New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-07-08
Per cent.

| These figures divide themselves strange
| ly between the section long accustomed to
| free labor and that which has heretofore
employed servile labor. An approximate
estimate and-nothing more, is pretend
ed-would show fraction over two per
cent of the population in the Northern
and Western sections, employed in ex-
elusive attendance upon the remainder,
while in the Southern section about four
per cent or double the number in the North
and West is employed in the same mental
services. We dismiss the consideration Of
the large charge upon capital, labor and
enterprises involved in the annual outlay
for such services as are elsewhere fur
nished in great part by the men,
bers Of society for themselves. In
all its bearings upon the accumula-
ton of wealth it is we'll worth
careful and consistent study. Our present
use for these estimates is to show what a
burden the White Leaguers were about to
cast on the feebler part of our people.
Shall we translate what they were about
to do? 1t was this: To secure to the gen.
tleman of the household official honors
and duties with a regular and liberal al
lowance for lake dinners, Canal street
breakfasts, whisky, billiards, cigars and
theatres. They were about to drive all
the colored domestics out of the State and
remit the ladies of their families to the
intellectual duties of the kitchen and to
the callisthenics of the scrubbing brush
and the wash tub. From the figures given
it would seem that Virginia, in which
State they have more judgment than to
make war upon labor, there is six per
cent of menials In Louisiana there is
five per cent. When, however, we regard
the fact that the proportion of colored
people to white is perhaps sixty
to seventy per cent in Virginia,
while it exceeds the number Of whites in
Louisiana, we think the mother of States
will yield the palm, and admit that Lou
isiana is the banner State of the Union in
point of mental servitude. We proceed with
this analysis 1t must be observed that
in the Northern and Western States there
is comparatively small number OF col
ored people. Illinois has about ten per
cent, for COMPLEMENTARY the two
and half per cent of menials in these
States is applicable to the whole people.
That is. there is in most of these States
one person in every forty or fifty exclu-
sively employed in attendance upon the
others. In the Southern States there
is much larger part Of the people
, who employ no servants at all. hence the
, proportion of four per cent of domestic
servants assumed for the Southern States
9 is exclusively attributable to the white
population, and SO doubles itself or nearly
so. In Louisiana, for example, there is
Rmajority of colored people who have very
few servants. We may, therefore, be JUS
tilted in stating that the white and colored
.domestics of the whites in Louisiana is
t;ten per cent of its population. That is,
THAT while in Maine or Minnesota there
ms one person detailed to make it the ex-
.lns;ve business of his or her life to at
glend to the wants Of others, there is at
eseast one colored person so assigned to
.erve for every ten persons Of the whole
population Of Louisiana. 4aa ere,
i II is to this phase of the question that
We desire to call the attention of the
IN ia sr rt 1- rE '@