Washington sentinel. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1853-1855, 1854-08-25

equal to that of Farmville---a place more
than ten times as populous; and some years
it is much greater. With the Incidence and
improvidence Characteristic of their race, they
have wantonly destroyed their wood lands ;
have exhausted their soil by unsystematic and
improper culture; have suffered their houses
and enclosures to decay; have contented them
selves with the production Of the bare neces.
saries of existence; and have as yet given no
evidence that the germs of progress OF inn
provement, ever existed in their unhappy ma.
lures. The money derived from the sale OF
their crops is invested in whisky. and the i'll
gotten gains of booty purloined from the
neighboring gentry, is expended in the same
way. They grow nothing except Indian corn
and tobacco, with q few potatoes and peas
these scanty crops maintain doubtful con.
test with the crab grass, carrot weed, briers,
and other ill-iavored products of an impover.
ished soil. These spring luxuriantly around
their cabin doors. Wheat they never grow.
The idea of planting an orchard, vegetable
or flower garden, seems never to have entered
their heads. Nothing like system, order pru.
dence, enconomy, or forecast, is perceptible
among them. 1t would be silly to talk of re-
fnement with such a people. Idle, dishonest,
drunken, proaigate, it is not to be wondered
that this community should be the theatre Of
scenes of restitution, disorder, immortality, and
crime sufficient to cause the bones Of the good
Randolph to turn in his grave, and such as to
call for the frequent interposition of the neigh.
boring planters, and not unfrequently that OF
the county authorities. Thus we hear in one
case Of two sisters, one of whom makes a
midnight foray into the corn patch of the other,
and pulls the entire crop up by the roots. In
another, we are told Of an old woman starving
to death and in another, of sickly, poor
creature placed under the charge of drunken
woman who goes to town to buy whisky, leav-
ing her charge to die Of sheer neglect Re-
ports Of broils and battles are common; scarce
" a day passes without some of the adjacent
farmers being called in to interfere in behalf OF
some of the oppressed inhabitants of this
wretched community. But yesterday, two Of
the Israelitish women came to the house where
the writer Of this article is sojourning, to lodge
complaint against fugitive slave VIII, was
harbored in the Hill, and who had suddenly
rushed upon them, threatening to cut off their
heads with scythe blade, which he held in his
uplifted hand.
Such is family drawn picture of Israel Hill,
in 1854, after more than forty years of freedom ;
and such are some of the disastrous conse.
quences of On impolitic and unwise philan.
thropy. Had these people remained slaves,
who can doubt that their destiny in this life,
and perhaps in the life to come, would have
been far different, far happier? The humiliat
ing results Of the wellintended benevolence OF
Richard Randolph, are fraught with no salu-
tary lesson for the philanthropist; but they
may serve to confirm the intelligent STAKEHOLDER,
to warn the inexperienced advocates of eman.
cipation, and to rebuke the many who shake
with laughter at the idea of republic in
France, yet believe in the capacity of the negro
for the enjoyment of republican freedom.