The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-06-22
THE JULY MAGAZINES.
THE ATLANTIC"


The contents of the July number of The
atlantic Monthly are as follows t.
'The Alarm-Bell of Atri, y by Henry W.
Longfellow; "A Shadow" by T. w. Higgin-
son; "a Woman's Pulpit, by Elizabeth Stu.
art Phelps; "Drives from a French Farm, y
ii, by Philip Gilbert Hamerton; equal
yet Diverse, by Burt G.. Wilder; ''Joseph
and his Friend" VII, by Bayard Taylor; t'Au
Ex-Southerner in South Carolina, by N. s.
Shaler; ''Oldtown Fireside Stories, by Har-
riet Beecher Stowe; Criminal Law at Home
and Abroad, by Francis Wharton; 'The
Shipping of the United States" by e. H.
Derby; ''The Tour OF Europe for $1S1 in
Currency" by Ralph Keeler ''The Swallow"
by Celia Thaxter; "A Days Pleasure, by w.
d. Howells; "Reviews and Literary Notices
From the article entitled can Ex-South-
erner in South Carolina" by N. S. Shaler,
we take the following hints with regard to the
condition and prospects of the negroes in
that State--
If one would form good idea of the con-
dition of the black population in the South
he should not limit his observations to the
cities. Although he will there find some of
the gravest defects of the negroes, he sees
them at the same time where they are shaped
by the white population. He should 90 to
the Sea Islands and study the negroes, where
they are the least under the influence of the
whites. The Sea Island belt is on many
accounts the most curious part of the South.
At the bottom of the Great Bay of the Carroll
nas-if we may give name to the nameless
bend of the shore which stretches into
the land between Cape Hatteras and
Florida--the tides, which have only a
foot or two of height on these points, have a
rise of about eight feet. This tide acting
upon the low shore, as it lifted itself above
the sea, cut it into the most complicated sys-
tenn of islands and bays which can be found
anywhere on our coast, not excepting the ford
region of Maine or Labrador, which it some
what resembles Before the war the region
was the seat of the most profitable agricultu-
raj industry of the South-the Sea Island cot
ton culture. This variety of cotton re-
Iuires for its growth an annual manuring
of mud from the salt marshes, so that
its cultivation is not possible except where all
parts of the land can be readily supplied with
that material. Before the war nearly every
available acre of land here was employed in
the cotton culture, and probably at least
seventy-fve thousand negroes were engaged
in it. During the war the few native whites
who belonged on the plantations were driven
away by our armies, the plantation system
quite broken up, and the lands confiscated
by the Government. The large ma
tive population of negroes was rein
forced by all the runaways who could
find their way into our lines. This whole
body of negroes was, during the occupation
of our troops, under an industrious training
in all the vices of the camp, diversified, it is
true, by certain amount of Intellectual
school teaching. noble piece of Quixotisln
sought to counterbalance the evil of the army
by the school, and gave to every commander a
vexatious body of camp-followers composed of
teachers and preachers, who felt quite ready
to build new civilization on the ruins of that
his army marched over; but it has left marks
OF Its work little more permanent than the
army itself. One sees now and then a school
house which seems to have withstood the
elements, moral and material, warning against
1t. From enc, heard the drowsy hum which
is apt to call up variety of unpleasant re-
collections to every adult mind and certain
difference of pitch in that woful inarticulate
sound which comes from imprisoned youth
struggling on the educational rack told me
that the school was full of negro children. |
ought to have gone in and examined the
social phenomenon, but one becomes
strangely self-indulgent in this dreamy air,
which seems always to wrap the Sea Islands,
and could not at that moment have left the
sunshine to see the innermost workings of
the most wonderful social machine. One
finds now and then a negro who can read a
httle-enough to get an idea of a few chap
ters in his Testament, or the stanzas of some
song-book with which to spoil his wild native
airs more frequently you encounter some
correct figure, who gives you a military
answer to question, revealing at once that
when the boy was growing to be a man he
carried musket long enough to acquire the
spirit of the soldier. But school and army
are fading away. There is a steady out
flow of the white population of these
islands, and their places are supplied ten
times over by the blacks of the up country
who come down to the shore with the
certainty that the sea will yield them a
subsistence of ''raccoon" oysters, aud
with vague hope that they may fad there
the Government officer who is TO give them
the mule and forty acres of land" which
have bewrayed the negros steps ever since
the proclamation.
The intensity of the Africanizing influences
at work here can only be conceived by those
who know how strong the race characteristics
of the negro really are. Observations made
upon the negro where he forms only an incon.
siderable element of the population are not
calculated to show the features one finds here
1t must be remembered that large part of
these blacks are sons or grandsons of slaves
from the Guinea coast. l was informed that
number of the negroes brought over by the
famous schooner Wanderer are still
among the Sea Islands, so that this people is
more closely linked in blood with the ancient
and unalterable peoples of Africa than are
the whites of the same region with their Eu-
ropean stock. In this multitude, heir to the
Ignorance and superstitions of that original
chaos of humanity, Africa, there are only
few hundred whites, and these are mostly
congregated about few small trading towns.