FLORIDA.


and schools, erecting saw-mills, cassava-mills, and fruit-pre-
serving establishments, building new railroads, putting new
steamboats on all these waters, hunting out new "springs,"
building new hotels-in fact, civilizing this entire region.
Everywhere the labor, the enterprise, and the money of the
Northern-born settler are apparent.
 The old slaveholding element, with its aristocratic and
exclusive ideas, is very small in Florida, and that small
number is only found in a few places in the northern coun-
ties. Moreover, the visitor or settler will find these people
(I mean the better class of the old-time slaveholding plant-
ers) at heart very good, hospitable, and kindly-disposed
people. Such has always been my experience, and I have
met many of them.
 I believe none of these people desire a return to slavery
times and customs; and, leaving out the bitterness natural
to humankind when defeated, I believe they honestly wish
to see Northern people settle here.
 The "cracker" element, the "poor white trash," are too
few in number and too insignificant in influence for special


attention. They are, as
rapidly dwindling away
"cracker moves off.
 Capitalists can also fi
investment of money.
eral of the new towns.


a class, merely white barbarians,
and, as new settlers move in, the


nd in Florida a broad field for the
Banks are gt ned nev-
The exchange on the sales of the


great crops and.the vast amount of goods being brought
in every week, not by seasons but continuously, and all
such commercial transactions, make the need of banking-
houses very great. The arrivals of steamers at Sanford
and such principal points on the St. John's average about
thirty each week, and their cargoes each way, and passen-
ger-lists, are indubitable evidence of healthy commerce
and increasing prosperity, where money is plentiful and
well employed. The State laws regarding security for cash