The independent press. (Abbeville C.H., S.C.) 1853-1860, 1854-09-02

Of nuhlber, they have decreased, and it is
tue opinion Of all who have looked into the
matter that disease will eventually exter-
inmate them.
In 1850, it is said they numbered about
rs many rs were originally liberated
$50: and now in 1854, they are generally
supposed to number 100, or less some
have placed them as low as IS. In conse-
quence of their vicious habits, many of the
women are barren; tho children, rs before
stated, poisoned from their birth. Hence
1t may b. readily believed that the average
yearly mortality among them is equal to
that of Farmvi!le-a place more than ten
times as populous-and some years it is
much greater. With the indololence and
'mproyidence characteristic of their race,
they have wantonly destroyed their wood
lands; have exhausted their soil by unsys-
tematic and improper culture have suffered
their houses and enclosures to decay; have
contented themselves with the production of
the bare necessaries of existence and have
as yet given no evidence that the germs of
progress or improvement ever existed in
their unhappy natures. The money derived
from the sale of their crops is invested in
whisky; and the ill-gotton gains of BOOTY
purloined from tho neighborinp gentry i
expended i'll the same way.& They grow no.
thing except Indian Corn and Tobacco, with
a few Potatoes and Peas; these scanty crops
maintain doubtful contest with the crab
grass, carrot weed, briars, and other ill-fa-
vored products of an impoverished soil.
These spring luxuriantly around their cabin
doors. Wheat they never grow. The idea
OF planting an orchard, vegetable or flow
er garden, seems never to have entered their
heads. Nothing like q system, order, pru-
dence, economy or forecast is perceptible
among them. It would be silly to talk of
refinement in connection with such a peo-
pie.
Idle, dishonest, drunken, profligatc, it is
not to be wondered that this community
should be the theatre of scenes of destitn-
tion, disorder, immortality, and crime, suffi-
cient to cause the bones of the good Ran
dolPh to turn in his grave, and such as to
call for the frequent intcrposition of the
ne'ghboring Planters, and not unfrequently
that OF the country authorities. Thus we
hear in one case Of two sisters, one Of whom
tnakes midnight foray into the corn patch
OF the other, and pulls up the entire crop by
the roots. In another, we are told Of an
old woman starving to death, and in anoth-
er OF sickly, poor creature placed under
the charge of q drunken woman who goes
to town to buy whisky, leaving her charge
to die OF sheer neglect. Reports of broils
and battles are common; scarcely a day
passes without some of the adjacent farmers
being called in to interfere in behalf of some
of the oppressed inhabitants of this wretch
ed community. But yesterday two of the
Israelitish women came to the house where
the writer Of this article g soiourning, to
lodge q complaint against fugitive slave
who was harbored in the Hill, and who had
suddenly Fashedf upon them, threatening to
cut off their heads with q scythe blade
which he held in his uplifted hand. j
Such is familiarly drawn picture of Is
rael Hill in 1854, after more than forty
years of freedom, and such are some of the
disastrous consequences of An impolitic and
unwise philanthropy. Had these people
remained slaves, who can doubt but that
their destiny in this life, and perhaps in the
life to come, would have been far different,
far happiera The humiliating results OF
the we'll intended benevolence Of Richard
Randolph, arc fraught with no saIutary les
SON for the negrophilist; but they may
serye to confirm the intelligent STAKEHOLDER
to warn the inexperienced advocates of
emancipation; and to rebuke the many who
shake with laughter at the idea Of repub-
lie in France, yet believe in the capacity of
the negro for the enjoyment Of republican
freedom. "H'" ~ $50. y,