LIFE IN MEMPHIS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 12, 15 April 1871, Page 7

LIFE IN MEMPHIS.

Judging from a description given in a recent number of the " New York Tribune" of the character of life in Memphis, residence in that city would appear not to be favorable to one's chances of longevity, " There," says the " Tribune," *' the pistol is as common in the hands of men as the postprandial toothpick in other places—there the little irascible weapon is alike arbitrator and executioner —their disagreement is adjusted,by discharges, and a pellet of lead cures the fever of indignation—there, if a man owes you and will not pay you, insults you and will not apologise, is exclusive and will not drink whiskey with you, gets the beiter over you in the argument and offensively boasts of it, cheats or is cheated by you at cards or billiards or ninepins, and is noisy about the little irregularity, everything can be made serene by sending" the noisy person to the cemetery. .And it must be understood thut the Memphis palate demands the very highest peppering. Nosepulling is there considered effeminate. Caning and cowhiding are milkyaqueous expedients. Posting is no more serious than boys' play. The true chevalier of Memphis is like the giant in the nursery rhyme—he is always smelling blood, and always declaring that he ' will have some.' He surpasses in nicety of honor the most minute of historical swaggerers—he will cavil not to ihe ninth only, but to tho ninety-ninth part of a hair. Ah, what a cheerful, serene, delicious, town to reside in ! There is, indeed, the drawback that although one may be reduced to ' a demnition body.' it may not always be in one's own quarrel. The little balls have a way of coming round the corner and lodging in the wrong bosom, while the blackguard whose business it. is to be shot, disgracefully runs away. The. pistoleers of Memphis, it must be acknowledged, are a little arbitary and indiscriminate . . . Since the old duelling days in Dublin, there has never been so much popping for peity causes as now in this Tennessee city. There, the other day, two «gentlemen' at their dinners fell out upon the recondite question whether a ' porter-house steak has a bone in it,' and the result was death to one of the disputants. Soon after, two 'gentlemen' were engaged in a game of ninepins, and before the last ball was rolled both contestants were stretched lifeless upon the alley. In another case, a tenant wouldn't or couldn't pay his rent, and speedily the account was adjusted by the death of the debtor. Even the gentle sex has caught the sulphurous and sanguinary infection. Not long ago a lovely woman (we suppose that she was lovely, of course—they all are) shot an unlovely man. Love, business, politics—all that the Memphisians are, and all that they do—gives occasion for killing.