passing through the hands of gamblers. If we must have gambling in the United States, which it appears we do have in abundance, some might argue that a nice sum could and should be raised I our midst for defraying the expenses of the Governments of counties, states and nation. But of course our Government cannot and will not countenance gambling, even if it is carried on just the same.
And were it not for the fact that I have always been opposed to cruelty to animals, I could not resist the temptation to tell what Dr. Blair says about the open drink stands in Havana—not soft drinks like Judge Gaddy and Howell Guion serve in Marshville, but the real stuff, 100 proof with the sure enough kick in it. But we are trying in our upward march of progress to remove all temptations from those who are possessed of more or less weaknesses and for fear too many Union county folks will suddenly decide to spend Christmas in Cuba, I refrain from saying anything about the open barrooms in the hotels, cafes and other public gathering places.
The Dead Must Pay
But one thing the Doctor relates we are safe in passing along to any who have never visited the Cuban town—“The most beautiful cemetery in Havana I have ever seen,” is the way he expresses it, “but you’ve got to pay or get out.” Doctor Blair explains that everybody who is able to pay the “freight” is buried in marble caskets, but that if the hard cash is not coming the dead body is thrown over in one end of the cemetery and left to return to dust with neither honor or protection. “Why,” said "Dr. Blair, “there is a pile of bones in one end of that cemetery about the size of the United Cash Store’s building in Marshville.”
The natives earn their living by growing sugar cane, coconuts, coffee and bananas, and selling liquor. The Catholic is the prevailing religion.
In the great industrial plants a man or woman is employed for full time to read newspapers, books and magazines to the employees while they work, thus keeping the busy and the illiterate as informed as to the topics of the day.
“It is a great offense punishable by imprisonment to desert a child in a manner that will cause it to suffer,” Dr. Blair states, “but there is a charity hospital in the city where one may carry a child, place it in a basket through a hole in the wall and ring a bell.” The child is taken care of by the hospital nurses and no one is supposed to know who its parents are. Dr. Blair thinks there are great possibilities in Cuba, but from his comment there is yet a great deal of work for civilization to do. The big breweries are arranged for parks and a great many public gatherings are held at them. The rural homes have dirt floors, and the sheep, cows, and goats live under the same roof as their masters.
From the front page of the Monroe Journal, Dec. 18, 1923
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