La sentinelle de Thibodaux. [volume] (Thibodaux, La.) 1861-1866, 1865-08-19
FROM MONTGOMERY.

We clip the following from the Mont
gomery Daily Advertiser of the 5tl
inst.
The number of freedmen thieves are
certainly increasing in this city it is
growing rapidly, fearfully. And if some
thing is not done to moderate this pro
pensity to steal, something serio US is
likely to grow out Of it. In this Tine of
business at least, "the colored people are
showing a patience and Industry quite
notorious. They are thus acting wor-
thy of their freedom . and if it does not
+" make them proprietors of the soil,'' it
brings into their possession many articles
them would go naked, and starve to death.
You see, Mr.. Editor, these new-made
freedmen believe in " confscation." They
are at this confiscation work every day,
and every night. That system is work
ing well' for them, and, SO well is this
- system" working, that I do not suppose
there is a family in Montgomery, but has
felt the effects of its practical operation.
Pigs taken out of your pen, chickens
stolen by the dozen from your coop, vege-
tables disappear from your gardens.
clothes drying On your line, gone before
You know it horses, mules, calves, in
deed anything they van or don't want,
has the magic Presto pronounced upon it,
and you look in vain for it. But isow else
a many, or any of these trifiing, strag-
Cling negroes live, but by stealing. They
will not work, not even on terms more
favorable than those made by the Freed
mems Bureau. In the first place, there
are SO many negroes in the city. that they
can't all get work, and they must steal or
starye. And unless that celebrated Bureau,
which has assumed the responsibility of
providing for the freedmen, adopt some
plan by which the negro shall be made
to work, they had better get Congress to
pass q large coffin appropriation bill, for
the coming winter will witness starvation,
freezing and death on a scale of such.
magnitude as to satisfy death itself-then
thousands Of these freedmen will be per-
manent landJholders,, or the land will hold
them permanently enough. Until that
time, when it may be respected that they
will "take possession Of the soil,' they
will live by patient and Industrious
stealing. 7s4d3
This city is crowded, crammed, packed
with multitudss of lazy, worthless negroes
men and women, who, under a more eff
fcient system of labor, might be made
useful to the State, and to. do much for
themselves. Crimes multiply upon the
accumulation Of this mass of strong animal
passions, and uncontrolled s~ensuality. 1t
may be said and proved, that the criminal
immortality Of this city is darker, deeper,
more unblushins, more fsaffully extended
now, than it ever has been. Nothing else
need be expected from the packing to-
gether of these thousands Of negroes with
their idleness and filth, than crime and
disease. If an epidemic should break out
anywhere among them, It would spread
over this city with q most terrible fatality
to white and black. 2 It is almost or quite
impossible to keep the city in a proper
sanitary condition ; and it will be almost
a miracle if we should escape. Every
thing demands that these idle, lazy,
thieving negroes should be perforce,
placed out in healthy districts, and made
to work. t.aI5a & 8. III I
The 2Freedmen's Bureau has not yet
comprehended the magnitude of the work
before it, or the difficulties in the way of
securing beneficial results. They will
And complications in the vast undertaking
of dealing with the Southern negro, So as
not to render him altogether vile or
worthless, which demand a superior judg-
ment, unbiased by prejudice deep
~discernment of negro character, and that