Litchfield enquirer., 1875-06-03

.E4
 take parish offices. They took care to put
 always. three prominent whites and two
 coiored men on the police jury The par
 lsh judge had been c Confederate officer,
 and IS capable man and 8 property hold
 CT in the parish. They have always per.
 suaded the negroes to elect such men to
 the local offices. Tensas had, in 1870,
 1, 400 whites and 11,O18 blacks. With
 economical management they have extin-
 guished since 1868 debt of Sl90, 900 con
 tracted for levees before the war, paying
 off $13O, 900 of it. The rest was proved
 fraudulent in the courts. The parish has
 good roads, bridges, thirty schools, four
 graded schools-two for each color; it has
 money in the treasury; it's assessments are
 very low; the courts are respected, the
 laws are enforced, peace obtains; even
 stock stealing has been put down. Mean
 time, the Northern men have not ceased
 to be republicans, nor have they given ur
 their share of the offices. The State Sen.
 ator and Representatives and some of the
 local officers are Northern men and repub-
 hcans. The negroes are satisfied, and
 when once some drunken ruffians from a
 neighboring county threatened to come in
 and attack Northern man, the largest
 meeting of whites ever assembled in the
 county promptly gathered, and sent word to the rowdies that they would be shot down if they showed their faces in the parish.
 Surely the story of these two parishes tells tine reason why discontent and some times disorder are found in parts of Lou isiana. ''It is not the radicals, but the thieves, that we hate and oppose" said more than one conservative to me. And believe this to be the truth. I have not time to wander all. over the State; but have examined every case where I have
 heard of complaints of especial hostility to republicans, and in every case I have found that there had been gross and long continued misgovernment, extravagance, denial of justice and tolerance of dioorder
 by the courts. I was told, for instance, that Madison parish was ''not 8 pleasant place for a republican" Very we'll. I find that in four years-from 1868 to 1872 the reconstructors ran up debt in this parish of over $142, ,OOO. This parish had. In 1870, by the census, only 936 white per sons. It registered in 1874 only 255 white voters and ?, 135 blacks. The few whites were, of course, the owners of almost all the property. Such monstrous misman- agement. borne by so few taxpayers, might very we'll create ill-feeling and strife; but the parish gave, in 1874, l, ,614 republican majority, and the vote ran but fifty-five short of the registration. Intimidation is. of course. out of the question.
 In the North we have heard so much about murders that was very glad to get hold here ot some parish statistics on this subject. The State government, which has almost entirely neglected to punish murderers-being too busily engaged in stealing-has, of course, no such official returns of crime as it ought to possess. I have been able to obtain returns, chiefly made by county clerks and coroners. from only thirteen parishes. not counting Pla. quemine, which I have before given. From 1868 to 1875 there have been in these thirteen parishes 313 murders. Of these ninety three were whites by whites, 143 were of colored by colored, twenty-eight ored by whites, three colored by officers of justice, five colored by persons un- known, seven whites by unknown, five whites by mobs and five colored by mobs. The State has fifty-seven parishes Most of the thirteen of which have given re- turns have population nearly equally di- vided between white and black, and I sus- pect the figures give more than an average of murders of whites by whites and less than the average of murders of blacks by blacks. Plaquemine, for in- stance, not counted in the above list, reg istered, in 1874, 51O white and 2, ,16O black voters, and there found that there had been since 1868 B murders, of which 31 were of blacks by blacks. There is good evidence for the statement that the large majority of murders in the State in the last six years are of blacks by blacks, in- stigated by whiskey and jealousy. The negroes drink less whiskey this year than two or three years ago, when they were getting much higher wages; but their de- mand for 1t is so strong that find the planters generally sell it to them in the little plantation stores, having discovered that if they did not their hands would be running off elsewhere to get it, or some negro would peddle it in the cabins. The plantation negroes commonly carry arazor this seems as weapon of attack, they in- fiict serious and often fatal wounds with it. The razor seems to be their favorite weapon elsewhere also, for I found it so in Delaware They take to 1t probably
 
 keen edge.
 It is not only fact that crime has not heen punished in the State under the Re. publican rule-neither crime against the person nor against property-but there is power has been abused. have found but one return on the subject, which shows certainly liberal use of this prerogative. From January l, 1873, to March 5, 1874, Governor Kellogg pardoned thirteen mur- one mOnth-besides six men convicted of manslaughter. The whole number of pardons during this pe- riod was eighty-four, and among the off, fences thns condoned are poisoning, rape, into dwelling, burglary, assault with intent to kill, perjury and bribing witnesses. Now, when society is said to be by Governor Kellogg in disordered state, and when he himself acknowledges, as he did to me, that crime IS net general ly punished, surely it is serious error to pardon with so free hand persons con- victed of such grave and dangerous crimes as have mentioned. It cannot fail to in- crease disorder. Unhappily it cannot bring the courts into greater contempt than their general corruption and ineff- clency all over the State, and from the lowest to the highest, has already brought upon them.
 To return to the question of my North ern friend, Louisiana is at peace. doubt if there is single man within it's borders who does not sincerely call himself Un- ion man. The people universally accept the Union-nothing is more certain than this. Also. there is no disposition to re- enslave the negro. The planters have dis covered that free labor is far more eco. nomical than slave. Everywhere planters have. been ready to demonstrate to me the of free labor, and to ac knowledge that all their fears of disorgan- ization proved groundless. The bitterest democrat have met in the State said to me, "We are fortunate in one thing which I little expected at the close of the war: we have the best laboring force in the world" He went on to tell me that be fore the war he had often to pay, for ex- tra hands which he hired, from $160 to S20O a year, two suits of clothing, rations ], 1-sA