The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1867-05-09
COLUMBIA.
Thursday Morning, May 8, 1857.
New System OF Labor.

We observe in several of our South
ern exchanges an article stating that
several planters in Kinds and Madi-
son Counties, Mississippi, believe
that they have discovered the most
desirable mode of making Southern
labor, ut present, profitable; and as
all information OH this subject must
be of interest to our readers, we will
briefly sketch the system, SO that
those who are desirous of making the
experiment may do 30.
These Mississippi planters do not
believe that working large gangs Of
hands, with one or two to watch them,
is the best way with free blacks.
They do not believe in having n
negro quarter" nor do they pretend
to undertake the raising of meat for
their hands. They fence out their
woodlands, and then place the blacks
in cabins several hundred yards apart,
and OIL the borders of the wood
lands. To each family of blacks, they
assign such nh amount of land as
they can cultivate. well, and loan to
each three lnborers, two mules and
other useful and necessary articles.
The blacks grow corn, cotton or other
products, and half the crops, after
deducting the supplies furnished, is
given to the producers. Living on
the border of the woodland, each
family of blacks, without trouble,
raises its own pigs, which fatten on
the mast in the woods. This is one
of the most advantageous workings
of the system, for where there has
been gang of sixty hands, the sup
plying Of meat has been great
trouble.
Heretofore, as NIL planters know,
ono of the greatest annoyances of
plantation life has been the difficulty
of getting the blacks to take care of
the plantation stock; but ns this state
ment says, when each family of blacks
looks after its own stock, this difficult
ty Is surmounted. Again, in every
gang Of one hunnred hands, there is
certain to be at least fifteen lazy ones,
and in the field, ordinarily, the whole
gang is content with the pace of these
fifteen. When q family has its own
allotment, and is to profit by the
amount of the crop. the head of the
family is pretty certain to keep the
others we'll up with the workbench
working family having its home at
some distance from others, so that
pilfering, which has always been so
prevalent in and about the old-fa-
shioned negro quarters, is pretty
much done away.
Such is brief outline of the new
system, and its friends are sanguine
that its general adoption would give
to the South euch an organization of
labor as it needs-will tend to stimu
late production; will advance the
physical, social md moral condition
of the negro; will harmonize the in
terest of employer and employee, and
cause the Southern States to blossom
with prosperity. It's advocates claim
that it is infinitely better than efforts
to import foreigners, and to learn
them to cultivate cotton and to har-
monize their modes Of working with
those only familiar with slave labor.
We are not sufficiently familiar with
agricultural management to express
mn opinion, but bring the "new sys-
tenn" to the attention of our farming
friends, that they may consider the
matter.
PoLITIcs IN WASHINGTON. 1t ap-
pears that the statement published
ny Northern correspondents in re-
gard to white and black voters in
Washington is not correct. The
excess of white voters over the blacks,
ms shown by the books, is 677. There
are, in the several wards of the city,
1900 white voters unregistered, who