The Hot Springs of Arkansas [pp. 86-94]

THE HOT SPRINGS OF ARKANSAS.
This begets the necessity for poor laws, poor rates, and poor
houses-which are new things under the sun.
There are many difficulties on this subject; one of which is that
whilst all Christian societies and nations recogniise the obligation
to support by poor rates, all who cannot, for whatever cause, sup port themselves, no adequate means have yet been discovered for
preventing the idle, dissolute, and improvident, as well as the un fortunate, industrious, and meritorious poor, from becoming public
charges. Government being under the obligation to support all
who cannot support themselves, has the resulting right to compel
all to labor, who are liable to become public charges, yet no means
have been discovered and applied for enforcing this obvious right
-forvagrant laws are quite inadequate to attain the object. The
number of the destitute and chargeable poor is rapidly increasing
everywhere, but no where else halt' so fast as in our Northern
States. The evil is alarming, and threatens ere long to produce
social convulsions and revolutions. In the South we have, heretofore, had scarce any paupers; but when the Freedmen's Bureau,
and, with it, Federal charity, is removed,- the careless, idle, improvident freedmen will generally become chargeable paupers, or else
must starve.
It has become equally incumbent on the North and the South
to attempt to devise a more efficient, just and eqliitable Poor
House System.
ART. IX.-THE IIOT SPRINGS OF ARKAiISAS.
The remarkable curative properties of these celebrated springs have
long been known to Southerners, and since the close of the war have attracted visitors from many of the Northern States. Seeing a letter from
Senator Morton, of Indiana, in many of our exchanges, in which'he speaks
in the highest terms of his experience at these springs, and of the benefit
he derived from a short sojourn there, we determined to solicit from some of
our Arkansas contributors a paper on the subject; but, finding in.the New
York Herald, of date July 21, an elaborate account and description from the
pen of an able and observant correspondent, we have taken the liberty of
giving it space in our columns.-EDITORS REVIEW.
SIXTY miles from the State capital, in the heart of remote Arkansas, in a narrow but beautiful and picturesque valley, are situated
Hot Springs. This valley, the rocky formations of its base, the swift
running stream coursing through it, and the rugged, pine-covered
heights walling it in on three sides, bear a striking resemblance
to the lesser mountainous regions of Switzerland. It is true that
in the middle hours of the day, in the hot summer months, the
sun overhangs the valley like a brazen shield, hot, penetrative and
suffocating; but, antidotal to this, a cooling and refreshing breeze
almost incessantly sweeps through it, while the early disappearance of the sun behind the high cliffs overlooking it from the
west gives a gloriously long and delicious twilight-such a twi
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