The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1889-02-01
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.
Big Gins And Compresses-Mannef
of Handling "King Cotton Z
A Night At Johnson
vile.

A Night At Johnson
vile.
1 promised in may last weeks con-
tribution that I would write up the
town of Greenville, Mississippi, a lit.
tie further than what / had already
done, and tell your many readers
something about the great cotton com
lpresses, ard something of the mag
nitude of the cotton seed oil mills, that
are in operation at this point, of which
1 wrote something last week.
These mills run day and night, and
employ from three to five hundre d
men, all darkies. White men cannot
work in these mills on account of the
immense heat generated by the large
amount Of machinery used to move
and Operate them. However, the
DOSING in This case az well as In all
others is done by white men exclusive
ly. They pay their hands good wage s
ranging from one to two dollars per
day according to their position and
knowledge, and their products, oil and
oil cake reaches the immense sum OF
81 600, 900 annually.
inquired of the boss that showed
me through, what they did with
these great stacks of oil cake.
His answer was that he shipped it to
stock feeders in all parts of the coun-
try, said he, 81 just got an order for
s., 900 worth of it from one of your cat
tie men in Kansas this morning, and
will ship it Immediately" But
enough about the oil mills. will
now proceed to give short history OF
the immense cotton congresses, and
then We will move on to Johnsonville.
In order to give your readers COR
Feet idea of these congresses, / must
frat state that the cotton is picked, or
in other words is gathered and gined.on
the plantations, and also baled there,
the most of the large planters have a
gin on their farm and gin and bale
their own crops of cotton, and also that
of their neighbors for which they
Oh arge two and half dollars per bale,
aid bale is supposed to weigh 500
pounds. but the weight depends a
good deal on the size of the negro that
theyhave in the press doing the tramp
| ing. while that institution is being
filed with the cotton lint preparatory
to pressing it. This pressing is all
done at the gins by horizontal pressure
operated by the same power that
gins the cotton which is generally
a small engine, say from ten to twen-
ty-five horsepower. However, some
small gins are operated by horses
and mules travelling in circle. But
these are small concerns with a
capacityof not more than ten or twelve
bales day. These bales when COM
pleted are five feet long, three feet
wide and two and one half feet thick.
And now comes in the Spectator,
there are always plenty of men wait.
ing to buy it and pay you the money
as soon as you get it into the bale;
but it matters not who gets it. 1t all
or nearly all, sooner or later finds it's
way into these congresses and here 1t
changes hands again and is all repress
ed, this time by hydraulic pressure,
which is a much more severe pressure
than the first named and reducing the
bale to one half its former size, it is
now prepared and ready to ship to
foreign ports.
These congresses also give work to
an army of hands. The wages howev-
er are not quite so large in this as IN
the oil mills, as there is no artificial
heat generated in here as in the other
case, though the labor is quite hard to
perform. and like the other requires
men that understand the business.
The labor of all kinds however is per-
formed in this country by negroes,
white men merely doing the managing,
bossing and figuring, and in some
cases the knocking down and swear
ing. 1 visited the Cotton Exchange
here. All checks are cashed and one
of the cashiers told me that it was no
unusual thug for them TO pay out
500, 900 a day. Now when we take
these things all into consideration, you
cannot wonder at my calling Green.
Vile a fast burg. But enough Of
Greenvilie. We are at the Georgia
Pacific Depot now and will be off for
Johnsonville via StoDeville and Indian
ola, distant 50 miles. Here we go up
the narrow guage through the swamps
Once in a great while we touch a high
bump of an acre or two containing
few legro cabins, a yellow dog and a
cotton patch. Our train is an accomo-
dation train and stops to take on every
negro that chances to hold up his hat.
However be does not dare to enter the
white folks car for there is long,
dirty smoky, filthy coach attached ex-
pressIy for Sambo's accommodation
and ne knows where he belongs too
and he goes there. Every planter
down here of any consequence has
store of his own, gin and a..bar-room
as they term these vile institutions.
and of eourss he is prepared to pay off
his hands.