Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1857-05-21
TIE SAND KILLER.
WHAT sLAvERY DOES FOR THE POOR WHITE

condition of that miserable class of white
called Sand hillers, whom the employment O
Slave labor by the wealthier class has driver
into vagabondage
Between the slow country of South Caro-
lima lies the middle, or Sand-hill region. A
large portion Of this tract, which varies from
ten to thirty miles covered With forests of pint
interspersed here and there with variety oi
other trees. Where it is under cultivation
the principal crop is cotton. But the land i.
not generally fertile, and much of it is likely
to remain for long time, partial wilder
ness
The country itself presents few interesting
features. but it is the home of singular race
OF people, to whom l may proftably devote q
few paragraphs of description.
In travelling through the middle country
| often passed the rude, squalid cabins of the
Sand-hillers. All the inmates usually focked
to the doorof their windowless domcils to stare
at me-And such lank scrawny, filthy set OF
beings l never behold elsewhere-not even the
'purlieus" of the Five Points"
Their complexion is a ghastly yeIlowish
white, without the faintest tinge of wholesome
red. The hair of the adults is generally sandy
and that of the children nearly as white as cot
ton. The children are even paler, if possible
than the adults, and often painfully haggard
and sickly looking.
They are entirely uneducated, and semi
barbarian in oil their habits, very dull, stupid
and in general social position far below the
slave population around them. In fact the
negroes look down upon the with mingled feel
ings of pity and contempt. They are SQUAT.
tered !aDds hnln tn o4Ho -
or without their consent They sometimes
cultivate or rather plant n small patch of
ground near their cabins, raising little corn
and few cabbages, melons and sweet pota-
toes. Their agricultural operations never ex
tend any beyond this
Corn bread, pork and cabbage. (fried in
lard) seemed to be their principal articles of
diet. To procure the latter, and whatever
clothes they require, they made shingles or
baskets or gather pine knots, or wild berries
which they sell in the villages, but beyond
what is required to supply their very limited
actual necessities they will not work for.
Their principal employments are hunting
and fishing, and their standard amusement
drinking whiskey and fighting.
Their dress is Us primitive as their habits
The women and children invariably 90 bare
headed. bare-footed and bare-legged, their on
iy garments apparently being coarse calico
dress. The men wear cotton shirt and trous-
ers of the coarse home-spun cloth of the coun-
try, with the addition sometimes Of an upper
garment too rude and shapeless to be named
or described.
one day met migrating family of these
miserable people. On most sorry, Iank. and
a mt 60
packed the entire houshold effects of the fami-
ly, consisting of bed and q few cooking
utensils. Two small children occupied the
top of the pack. Two larger ones, each load
ed with q bundle, trpdged behind the mother.
who appeared not more than seventeen years
of age. The father, a wild, sinister looking
fellow, walked in advance of the rest, with his
long rife on his shoulder, and his hunting pouch
by his side
A correspondent Of one Of the city dailes
thus describes an encounter with Sand hill
family
Here, on the road, We met O family who
have been in town. A little girl of ten years
old, with a coarse fragment of a dress on, is
sitting on the backbone Of moving skeleton
of horse, which has the additional task of
trailing along rickety specimen of wagon,
in which is seated man-a real outside squal-
lid barbarian, maudlin and obfusticated with
bald faced whiskey with child four or five
years old by his side. Behind this hag-
gard looking boy upon another skeleton of
horse is coming.
What low outlandish, low wheeled cart
the horse is pulling There sits the old wo-
man and her grown up daughter, with nothing
on apparently. except very dirty bonnet, a
coarse and dirty gown. The daughter has
basket by her side, aud the old woman holds
fast to suspicious looking stone jug, of half
gallon measure, coEked with corn cob. You
can bet your life on it, that is jug of whiSkey
The family have been to the village with
couple of one horse loads of pine knots used
for light wood. They have probably sold
them for dollar, half of which has doubtless
gone for whiskey, and now they are getting
home. Degraded as they are. ron see it is
the man who is helpless and the woman who
has the care OF the Jug, and conducts the i'm
portant expedition. There are hundreds such
people dispersed through these Sand hills
You see the whole of this party are bare-Ies-
ged and bare-footed And bow bony and
brown they are And IL is a curious fact,
llat III temperate COUNTRIES the cnlluren OF all
semibarbarous white people Except Sir Henry
Bulwer's back of red headed Celts, and all
Anglo-Saxon back-woods, or mountain, or prai-
rie people, have cotton-headed or fa1en-head-
ed children
Low indeed is the lowest class of the white
people in the southern States, but nowhere else
have found them so degraded as in South
Carolina. Poor buckrah, y poor white folks, :"
are the terms by which the negroes designate
them. and in the poor a great deal is meant
in this connection. IL includes not only pecu-
MARY poverty. but ignorance, boorishness and
general degradation The Southern negro
never applies the word to snv one who has the
manners and bearing of gentleman, however
light his purse. Poor white man rs an OBJ
ject he looks down upen--an object of PITY or