ON THE CIRCUIT IN SOUTHERN WEST VIRGINIA. BY EDWARD S. DOOLITTLE.
the chief products of the State, are annually exported, with the supply apparently inex haustible. The successful future of West Virginia is assured. In the language of the expiring Father Paul to his country, Esto perpetua. Not unnaturally lawyers have been more instrumental than any other class of West Virginians in forming the State Constitutions and government, in adopting a rational sys tem of laws, and, doubtless, by these their efforts, in promoting the general welfare and prosperity of the people. In support of this allegation,—not pretension as some of the ignorant laity may, Josh Billings like, "sarkastikally sugjest",—it is only necessary for the latter class to look up the biographies of many pioneers of the West Virginia Bar —lawyers who have attained distinction in the legal profession and whose names are inseparably associated with the history and laws of the State. Before and for some years after the warr there was no railroad in the southern part of West Virginia south of the Baltimore and "' Tis a rough land of earth and stone and tree, Ohio, and in this part of the State the Circuit Where breathes no castled lord or cabined slave, Judges with their respective retainers, the Where thoughts and tongues and hands are bold best lawyers, or rather advocates, rode on and free, And friends will find a welcome, foes a grave; horseback the circuit, from county to county. And where none kneel save when to heaven they pray, In those days the Judge and the lawyers ac Nor even then unless in their own way." companying him would sometimes not Well, the war ended,—or rather the war round up" to greet friends and relatives at ended well for the Mountain State. And home until after an absence of two or three since the war West Virginia has rapidly in months. creased in population and wealth. Immi Occasionally they would ride three or four gration and capital, encouraged by the law- days before reachiner the county-seat at which making powers, have poured steadily into a term of court was to be held. During this long ride they beguiled the time by relating the State. The inland rivers have been improved, anecdotes, singing songs, cracking jokes at locked and dammed. The mountains have each other's expense, shooting at the game been reached and traversed by numerous which came in their way, and occasionally racing their horses—after partaking too railways. Upon these thoroughfares im mense quantities of coal, coke and timber, freely of the red-rosebud liquor with which
IN the year 1863 and in the midst of civil war, that part of Virginia lying between the Alleghany Mountains on the east and the Ohio and Big Sandy Rivers on the west, was admitted to the Union as the State of West Virginia, with the motto, Montani semper liberi. Those were troublous times for the Union. Whether the new State should continue a member thereof with all the insignia and rights of independent Statehood, and thus demonstrate the truth of her motto, was one of the questions to be answered by the arbi trament of war. It was eminently proper that these fearless, liberty loving moun taineers should adopt this motto. The hills and mountains of their native land are wellnigh innumerable. In the southern part of the State, at the time of its admission, the natives, whether pursuing their usually peaceful avocations, whether resisting the encroachments of foreign land-grabbers or evading the officers of the law, were in their mountain retreats always free.
