The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-10-24
Black and White.x u

Under the above caption, Sir George
! Campbell M. p, scion Of the Scot
tish Clan Campbell, gives to the American
public an admirable book on the United
States socially and politically considered.
| The distinguished gentleman made a hur-
ried visit to this country in the fall of 1878
for the purpose of ascertaining by personal
obs rvation the condition of the black peo-
Pile in the Southern States. Previous to this
defined motive, he scampered through New
England, Canada, and then made long
tour through the Western States, and be-
yond the Mississippi. While in Massachu-
| setts he noted-"General Butler the great
! Greenback hero is stumping Massachusetts,,
and alarming all the solid, old-fashioned peo-
ple / saw him on the stump-a wild look
ing man. The merits of the book as lit
erary production are not of the highest, but
the volume is interesting as giving the views
of an intelligent and disinterested foreigner.
| The book is divided into two parts-the lee
lures which the author delivered to his con-
| stituents on his return, containing his
''views:' and the journal which he kept on
!
| his travels, interspersed with running COM
ments. The aim of the book is as he says
''to introduce to the people of England, a
kindred people that we ought to have known
| better years ago." To accomplish this OBJ
| iect he goes to work in a practical, crisp way
| and defines his meaning in as few words as
| possible 1t is amusing at times to note bis
surprise at our progress as nation, and
matters of every day life with us become
| curiosities before his eyes. His impressions
of us as a nation were extremely favorable,
| even to the extent of advising his consti-
tuents of the middle class to emigrate hither.
He Justly concludes that Sin no land on the
globe is the condition of the laboring man
better; and the possibilities held out to all,
high and low, make it the place for men of
brains energy and ambition" To all who
wish to ''see ourselves as ithers see us" and
read a story finely told we can recommend
this volume with great confidence.
Our purpose is to speak of that portion OF
the book which relates to the political condi-
ton of the negro at the South, and we wish
that a column were at our disposal to make
extracts from notes and opinions of the au-
thor relative to the spirit of hatred which
! the Southerners still maintain toward their
Northern brethren. His good opinion of the
negroes as a race became stronger as he went
about among them and marked their thrift,
peacefulness and desire to learn. He says,
s'During the last dozen years the negroes
have had very large share of political edu-
cation. Considering the troubles and the
ups and downs that they have gone through
it is, think, wonderful how beneficial the
education has been to them, and how these
people, so lately in the most debased condi-
ton of slavery, have acquired independent
ideas; and far from lapsing into anarchy,
have become citizens with ideas OF law and
property and order. The white serfs OF Eu-
ropean countries took hundreds of years to
rise to the level which these negroes have at
tanned in a Dozen" Everywhere he found,
however, desire to keep them down to a
level with their former condition, by refus-
ing them schools, and in some places he no
ticed that owners of the soil would not sell
10 ne2EOGS, tiiO 4oiiN Net' iiSANa
longer than the proprietors could really at
ford to keep it, He noticed, too, that in
the administration of laws negroes were kept
off from juries, yet ''much harder justice is
dealt to one class (the blacks) Than to anoth-
er. For all the outrages and murders com
mitted by the whites very little condign pun
ishment has been executed, while justice
and something more is done on the black.
| The mere suggestion of a black mans guilt
| is enough to convict him." This condition
he found to be leading string to system
! of convict labor upon the chain-gang system
| where the prisoners are farmed out to pri-
vate SPECTATORS OF this he says, 1T comes
| simply to this, that the punishment for crime
| is reduction to the old state of slavery"
This fact he finds reinforced by the fact that
an overwhelming majority of the tenants of
| prisons are blacks convicted of the smallest
| of crimes.
In regard to the right of suffrage in the
| South he finds that the democrats are de-
| termined to win everything in the South;
| they aim at an absolute possession leaving
no representation to their opponents at all,
| and especially at solid South in the
| United States Congress. They will get the
| votes by fair means if they can, and if not
am sorry to say they will steal EN- l was
| told" He then gives detailed account OF
the election in South Carolina, and the in
| famous scandal of tissue ballots, describing
the defiant way in which the Democrats
| subverted the honest suffrage of the poor
| colored people. With the details OF the gi-
| gantic fraud, the people of the country are
familiar, and have expressed their emphatic
| disapproval of it. Perhaps the Democrats
have heard from Maine, California, Ohio,
| Iowa and Colorado on the subject. After
reciting the means used by these chivalrous
| free-booters of the so-called Southern aris-
| tocracy, he concludes, IF these elections
| had taken place in England, there were II
Irregularities which would have vitiated them
| before an election judge hundred times
| over'' His parting advice to the people of
| the South is honestly to accept the Fifteenth
| Amendment and to treat the colored race
| decentlv as becomes citizens and gentle
men.
| This book is wholesome reading for those
stray members of the Republican party who
have become temporarily estranged by the
| Democratic Greenback coalition. The cry
| of "bloody shirt is still valid one, and to-
day the leading men in the Republican ranks
are becoming stalwart to a surprising degree
| The kindly attitude of the present Admins
| tration toward the South has demonstrated
| that the only way to conciliate them is to-
become their flunkeys once more. The old
| leaders have not forgotten their cunning and
if they should by an improbable chance elect
their candidate for President next year, the
old ante 6ellum spirit will ride rough shod