Old Virginia and her neighbours

THE CAROLINA FRONTIER. 315was ended they had here a good chance of risingto a position of equality with their masters. Thecountry swarmed with ruffians of all sorts, whofled thither from South Carolina and Virginialife and property were insecure, and Lynch lawwas not unfrequently administered. The smallplanters were apt to be hard drinkers, and amongtheir social amusements were scrimmages, in whichnoses were sometimes broken and eyes gouged out.There was a great deal of gambling. But, exceptat elections and other meetings for political purposes,people saw very little of each other. Theisolation of homesteads, which prevailed over the,South, reached its maximum in North Carolina.It is not strange, then, that the colony was a centuryold before it could boast of a printing-press,or that there were no schools until shortly beforethe war for Independence. A mail from Virginiacame some eight or ten times in a year, but it onlyreached a few towns on the coast, and down to thetime of the Revolution the interior of the countryhad no mails at all.All these consequences clearly followed from thecharacter of the emigTation by which North Carolinawas first peopled, and that character wasdetermined by its geographical position as a wildernessfrontierto such a commonwealth as Virginia.In the character of this emigration we find thereasons for the comparatively democratic stateof society. As there were so few large a frontierplantations and wealthy planters, while '^«'"°