Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1862-09-03

steam, and is condensed by passing through
pipes surrounded by cold water, and the wine
passes off in a melted state. The second year
the same trees are peeled up some twenty
feet or more, and when the pitch fries
out it is scraped off and used for
the same purpose as the first year. These
trees are now dead, and from them tar is
made in the following manner: The trees are
cut into four feet lengths, and split fine about
two inches square; then large pile is made,
something like charcoal pit about sixteen
feet in diameter, and nearly round, all above
ground around which is piled logs of green
trees, Clubhouse fashion, little distance from
the pile, then dirt is filled in all around and
tamped down close, and the top is covered
with turf and dirt, and before the fire is set a
well-hole is dug near the pile, into which leads
a trench from the center of the stack, having
been dug before the wood was piled up, and
into the well-hole from the burning stack, for
nearly week, runs the pure tar, and from
which it is dipped into barrels and carted to
market, and at the present time is selling here
in Newbern for twelve dollars per barrel, in
stead Of two or three dollars, the price in time
of peace. After the fire is lighted it has to
be closely watched night and day, and as the
stack settles the outside logs are rolled off,
and the top is kept covered with earth, and
the pit, which we visited yesterday, will pro-
duce about fifty barrels of tar, and from one
to two hundred bushels of charcoal and it
will be about four days burning.
This is the manner in which tar is obtained,
and you will be surprised to learn that three
contrabands, who have always been slaves till
the taking of Newbern, have had liberty of the
provost marshal to work on this rebel farm,
and are in company with each other at this
business, all on their own account, without
any slave driver to whip them, or lazy white
master to steal the sweat of their brows, and
in three weeks time, they will get over $500
for their labor; and they have commenced an
other pit from which they will get over a hun
dred barrels of tar,-besides the charcoal.
You would have been pleased to have heard
their wonderfully smart, and animated con-
versaton, with many good hit. One of
them said, 1--WE will work for such men as
you, as long as we live, and then our children
and our children's children, will work for
you, for you treat us like men," Then in
pert manner he added, 1--WE slaves have made
the money, and our masters have put it in
their pockets" 1t has also been said all
through the north by certain class, that the
negro CAN'T learn anything. Now here is
poser to any such idea as that, under our own
observation. Capt. Goodwin has a boy who
has always been a slave, and when he came
to him did not know a letter; and of his own
accord in very short time, has learned to
read and write, and can now write his name
in letter shape, better than one half of the
saveocrats of the north. All of our heavy
Notifications about Newbern have been con-
structed by the labor of the contrabands,
and it is idle to (for one moment) enter
tain an idea that they cannot support
themselves if set at liberty, when for
wears thew NOT only have done that hut