The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1878-02-07

SHORT oI IL u, people "HD ift IN
this way are Just running III the
old ruts. their profits are eaten mp
by their colored masters and mis-
tresses. for whose S%ustenance | have
known an unhappy Granger com
PEELED To order bacon from Baltl-
more.
MOI even ii majority Of North
Carolinians. however, 1--we thus.
They are. as Il rule. and fortunate
ly, too poor. II l. only those who
have ample land, who can afford t.
belong To a ward of servants, and
these nabobs are the minority. The
greater part Of Us do most Of our
own work with our own hands. and
if we can only find how to do 1t
without killing ourselves, We shall
be in the right road. The question
Is, how to do 1t.
Every woman must have her Owl
way OF managing. But every wo-
man does not guage her own capa-
bllltles correctly : does not tell her
self what she can or cannot do. and
arrange her work accordingly. For
instance, it viii pay better for some
women to put their sewing out,
while they busy themselves with
the active work of the household.
Others find that their abilities are
chiefly sedentary, ana the less they
travel up and down stairs or IN and
out doors, the better for them. 1t
Is the women who try to do every
thing and take boardcrs besides,
We whom | chiefly lament now.
When | hear IL good woman say in
excuse for her oyer-work, that she
must help her husband pay his
debts, must contrlye some way for
the children to he educated. | feel
20 much respect and sympathy for
her that | almost forget to be sorry
for or blame her. Yet she is to be
blamed, all the same. Have | not
seen an admirable wife in her des-
perate endeayor to be q real help
meet, very nearly commit suicide,
do all the sewing for Il family of
seven, do all the Homework, do
all the cooking, milk the cows and
make all the butter, teach her own
children besides, and several of the
neighbo1s' with them-all this
without a servant on the lot. She
declared she would save that ex-
pense. so she did. But she took
a cold ut the cow-pen, and when
the next baby a born, a month OF
two afterwards, she had a nearly
fatal attack OF pneumonia, and the
doctors bill would have hired a
good servant for a year. Think in
addition of all other expenses and
ill-etfects following on the long i'll
ness of the mother of Il family.
Was not this a poor economy:
1t is always pooreconomy for the
mistress of the household to be
sick. Ill-health never pays. No
money saved by refusing proper
and necessary assistance, Is worth
anything at all and 1t is every
woman's sacred and most unselfish
duty to settle what that help shall
be, in what department, and then
provide it, whether 1t be a sewing
machine that she needs most, or a
washing machine, or a nurse for
the baby, or all three. With every
disposition to like and make the
best Of the colored race, / firmly
believe hat the fewer of them we
have about us, the better it will be
for us, morally, mentally, pecuni-
arily. They are an unthrift peo-
pie. and waste and destruction fol-
low IN their footsteps. They will
not save for you neither the soap
suds, nor the ashes, nor the bones.
They will break, and burn, and
lose, and steal, and waste every
thing that comes to hand, and
when they do not positively and
actively destroy things, they will
negatively put an end to them by
simply not taking care of them.
To keep a retinue of negroes round
your premises is simply putting a
knife to the throat of your own
prosperity. 1t may be convenient,
it may be a comfort, to those of us
who have been raised to depend on
their service, but it is ruinous. and
the more decidedly We cut loose
from entangling contracts and en-
gagements with them, the richer
we shall be, and the freer.
Is it not a fact that the small
farmers of North Carolina, those
who never owned slaves before the
war, and never have called in the
freedmen since, are getting on bet
ter than their more wealthy neigh
horss | could name a half dozen