Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1877-07-19
THE SOUTHERN BLACKS.
Negro Civilization Retrograding, Especially
Where Negroes are In the Ascendant.

Where Negroes are In the Ascendant.
Northern people, who judge of the negro
race by the few specimens ofintelligent color
ed BARRIERS and walters they see at home, al
ways have their theories as to the condition
and capabilities Of the race suddenly unset
tied when they study the pure African types
of the plantation-ignorant, ragged, dirty
blacks, with countenances so brutal as to be
repusive, and persons and clothing so DISCUS
ting and odiousl ly unclean, that their presence
is insupportable. However enthusiastically
one may favor the principle of equal civil
rights, he does not want to ride in railway
car with such creatures as these. Fortunate
ly he is not obliged to, for they 60 into the
cars provided for them Of their own accord,
and seem to have no desire for the company
of the whites. Occasionally, a respectfully
dressed colored man or woman rides in the
same car with the white passengers, no one
objecting. Color prejudice appears to be
slowly giving way, but the prejudice against
close association with such dirty, bad d.smelling
people as are the majority of the plantation
negroes, may be expected to continue for all
time.
The whites at the South say that all negroes
will steal, but this is an extravagant general
ization, for every white man or woman who
repeats this common saying will, if question
ed, admit to having known colored people
who were scrupulously honest. Nevertheless,
it cannot be denied that the blacks, as class,
are much more given to stealing than the
poor, ignorant whites. Southern prisons and
penitentiaries are full of negroes, and in more
than one Southern State there is serious ag.
itation in favor of reviving the whipping.post
as punishment for theft, to relieve the COM
munity from the heavy burden of supporting
so many prisoners. have found convincing
evidence that the heavy preponderance of
blacks over whites in the county jails and
State prisons is not the result Of any unfair
ness on the part of judges and juries in the
trial Of the former. In addition to proofs of
this given in former letters, may cite the
Mississippi State prison, which, under Repub.
lioan administration, had on its rolls about
900 convicts, only one-tenth of whom were
whites, and now has about 1000, (effect of
improved administration ofjustice,) but shows
no change in the proportion Of blacks to
whites, ten to one being still the ratio. In
most of the old slave States, large number,
not all, of the convicts are hired out to con-
tractors for work on railroads, levees and
plantations. The system is not good one
for 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 said before, if,
on the WHOLE the negroes are making any SUBJ
stantial progress. They are in the best con-
dition in sections where the whites predomi-
nate; while in regions where the black popu-
lation is proportionally heaviest, they are
barely one remove from African barbarism.
They speak the English language and profess
a religion that is nominally Christian, but in
their ways of living they are essentially bar
barians still. To give them political ascen-
danoy over the whites was the most horribly
grotesque experiment ever tried in the science
of government. The only hope of their get
ting forward in the path of civilization, with
like rapidity, lies in the prospect
that the tide of emigration will soon be de-
fected from the West to the South, and the
whites thus reinforced by large numbers of
settlers from the Northern States and Eu-
rope, will become as dominant in numbers as
they are now in intelligence. The negro ap-
pears capable Of originating and developing
no fruits of civilization from his own nature !;
the white man must SOW the seed,-E. Y.
SMALLEy, in N 7. 1AlbNne.