The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1867-10-02
COLUAIBIA., !.
wednesday Morniug, October 2. 1857
s.I.npedimenss', ., the south.

the other day, concerning the merits
of new loom, which processes to
weave all kinds of fabrics, from a
silk dress to rag carpet, and was not
very much surprised when one of
them said, tIt's all q ahumbug," yam
" kee invention, go. We have so
long heard those phrases used against
every new aHa useful invention
sought to be introduced at the South,
that It ocoasioned but Little surprise
when we heard them repeated in the
conversation alluded to. We have
been on plantations, where we saw
the looms in general use--rough,
hasd-working machines, entirely
ignorant of any higher grade CT car
penter's tools than q jack-plane; and
yet we venture to say, that if one of
these smooth-working, perfect ma
chimes had been brought into the
weaving room. Aunts Dinah and
Rose would have turned up their
noses and jumped off their rude,
unpIaned board, end left Indignantly.
In Gen. Sheridan g former Military
DISTRICT, where he piled his high vo-
cation and privilege of removing
civil officers, from the highest to the
lowest, the invariable pretext was
that they were t'impediments" to
reconstruction. The New Orleans
Picayune, in an amusing article,
takea Up tho subject of 'impedi-
ments," and maintains that the labor
saving machines which are beginning
to be introduced from the North are
regarded by the freedmen Gas cop
per-heads with steel arms, and as
natural enemies of the colored man."
AS a consequence, they will have
nothing to do with them. The Plea
yaae says that the freed people see in
these devices only the effort of the
''rebel" to make himself or herself
independent of African muscle, and
are determined, 80 long as they re-
main on the place, these dreaded
simpliiers and economizers of force
shall not be employed. The Picn-
ywne relates some amusing instances
of this inbred antipathy to the new
tangled machines, one or two of
which we quote. Speaking of friend
in the country, it says:
tHe provided himself with full
set of the most modern and best
approved agricultural implements,
and having selected out of hundred
theten best, most willing and trusty
hands, for full, hearty and fair trial
of emancipated labor, he went cheer
fully to work to arrange for making
cotton and corn. But, to his dismay,
his favorite and picked negroes, who
believe him to be both good and
smart were, nevertheless, utterly
opposed to using these new-fangled
instruments. They knew how to
plough with the hull tongue and the
turning pillow : in the black
smith shop; th. were handy with
the hoe; they pr red to work thus.
When he urged them to try the new
implements, insisting upon it, they
promptly declared that they would
not; it was a new scheme to avoid
paying the black man, and they
would have none of it. What was
their surprise the next day, to see
their young and slenderly built mas
ter with pair of mules hitched to
Satterly's gang plow, tearing over
the field and turning over sod they
had never been able to reach before,
and to find by night that he had dis,
psnsed with the labor of several of
them. But, during the entire year,
he has never been able to get one of
them to touch one of these imple-
ments, though he had often demon
strated their use and usefulness"
Speaking of friend in the city,
the Picdy,ne says:
"He procured early this year a
washing machine. He was satisfied
of its vast saving of time and its i'm
proving the cleanliness and saving
the wear of his family's linen; so was
his wife. But the servant was not