William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 1

[322] is “ a terror to evildoers,” and a Board of Trade. In strolling about the town, we notice a Masonic lodge, a Good Templar lodge, and a Base Ball Club. But the chief glory of Denison is the school-house, a red brick edifice, in the American Tudor style, so common in the Southern States. This pile cost fortyfive thousand dollars, every cent of which was raised on loans in Capel Court. What singular corners of the earth are fertilized by English gold!

If Denison prospers, the money-lenders may receive their own again, and feel that they have helped in a good cause. Rough, noisy, profligate, Denison is a very “live place.” Much drink is put away in little time. The day is Sunday, yet bars are open and billiard-balls click at every turn. Gay women flaunt about the streets, and hucksters quarrel in their cups on every kerbstone. Yet how near the pastoral nature seems to lie! Trees grow in Main street, and stumps of trees choke up the avenues right and left of Main street. Antelopes are tethered in yards. Cows wander up and down, und hang familiarly about the gates. Girls fetch in water from the creeks, and mustangs, still unbroken to the collar, tear across trackless leas of grass. 32-2