The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1877-07-27
THE SOUTHERN NEGRO.
A Republican Observers Views Of His
Present COndiliOn-l:iving Him PO-
litical AsceAdeMcy u Sc Horribly
GrOtesQMe Experinsent.'' -

as to the condition and capabilities of
| the race suddenly unsettled when they
! study the pure African types of the
plantations - ignorant, ragged, dirty
| blacks, with countenances so brutal AS
| to be repulsive, and persons and cloth
| ing SO disgustingiy and odorously un
! clean that their presence is insupport-
! able. However enthusiastically one
! may favor the principle of equal civil
rights, he docs not want to ride In Il
| railway car with such creatures as
these. Fortunately he is not obliged
to, for they go into the car provided
! for them of their own accord, and seem
to have no desire for the company OF
! the whites. Occasionally q respectfully
dressed colored man or woman rides
| on the same car with the white lmssen-
gers, no one ohjecting. Color prejudicc
appears to be slowly giving away, but
the prejudice against close association
with such dirty, bad-smelling people as
are the majority of the plantation ne
grOes may be expected to continue for
all time. ''''
The best and the worst of the colored
population flock to the cities and towns
the more intelligent and ambitious,
who seek better opportunities Of i'm
proving their condition than plantation
life affords, and the idle vagabonds
who want to be where there is more
fun and more to steal than in the
| country. Every Southern town is
| belted around with a zone Of negro
dwellings-sOme comfortable little cot
/ tages with gardens, belonging to the
| former class, and others wrctched
novels where the latter class huddle to-
gether like swine. The industrious
negro Of the town is n mechanic, n
| coachman, a porter, a dray-tiriver, a
| market-gardener, or a man Of all work.
He is well dressed on Sundays, n pillar
Of his church, sends his children to
school, has a little money laid by, and
is in all ways a good citizen, respected
by the whites as we'll as by his own
people. The idle negro is the pest OF
the place. He is thievish, dissolutc
and generally worthless, anu lives by
preying upon the community. His
| food he gets from the kitchens of the
white families where his wives are en-
ployed-for he generally has two Or
three wives, so as to make sure Of some
thing to eat when one Of them quarrels
with him his clothes are old garments
stolen or begged by the women from
their employers, and his spending
money for whisky and tobacco he gets
by pilfering whatever he can lay his
hands on of dark nights that is salable
to the junk dealers.
The whites at the South say that all
negroes will steal, but this is :tn ex-
travagant generalization, for every
white man or woman who repeats this
common saying will, if questioned,
admit to having known colored people
who were scrupulously honest. Never
theless, it can not be denied that the
blacks as a class are much more given
j 30 tl.nr t1.n
| whites. Southern prisons and pcniten-
tiaries are full of negroes, and in more
than one Southern State there iS seri-
Gus agitation in favor of reviving the
/ Whipping-post as q punishment for
theft, to relieve the community from
the heavy burden of supporting 80
many prisoners. l have found con-
vincing evidence that the heavy pre-
ponderance of blacks over whites in
county jails and State prison is not the
result OF any unfafrness on the part of
liudges and juries in the trial of the
former. In addition to proofs of this,
lgiven in former letters, may cite the
Mississippi State prison, which, under
Republican administration, had on its
rolls about one thousand convicts, only
fone-tenth of whom were whites, and
now has about two Thousand (effect of
Improved administration of justice) but
shows no change in tho proportion Of
blacks to whites, ten to one being still
the ratio. In most of the old slave
Estates a large number, not all, OF the
convicts are hired out to contractors
for work on railroads, Ievees and plan
ltations. The system is not Il good one
tor correction and discipline, but the
States are too poor to build prisons
large enough to hold all the negroes
guilty Of grand larceny.
1t may we'll be doubted, as 1 said be-
; fore, IL on the whole the negroes arc
making any substantial progress. They
are in the best condition in sections
where the whites predominate, while
=. in regions where the black population
: is proportiOnally heaviest they are
, barely one remove from African bar
I barism. They speak the English Ian
guage, and profess religion that is
nominally Christain, but in their ways
of living they are essentially barbarians
still. To give them political ascen-
dency over the whites was the most
horribly grotesque experiment ever
tried in the science of government
The only hope of their getting forward
L.