Disptach, August 5,, 1888

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Moral -- VandalismMoral -- OtherInfrastructure -- Public : ChurchesMoral -- AlcoholInfrastructure -- Public : Camp meetingsDiseaseSea -- Finfish - Methods : Hand lineTourists and sportsmen -- Field sports - Fishing

Onancock, August 3, 1888.

For some time past the good order of Onancock has been disturbed by a gang of young negro men, who under the leader hip of Horace Costin, a deserter from the regular army, have frequently made night hideous by their howls and indecent language. Yesterday Horace Costin, the leader of the gang, was arraigned before Mayor Weaver, who fined him for his rowdyism, and in default of payment sent him to jail. At the same time the Mayor fined two colored boys for breaking a stained-glass window in the Episcopal church here. The windows in this church are the handsomest and costliest on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and though but recently put in two of the costliest of the memorial windows have been broken by wanton or malicious persons. It is hoped that the action of the Mayor in these cases will break up the gang of colored rowdies and check the rage for breaking church windows.

The Southern Methodist camp-meeting began yesterday in Turlington's woods, near the Agricultural Fair-Grounds and about one mile from Keller station. The crowd present on the first day is never very large and the day was occupied mainly in moving into the tents, as the frail wooden cottages that surround the great tabernacle are called, and in setting things in order about the camp-ground. The arbor, or tabernacle, consists of a board roof, supported on stout pillars, and capable of sheltering several thousand people. This is surrounded on all sides with two rows of tents, or cottages, a story and a half high, numbering in all about seventy. Some of these are boarding-tents, where visitors from a distance can obtain board and lodging at reasonable rates, but by far the most of them are owned by residents of the community, who take their families and friends with them and live at the camp-ground throughout the meeting, which generally lasts for two weeks. For the time being the camp becomes a regular community of six or seven hundred regular denizens, who live, eat, and sleep as well as worship there. On the outskirts of the camp-ground are the shops of dealers where confectioneries, soda-water, lemonade, and other light drinks can be obtained, while the knowing ones say that something stronger can be gotten further down in the woods. This is one of the great holiday occasions on the Eastern Shore, and is looked to with much interest by all, but more especially by the young folks, who utilize the occasion for social relations. New week the meeting will be in full blast, and as many as five thousand people are expected to be present on Tuesday and Wednesday, which will be the great days of the meeting. Several distinguished ministers are expected from the western side of the Chesapeake, and among them Dr. Lafferty, editor of the Richmond Christian Advocate, who with his "cloud-compelling lectures" will be sure to bring refreshing showers in a physical as well as spiritual sense.

Typhoid-fever is raging as an epidemic in some sections on the seaside. Eighteen persons are reported to be prostrated with this disease in the little village of Wachapreague, and among them is Dr. George W. LeCato, the most prominent physician in the place, who is said to be dangerously ill. As yet only one case has proved fatal.

Fish are said to be more plentiful in this section than for many years, and the handline fishermen are reaping a rich harvest every day.

Your correspondent was on Chincoteague Island several days ago and saw a wealthy New-Yorker who is spending the summer there go out a short distance in the bay that fronts the hotel and return in less than an hour with seventy-odd fine fish which he had caught with hook and line. The fish bit his hook as fast as he could pull them in.