The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1865-08-02
Nearby ADVERTTsrNc
The Negro Cabins of Washington.


The Negro Cabins of Washington.
The cOlOred people of Washington
poured i'll great flood of them. With
every advancing step of our armies,
gathering up great bales of articles that
seemed most desirable to them from
their own domicile and from the houses
of their masters, they made their way
to Washington, the Mecca of their i'm
aginations, under the impression that
freedom and plenty We're to he attained
by reaching it. What they found is sad
ly set forth in the Washington LiteUi-
genccT, which says :
"They came by tens and by hundreds.
The old and the dGcrcpid, the Young
and helpless, the middle-aged and
strong. On foot they came, and they
bore with them their goods and chat
tells. Stout girls of twelve carried the
balanced upon their heads baskets of
provisions for the journey; buxom
field hands bore great bales consisting
of feather beds, NIissum's dresses, mir
rOrs, and bandbOXes, and the men were
burdened with an amount of sundrics
that would make II cArt-load.
No eNertion was eNhausting, no OBJ
stacle insurmountable. ,5"Gwinc Norf,
where you all come FROM" was the ex-
ultant answer to all interrogatories
concerning their destination,
They knew little, but they dreamed
much. Ofwhat would be the result of
the sudden and unprOVided for change
in their condition. 1t was Il leap in the
dark; but they imagined it n leap from
1OFl-nncS Mt 1iThf a, .1Ot -
bondage into the glorious condition of
freedom; and they naturally considered
that they would be the recipients of the
blessings that such change should
produce.
Alas. alas, for the awakening from
this delusion! They found themselves
at last in Washington, homeless and
friendless. They stood upon the
wharves and gazed and wondered.
The great dome of the Capitol, the
marble walls of the public buildings,
the busy throngs going and coming
from their accustomed places of bust
ness, amazed them, No feast was offered
bic homes. They found themselves
strangers in strange land-destitute
and despised; and pinched by hunger
and faint with the reaction of stimulat-
ed imaginatiOns, they began to grope
their way into alleys and by-wayS, and
stable-lOfts and rude novels; and so
became, twenty-five thousand of them,
deniZens of the American Metropolis.
How they have lived, how they have
suffered, how they have died, will never
be written.
We find great portion of them in
what are denOminRted crows" gener-
ally made of the cheapest lumber, and
covered with felt and tar and divided
into apartments, some II by IA feet in
and rented for "a, s. and
sc per room or cabin" The actual
cost of the rooms were from $40 to 500
each, (rarely exceeding the latter sum-,
and the rents already paid have, III
many instances, exceeded the entire
outlay i'm erecting them. A single room
is occupied by family, and in many
instances two or three families are
crowded into the same apartment. The
occupants of these rooms and others in
that section of the city have hitherto
found employment in washing for Lin
coin and Emory hospitals, in cutting
wood for the Quurtermaster's Depart
ment, and working for Captain KrOuSe.
Near the Marine Hospital, in Il most
wretched hOvel, lives an old colOred
woman, who, besides paying her rent
of 50 per month, supports a family of
eight children by washing.
Further west the Island is studded
with the same sort of cabins, and north
of the avenue, in the vicinity of the cor
rails and the original Contraband Camp,
all sorts and sizes Ofthem may be found
wedged i'll every conceivable shape into
vacant space and yards and alleys.
How such n multitude live and obtain
clothing is a question for the curious.
They have no convenience for cooking
or washing-ano old broken stove, placed
outside on the common, srlffices for sew
eral families. In many instances u rude
furnace, built of broken brick on the
top of which is placed n kettle, takes the
place of the stove and n line stretched
out on the common, and watched by
the children, is the clothes dryer. All
day, boys and girls and the old and in
firm delYe in cutters, among piles of
and in the trail Ofwood and cOal carts,
for bits of fuel, which they carry home
in old grain sacks that they have pick
ed up about the camps. ~
Their clothing is also gathered, to n
great extent, in the same manner. Boys
of twelve to eighteen may be seen in
uniforms of full-grown men. "Soldier
of fit. Their wages and the offerings of
the charitable supply them with a bare
subsistence. ssa ~
If such be their summer condition,
what nre they to do through the com
ing winter? That so large II number OF
these people cannot remain here per-
manentlY without becoming pest to
society, n curse to- themselves, is, we
think, self-evident; and that they can
not be removed this season is perhaps,
just as apparent.
We found many of them, perhaps The
Ndj0Tity, dnEiOILB to return to the places
from 1UheHce they came: but they are i'm
/ pressed with the idea that, ut this sea
son of tho year, they would be unable
| to. obtain employment or the means OF
subsistence.
The effect of an unemployed, unre,
strained, and Impoverished race, num-
bering thousands, upon the interests Oi
society can hardly be conceived. They
create an unhealthy competition of la.
Dor; they are forced into channels O.
vice, under the plea of necessity; and
they remove the odium that naturally
hangs upon ignorance, by making Il
common" 40.