The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1868-01-20
FROM MISSISSIPPI.
The Condition of the SOuth-FaiIure
Of the CrOpS-Business StagnatiOn
Warning to Shippers Of Produce
The General DeStltUtiOn-CBeap
landslide condition of the Ne
grOes.
VICKsBURG, Miss,
January IL, 1868.

L have never written to you, as L
promised l would. The only excuse
to be offered is, that there has been
but little to say until now; nor would
l write now did I not feel that the
people up North should have better
idea of affairs down here. It would
save many of them trouble and pre-
vent loss. A case in point and
many such have actually oc-
curred-presented itself to-day. Three
days ago, gentleman from
Illinois, came down here with one
hundred and twenty very fine mules,
expecting to find a market for them
at good prices This afternoon he
put them aboard a steamboat to take
them back home. His loss In this
transaction cam OF fall short of So, 000
The other day man dropped in here
with a boat load of lime, and could
not sell at any price. There is no
money in the country. The people
are impoverished. Many of them,
and especially the freedmen, are
actually suffering for something to
eat. Most of the cotton is in, and yet
In very few instances only, have the
merchants bills been paid. Some
planters, it is true, lodged the mer-
their cotton elsewhere. Those have a
little money and that is about all there
is. Those planters who acted fairly
and gave up all they had, find their
bills unpaid, themselves out oe sup
I IL L l.
aid them further. The merchants
are nearly all insolvent - liter
ally ruined by short crops,
the low price of cotton, the silly
claims of freedmen, and the unjust
interference ofthe Freedmen's Bureau.
The future looks gloomy to all. The
planters cannot go ahead, except in
a very small way. Even had
they the means, but few of them, af-
ter so many disastrous failures, would
be willing to try their hand again.
They do not feel that it would be safe
to work against the high price of pro-
duce and provisions, the uncertain
labor of the freedmen, their own in
experience In the management of that
kind of labor, and the probable low
price of their crop when raised.
Hundreds of plantations will be idle
this year, some of them as productive
as any lands under the sun. Last
Christmas most of the freedmen
were discharged, aud are now
without homes aud without
food. They must steal and plum
der, or starve They are stealing
and plundering. probably aided, in
many instances, by whites. 1t is al
most impossible to keep stock any
where in the State. Hogs and cat lie
are killed in the yards of their own
ers to feed hungry providers. Corn
and cotton were stolen from the fields.
Many planters who, thought they had
raised corn enough to last them for
the season, found, on going into their
fields to gather it, that one half had
already been pulled. Perhaps you are
aware how disastrous the attempts
of Northern men to farm down here
have proven. Hundreds of them who
have worried through the last year,
and at last lost all, have given up
their places and are moving back
North. The present state of affairs
will not permit any one to do any
good Practical men-good indus
trious Northern farmer@have tried
it and have failed. Land can now be
bought for mere song. Farms can
be lad, in many places. for less than
the cost of the buildings on them. To
those who have faith in the early
restoration of law, and security to
property here, and desire to deal in
real estate, this is the place and the
time to buy.k That things will
straighten up here and this
country become prosperous in time,
| do not question. How long that
time will be is another matter. But
the country is too productive and
fruitful to go to wilderness as some
predict. If you can farm in Indiana
on land worth 500 per acre and
raise stock and produce to be sold
here at a profit over and above the
cost Of handling and transportation,
why can you not do better by raising
the same articles here on land fully
as productive. and that can now be
bought outright for less than one
years interest on the Indiana land?
But [ am getting off the track. |
meant to give you an idea of the I.
poverty of the people. An acquain- |
lance Of ours, physician, who lives
IN what is deemed one of the best |
neighborhoods, did a practice last /
year amounting to near $1,000 He |
"a mo into our of 10 tho ofbar dow an 4 /