, 1869-07-30
NEGROES IN WASHINGTON CITY.

Out OF ABOUT loU,UUO population, Wash.
ington City numbers at least GO, 900 blacks,
and 10000 carPet-bagges, who lead them
and share every element of their degradation
except their ignorance. 0fthese go, 900 ne>
groes, at least 81 900 are former slaves. or
the 81 900 former slaves, at least $4,000 are
of the class that, 10 days of peace, we called
feld-hands-negroes who worked in gangs
out 10 the fields, lived among themselves,
aud did not pass that lazy ordeal Of houses
service which mellows the dsrkey into an in
offensive, quiet, dutiful animal. OF these
$4,000 6eld.hands, at least four ffths have
drited into this unhappy city in the wake
of the Federal armies, and have come
from all parts of Virginia, Maryland, and
the Caroliuas, being the worst of their race,
whom the advent Of peace eAtailed upon the
best Government: the world ever saw as
wards political pets, and virile voters.
They live in that part of the city known
as The Island which is formed by the PO-
tomac, on the one side, and a canal which
traveses the town leugthwise of aud about a
hundred yards back from Pennsylvania aven.
ue, on the north. This canal-which origi-
nally intended for purposes Of navigation, has
declined into an offahditch and drain-re.
ceptacle for all that part of the district it
blsects-marks, as distinctly
GAS the boundary line
Between Gods patience and bis wrath"
the confines separating the clean from the
unclean, the safe from the dangerous por>
tions Of the capitol. On the north side of
this sinuous sewer live the negroes almost
exclusively. These lines of location have
been locally named Murder Bay Frederick
town. 'Howardtown, and 'Uniontown,' all
of these being settlements within the cor.
porate limits of the city, the first leading out
from the Long Bridge and the others run
ming in succession and ending at the base of
old Fort Stanton, across the Northern Branch
of the Potomac. These settlements contain
negroes only. The localities have been CIV
en- over wholly to them. 1t is as literally q
negro country as Liberia itself, or as any
other part of Africa. In this section Of the
city the white people do not live at all, so
far as l could discover from many a walk
through it for purposes Of observation. Ger
tainly, no white woman would be safe there
in the broadest blaze of noon. No white
man ever goes there at night who knows the
least of the characteristics of this place. In
the day time a man risks bis life to go there.
When strangers came to the city they are
carefully warned by hotel clerks, by citizens
and by policemen not to venture on the
other side of the canal. They do not VEN
ture, at least not many of them. The re-
cords, however, of the principal hotels since
1865 contain the names of about two hun.
dred guests who have mysteriously y disap,
peared-not to evade board bills, for they
have left abundant baggage of value behind
them, and have been lost generally on the
very first evening of their arrivals. 1t is
known that thev have set out for q walk by
themselves and have never come back. Not
by direct evidence, but by irresistible circum'
stautial suppositiOn, it is known that these
strangers have unwittingly veutured into the
negro quarters, and have been there killed
for what was on them, and their bodies put
out OF sight. The Potomac on one side and
the canal-whereOf long neglect has made
the mud ten and twelve feet deep in parts
on the other, both afford easy and Cndiscov.
erable means whereby the victims can be and
have been buried out Of sight. These men
have never turned up. But from the very
simplicity and brevity Of the means employed
to rob and murder them, detection has been
baffled 1t is elaborate slaughter which
leaves trace behind that leads to conviction.
For a negro, surrounded by other negroes
who have no regard for human life and who
are keenly appreciable Of division of sPoil',
to mash out the brains OF white man, to
rob him to the skin and to throw his naked
body into a swift river, subsequently placat-
ing his confederate or his witnesses with
part Of the gains, is the easiest thing in the
world to do, yet the hardest thing In the
world to find out. Apparently, two hundred
aud more of these murders have, within four
years, been successfully committed BY the
blacks Of Washington City. These frequent
murders by negroes in Washington City Sc
cure their perpetrators from detection by the
audacious simplicity Of their commission.
How these negroes-men, women, and
chiIdren-live, is exteriorly a mystery.
They toll not, neither do they spin, except
round q corner and down o cellar when an
officer approaches. At all hours of the day
they are to be seen hanging out of windows,
suuatting oD doOrsleps, lOlling at corners
everywhere but at any work. There is really
no work done over in their settlements. The
groggery is the only business pursued, and
for eTery rumseller there are about hundred
steady customers. Yet the Wretches live
we'll; they are fat, sleek, oily, andWear more
and better clothes than white folks who work
at manual labor fud it possible to buy for
themselves and their children. You cen be
informed how they get along by asking any
police officer, or sDy resident whose house Is
south of the canal, or any farner whose
acres skirts the opposite Potomac shore.
These negroes steal, aud only steal except
murdering), sad that continually. George
Truman, the Maryland negro, hanged at
Friedrich, fo: murder, May 28th, stole the
preachers pocket handkerchief while engag'
ed 10 PRAYER with him the nigh. before his
execution. Stealing and lying are as natural
to negroes as water to fish. George Truman.
whether murderer or thief, has ten thousand
supesiors in either respect surviving HIM in
Washington City. Citizens dry their clothes
-. ~ q IL. honsaa hare in order to stop