The Bedford gazette. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1805-current, 1869-12-03

| slaves ana paying tnem Wages Du1 IA
nine instances out OF every ten they
have failed altogether, though paying
wages on which it is hardly possible
the laborers can live without begging
or stealing. both of which are practlced
there TO frightful extent. Almost ev-
cry man who employs any considera-
/ BILE number of hands keeps little store
of cheap groceries and provisions, and
pays them out of il. And usually the
weeks work is all taken up, 50 that
scarcely one in hundred can improve
his condition under this order things.
[ saw gang after gang paid of at
night. sometimes fifty or sixty at
time, and not five dollars in money was
| paid to the whole of them. For corn
they allowed fifty cents pecki for ba-
con which you and | would not eat
at any price, they gave twenty five
cents pound, and the prices of labor
| varied from half dollar TO dollar a
day. / have seen sturdy, healthy
/ young fellows, of twenty and upward,
working for two dollars week and
| boarding themselves. | saw women
doing days works that not a white
man in New England or New York
could do at any price, for seventy
five cents day, all paid in goods Tor
6dds, groceries and provisions. Some
/ of these stores keep very decent arti-
cles, but not all. Most of them that !
have seen kept whisky in barrel on
tap-called whisky by courtesy, but
| generally, am assured, a compound
| Of denominations fit only to transform
the dupes who swallow into demons.
And, strange as il may seem, not one
colored person in thousand will re-
fuse 1t, old or young, male or female;
though in slavery, / am tOld-indeed,
was always told-that drunkenness was
not prevailing vice. Probably the
restraints of masterhood had much to
do with it. The whisky Is usually
drank raw and reeking from the bar
rel, without sugar and with very little
if any water, which some of the drink
ers said, only drowned it. | have
seen mothers pour it thus down the
throats of six months ba5es, men, wo-
men, children, and thestorekeeper look
ing on without remark. The principal
diet of the plantation people is coarse
hominy and bacon, the latter, fortun-
ately, though deemed a luxury, in but
small quantities. And out of the cit-
les, [ have often been told, the same
diet serves nearly all the white peo-
pie also. | have heard of "hog and
hominy" as southern bill of fare COM
pIete long time ago, but had no idea
how literal or how general was its APP
plicatiOn.
The old slave-quarters, unrepaired,
are still the colored peoples homes
Among all their houses in the ru-
raj districts, / have not seen one,
pane of glass not one set of crockery,
earthen or Ironware, beyond a rude
and often broken pot, with iron or tin
spoons that certainly were never made
lighter by securing; scarcely any
chairs or tables but Of home nanufac-
ture and not one decent bed in any
| cabin-not one Some of the women
were rather tidily dressed, as l have
seen then and on Sundays, am told,
they appear quite we'll. But many of
the men might defy all the scarecroWs
of thousand cornfelds. Some of the
| infants l have seen were entirely ma
| ked, and boys of at least dozen years
| wore but single garment; and that
only scanty apollo gy in length,
| breadth or thickness. And at least four
| kinds of vermin, smaller than rats and
| nlice, infest many human bed, its
coarse covering or its occupants, or all
together. ASK the union soldiers who
survived the campaigns Of the south
ern states whether this be eXagerati0n,
/ The most prosperous and promis-
| ing freedman / have seen lives on one
! of the sea islands. He had ten acres
of cotton, nine of corn, three of beans,
with plenty of potatoes, had harvested
fifty bushels of excel ent rice, kept
| horse, mule, two cows, with pigs and
poultry on all sides of his house inside
not excepted, as far as poultry was
concerned); and yet with the exception
of one plain bnt cabinet made rocking
chair, and one glass goblet, carefully
kept wrapped in a clean sheet of straw
paper, and brought out to give me and
my friends drink of water, the fur
nishing of the house did not differ
materially from those l have described.
| We were treated to roasted sweet pota-
toes, which an old grandmother paved
out Ofthe hot ashes with her hands,
and replaced with others which she
covered in the same independent way,
no shovel nor tongs ever being used,
| seen or known.
Drunkenness Is not confined to class
or colon in any o. the states | have
seen. Many say that ''the nigger and
the Indian have natural tastes and ten
| denotes for stImulants." But with the
former it would be safe to attribute it
to his initiative nature or disposition,
coming as he necessarily does, into too
close contact with the whites. / GER
tainly never saw such need of temper
ance reform before, anywhere under
heaven. [ well remember the drink
ing habits of New England long before
the laundering eloquence of the old
DIR. Beecher (sire of many sons) was
denouncing every grog-shop and bar