The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1865-06-30
The Negro at Home.
An African Excitement I'm the Negro
Suffrage Line.

From g. A. Laa's Algerian letter in the London
Telegraph. ...
You have been told that, with education and
equal political and social rights, the free negro
viii in the process of time rise to the level Of
the white man. Some amiable fanatics go 80
far as to maintain that Sambo is, in all respects
about thirty five per cent better than his fair
iment has been tried by the French In Algiers,
not dogmatically but almost unconsci0usly,
for five and thirty years. Sambo in Agiers IL
held by authority to be as good as any other
man. The Europeans, the Arabs, the Jews,
and the negroes all enjoy equal rights. The
Moors often marry their negressea The
Erencn nave not the slightest prejudice against
never have had. Among the ladies' Sambo is
even popular. He is "us beau no;r.n The
Zouave walks arm. in-arm with the Turco ne.
groes and negresses ride in the same Omnibus.
es and carriages as white men and there seem
to be as many negroes lin Algiers-full blood
ulation, as In any considerable city of the
North. am quite certain that if q deserving
colonist were recommended to the Emperor
for the cross of the Legion of Honor his ma.
jesty would not withhold the decoration from
him on the ground that he had black face
don't think the community would offer the
slightest objection to negro sub project or a
negro commissary of police. Why should
they? The negro Is French subject, and all
Frenchmen are equal before the law. Thus.
without civil disabilities, without the stigma
OF belonging to an abhorred and condemned
race, one might imagine that enfranchised
Sambo would have done something for him
self by this time. The State provides gratui-
tous education for all races classes and creeds /;
and there is plenty of work, and money to be
made, for those who are sober and industri-
GUS. The end of all of which is, that Sambo
goes to sleep in the sun, waking up to reject
himself with abundant pumpkin, or plente-
Gus plaintains-you may buy bunch of them
for two pence devouring, preferably, an
other mans pumpkin to his own. He does a
little fishing-that avocation affording him
plenty of time to swing his legs over a bank,
grooming forth songs Of the tom.tom kind, and
taking short dozes between the bites; he does
a little gardening he peddles few baskets,
calabashes and bead rosaries, and higgles also
fowls and eggs. This is all. He works, per-
haps, two davis week. He is very catholic
in his creed, keeping with much scrupulosity,
and Is the closest of holidays, the Mahometan
is Saturday. and the Christian, which is Sum
day, with very likely little Saint Monday of
his own. And whenever there is the slightest
excuse for an extra festival he begs or steals an
old cooked hat and a.pair Of worsted epaulettes,
to surmount his turban or his shoulders with
al he sticks spangles or tinsel over his caftan,
and with Pompey, Quashie, and Quimbo, his
brethren, he perambulates the streets, thump-
ing the tom-tom, clanking the castanets, howl.
ing the chants of his country, and demanding
sous. In the whole of Algiers there is not a
single reputable negro shopkeeper or artisan.
You never see the negroes, now that they are
free. carrying heavy. burdens, or doing any
kind OF arduous manual labor; that they leave
to the Arabs Sambo prefers to loaf and ''slosh
around"