Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-07-21
THE SOUTHERN NEaRO.
A Republican Observers Views Of His
Present COndition--GiVing Him
Political neutrality-suspicious.
ribly GrOtesque Expert.
mqnt -
E. V. smaIley in the New York Tribune.


ment."
E. V. smalley in the New York Tribune.
Northern people, who Judge of the
negro by the few specimens CT intel
ligent cOlOred BARRIERS and walters
they see at home, always have their
theories as to the condition and ca
liabilities of the race suddenly I'M
Settled when they study the pure
African types of the plantation-ig-
nOrant, ragged, blacks, with cOun-
tenanees so brutal as to be repulsive,
and persons and clothing so disgust
ingly and odorOusly 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. Fortunately he is not OBJ
liged to, for they go into the car
provided for them of their own ac- /
cord, and seem to have no desire for |
the company of the whites. Occa- |
sionalIy a respectably-dressed col |
Ored man or woman rides on the /
same cars with the white passengers, |
no one Directing. Color prejudice |
appears to be slowly giving way, |
but the prejudice against close asso- !
citation with such dirty, bad-smell- |
ing people as are the majority OF the
plantation negroes may be expected
to continue for all time.
The best and the worst of the col
ored population flock to the cities
and townsville more intelligent and
ambitious, who seek better OppOr-
tunities of improving their cOndi-
ton 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
zone of DWELLINGS, comfort
able little cottages with gardens, be-
longing to the former class, and 9th
ers Wretched novels where the latter
class huddle together like swine.
The industrious negro of the town is
q mechanic, cOachman, porter, a
dray-driver, a market-gardener or
man of all work. He is well dressed
on Sundays, a pillar of his church,
sends his children to school, has a
little money laid by, and is in all
ways good citizen, respected by the
whites as well as by his own people.
The idle negro is the pest of the
place. He is thievish, dissOlute and
generally worthless, and lives by
preying upon the community. His
food he gets from the kitchens of
white families where his wives are
emplOyed-fOr he generally has two
or three wives, so as to make sure
of something 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 tobacco
and whisky 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 an
extravagant generalization, for
every white man or woman who re-
peats this common saying will, if
questioned, admit to having known
cOlOred people who were scrupu-
lOuSly honest. Nevertheless, it can
not be denied that the blacks as
class are much more given to steal
ing than the poor ignorant whites.
Southern prisons and penitentiarieS
are full of negroes, and in more than
one Southern State there is a serious
agitation in favor Of reViVing the
whipping post as a punishment for
theft, to relieve the community
from the heavy burden of SuppOrting
so many prisoners. / have found
convincing evidence that the heavy
prepOnderance of blacks over whites
in county jails and State prison is
not the result of any unfairneSs on
the part of judges and juries in the
trial of the former. In addition to
proofs of this, given in former let
ters, / may cite the Mississippi State
prison, which, under Republican
administration had ON its rolls about
one thousand cOnvictS, only one
tenth of whom were whites, and
now has about two thousand (effect
of improved administration of jus
tice), 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 a large num-
Der, not all, of the cOnVicts are hired
out to contractors for work on rail-
roads, leVees and plantations. The
system is not a good one for cOrrec-
ton and discipline, but the States
are too poor to build prisons large
enough to hold all the negroes guilty
of grand larceny.
1t may well be doubted, as | said
before, if on the whole the negroes
are making any substantial progress.
They are in the best condition in
sections where the whites predOmi-
nate, while in regions where the
black population 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 liV-
ing they are essentially barbarOus
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 for
ward in the path of civilization,
with anything like rapidity, lies in
the prospect that the tide of emigra-
tion viii soon be detected from the
West TO the South, and the whites,
thus REINFORCED by large numbers
of settlers from the Northern States
and Europe, will become as dOmi-
nant in numbers rs they are now in
intelligence. The negro appears ca
pable of originating and developing
no fruits of civilization from his own
nature-the white man must SOW
the seed.