Morning journal and courier., 1893-01-19
Roustabout. on the uI..I..,pp,.

houstabouts on the Mississippi. Julian Ralph in Harper's MAgaEIneI The roustabouts were all of one hue from their shoes to the tops of their heads. | Their coffee-colored necks and faces matched their reddish brown clothes thar
 had been grimea with the dust of every thing known to man; which dust also GOV cred their shoes and bare feet and made both appear the same. When a huddle went of the boat empty handed they looked like so many big rats They loaded the Providence lower deck, inside and out:
 they loaded the upper deck, where the | chairs for the passengers had seemed 70 be | supreme; and then they loaded the roof over that deck and the side spaces until
 her sides were sunk low down near the | rivers surface, and she bristled at every point with boxes, bales, agricultural i'm plements, brooms, carriages, bags, and ss the captain remarked, Heaven only knows what she sin't got aboard her" The mates rosred, the negroes talked all the time, or sung to rest their mouths. the boat kept settling In the water, and the mountains
 of freight swelled at every point. It was well said that twenty ordinary freight trains on & railroad would not carry as much freight ss was slowed aboard of her, and did not dcrbt the man who remarked to me that when such boat, SO laden, dis charged her cargo loosely st one place, 1t often made pile bigger than the bost It. self.
 These roustsbouts gre nothing like ss for ward as the lowest of their race that we
 see in the north Presumably they are about what the field hands" of slavery times were. They are dull-eyed, sham | bling men, dressed like persmbulsting | rag bsgs; with rsgs at the sleeves, up and down the trousers, at the hems of their coats, and the rims of their caps and hsts. A man who makes six changes of his | working attire every year by contract
 with tailor would be surprised at bow long these men can keep their clothes
 Some wear coats and vests, and no shirts; some wear oyeTcoats and shirts, and no
 vests; some have only shirts and trousers: shirts that have lost their buttons, per hsps, and Hare wide open 10 the irousers
 bsnd, showing black trunk like oiled eb- | ony. They earn dollar day, but have | not learned to save 1t. They are very dis sipsted, and are given to carrying knives, which the mates take away from the most unruly ones The scars on many of their bodies show 10 what use these knives gre | too often put "Who's dat talking bout | cuttin' out some one's hssrtF" heard some one say as he slnuched along in the roust- | about fine. "Ef dar's gOin' to be any cut | tin want to do some" Though they chant | at their work, I seldom saw them laugh or heard then sing song, or knew one of them to dance during the voyage. The work Is hard, and they are kept st 1t, | urged constantly by the mates on shore | and aboard, ss the southern folks say that | negroes and mules always need 10 be. But Il the roustabout's fsnlts are excessively hu- | man after all, and the consequence of & | sturdy belief that they need sharper treat | ment than the rest of us leads to their be | ing urged to do more work than s white man. There were nights on the Provi dence when the lsndings ran olose tossth- | CT. and the poor wretches got little or no
 sleep. They "tote" sll the freight aboard
 and back to land again on their heads or
 shoulders, and 1t Is crushing work. When
 ever the old barharIc instinct to loaf, or to | move by threes st one man's word, wouid | prompt them, one of the mates was sure to spy the weakness and roar at the rul- prits.
 The mates showed no actual unkIndness | or severity while was on that boat But | they sll-on all the boats-have fsarsome voices, such ss we credit to pirate chiefs | on flow, rskish, black boats" in yellow | clad novels. Any one of them would break up an opera troupe. They rssp st the darkies in their business voices, with
 "run up the plank, nigger; now, then, nigger, get woodland then they turn
 and speak to the passengers iu their Sun day shore leave voices, as gently ss any men can talk.
 Mir. Halloran, an up river pilot of celeb rity who WAS studying the lower river, told me that he remembered when 1t was the custom for the mates to hit lazy ne- groes on the head with a billet of wood,
 land knock them stiff" The other na- groes used to laugh tpresumsbly as the sad d-faced man laughed when the photogrs Ir,ka n1o azI Flr, ss.h hf h.al d
 ''Smile, - you, or I'll shoot you-"O When the felled negro came to the others
 would say, 'Lep up quick an get to work, n!gger; de mates a-coming." They do
 not urge the help with cord-Eood now so the mate of the Providence told me
 because the negroes get out warrants and
 delay the boat
 have said that the blacks all call them
 selves triggers" The rule has its e1oep-
 tions. l went ashore at a plantation
 called "Sunnyside," and saw a cheery old
 "suniy" standing near a cabin doorway
 from out of which picksninnies were tumblipg like ants out of sn snt-hill.
 "How many children have you got,
 auntyr inquired.
 "I ain't got none yere, ," shs said; ''mine's
 all out in de fer. Desc yere two is my
 grsn'ohillen; de oders I'm takln' car of fer
 some oder ladies'"
 1lere WAS uuc DhEOtr tuOp ana WAs0-
 room" on the packet, and the barber and
 often conversed, with & razor between us
 He asked me once how liked my hair
 trimmed, and said always left that to
 the barber.
 "Dat's erect" said he; "you kin leave
 1t to me safely. and you kin bet I'm more than apt to do 1t in de mos fashionsblest manner" Then he turned and called to his assistant, a coal-blsck boy who was
 working his way to New orleans- "Hey,
 dere! you nieger! Git me e high stool
 outen de pantry. How you 'spect rs
 gwine out de gemmen's ha'r ef I doan' hAb no stoolF'
 I mentioned the fact that the roust- sbouts were working very hard.
 "Dat dey is," said the barber. "we
 call 'em 'roosters' on de ribber, but rous' about Is more correo'. Dey wuk hard night and day, an dey git mo kicks dan
 dollars. Et got reiuced so's had to do manual labor I'd so to stealth 'fo' I'd be 6
 rooster. Certain su I would, cause dey
 couldn't wuk c man no harder in de peni-
 tenchusry et he got caught dan dsy do on
 desc boats.p
 We are all subject to pain occasionally