Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1869-08-07

United States Attorney for the North
eIn District must needs be County
Attorney for each County Court
in his District, and surely
Col. Inge, who discovered
that a County Attorney is not an
officer" but simply retained coun-
sci" deserves the gratitude of the
people.
Those young men of Houston, Miss,
arrested some weeks ago because OF
supposed participation in chariVari
given in homer of scalawag office
holders, have probably been released.
The charge was frivolous, and the
punishment inflicted by imprisonment
has already transcribed all bounds of
reason. A week ago they were taken
before Judge Hill at Oxford.
Ten years ago fewer crimes, in pro-
portion to population, were committed
in the rich county of NOXubee than in
any portion of the State. Blacks
greatly oumumber whites, perhaps as
four or five to one. Last Friday a ne
| gro woman was found in cistern with
ploW chained to her neck. Her skull
was fractured, and she had been fear
! fully beaten. The heavy plOW was
recognized as the property of a negro
with whom the woman had lived.
The story soon went abroad that the
wife and husband had conspired to
murder the mistress, and subsequent
developments made before the COro-
ner confirmed the suppOsition. 1t was
hideOus spectacle which they beheld
who discovered the swollen, distorted
body of the murdered negress. Her
head was confined to the bottom of
the shallow water, while her bursting,
Whitened limbs fiOated on the surface.
Her face and body had been horribly
mutilated by the brutal savages.
Yesterday youth named Warren
killed negro boy in the northeastern |
part of this county. There was no |
quarrel and no prOvOcatiOn given, and |
if Warren intended to kill the negro |
there is no justification for the act. !
He asserts his innocence of any |
such purpose, and yet fled when the |
negro fell. He was arrested by ne |
grOes, conveyed to Macon and deliv- |
cred TO the authorities. A large num- |
ber of armed negroes marched into |
the village with Warren bound in
their midst. They often threatened
his life, but were restrained by blacks
who had known Warren from child |
hVOd, and deemed him perhaps inca
pable of crime. The shooting in this /
case was probably accidental, though
the flight of the yQUth, and his denial
of the act which he subsequently con-
teS,zed mtlitate against the suppOsitiOn
of innocence.
The poor are rich and the rich are
poor. Landowners are Impoverished
and small farmers have an abundance
of money. Soldiers who seized plOW
handles when they dropped muskets
are in better condition than any class
of people in the Gulf States. For
crops they relied upon thefr own
strength and industry, Little farms
among tho hills, in the poorer dis
yricts, away from railroads and
remote from towns have been most
The old " farmer" whose
sons have titled his fields has money
for cotton and c3ln, while the old
g planter y having resOrted to "hired
helps" is utterly penniless. Little
fields well titled have made their own
ers more money than ever before,
while those magnificent prairie plant
atiOns have proven prbfitless. At
length plantations are sub-divided,
and blacks are tenants, giving a share
of the crops for the use of the bread
fields. Very many negrG65 are doing
well; but the wkOle number at work
is not halt of those who once made
this prairie region the most prosperous
portion of the South. Each planter
tells of numbers Ofhis former servants
who have died, but no known mortal
ity accounts for the rapid disappear
ance Of the African race. Every
where the demand for labOrers is
greater each day, and the number of
labOrers is palpably lessened each
month. The sudden disappe37anee
Of martins in spIiRg tine is
nCt m9le Wonderful than the un-
Known, unaccOuntahle extinction of
the negro population of the rich cOun-
ties or Eastern Mississippi. Little
more than half the area of country
cultivated ten years ago is TILED 10
day, and clover and sgasses begin to
c1rn and cotton. The cOun-
tty Is hardly the loser by these
changes, though present poverty
weighs heavily upon those subjected
to this sudden transformation of
modes of industrial life.
The COOlie question is everywhere
and very generally the the
ories of the APPEAL are approved.
The same principle applies to lahorers
as to machinery. The oattan gin, rail-
way atid Steamer deprived multitudes
II employment by furnishing cheaper
modes, of accomplishing results.
John Chinaman viii find his
place like locomotive and
the State will be enriched, and
the poor of America will be ele-
waited and find their condition inn
proved. 1t would be quite as rational
to annihilate the patent Office and all
labOr-saving machinery, as to exclude I
Chinese labOrers from the United
States. The common people, how
ever, assert that every evil Of African
slavery will be reproduced by the
coolie trade; that the suffrage question
is already fraught with multiplied
that there will arise a cOolie-
holding instead of a slaVehOlding ar
istOcracy; and that the youth of the
South will again be trained in idle
ness. Thus the discussion goes on
between the landhOlder and nOn-land-
holder, and the suffrage question in
vOlved is alone worthy of considera-
ton. If Virginia, Mississippi and
Texas refuse assent to the proposed
Constitutional amendment, and suf-
frage may be restricted, as it should,
to white American citizens, this hos
tility to Chinese immigration will be
no more.