The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-11-11

"AAA vi hiring IeADlS.
earn from $50 to s2.25 a day during
Sig months of the year. A school teach
er receives about $500. Thus thirty
seven men may be said to be In BUSH
ness for their own account- Four cler-
gymen earn from $500 to 1875 each.
four men are connected with church
work besides the pastors. but do not
receive an annual return exceeding
$3.50 each; three men earn from SIS
to $50 per yea in manual labor con-
nected with churches: forty men earn
from $40 to $50 per month as janitors.
hoGtiers. driS eTs, walters and men of
all work: forty-eight are employed
during five months of the year on
~neighboring farms as farm hands and
fence makers, at 15 cents to $50 per
day, and in quarries at 81 to $3.50 per
day The average wage of these rural
laborers is less than s1.05 per day. BY
counting twelve months labor for
these forty-eight men, every working
colored man, not otherwise classed.
will be included in estimate. The skill
ed laborers include four carpenters
earning $3.50 per day. ten masons and
bricklayers earning 81 to 1925. six hod
carriers at S1.20.
DEPENDENT CLASSES AND wO-
MEN.
"One hundred and fifty-six males are
then to be classed as * De-
Quoting this numbe from 40. the to-
tai male population at school age and
~ and not at school, and we find
that we have 254 dependent males; Of
these 142, or a total of 81 per cent. of
the idle negroes, are known to belong
to the class of habitual criminals. The
dependent male, when out of correc-
tional institutions, receives five per
cent. Of his support from the direct
4Io 49, ~ - n g.
furnished by the cOlored female; 20 per
cent Of the colored females, exclusive
of school children and children under
school g are in service; 20 per cent.
do washing at their homes; 1.5 per
cent. have no other employment than
their " homework; $50 per cent. do
not work. A negro woman will only
serve in a negro family when hard
pressed for money, and then for a few
days only. The women earn from $3.50
to 2.5O, with an average Of 81 per
week; some cooks earn from IS to
$3.50. OF the 113 colored freeholders, 60
are worth less than $500, q are rated
between $500 and 500, seven between
$3.50 and 81, 900, five between 81, 900 and
| 81, 500. six between $4,000 and 81 500, one
at $4,000, one at $40, 900 and one be-
tween $50, 900 and $40, 900. During the
! last fifteen years, with the exception
of five men, few negroes have bought
! real property, and in many cases the
property owned today may be traced
to the money brought from the south,
/ and its increase from interest or from
the rise in value Of the lot in which
it was invested"
ADVANCED EDUCATION A Def
RIMENT.
After discussing the negro's moral
sensibilities, which in certain direc-
lions are not predominant, and his ed
acational progress, DR.. Lee concludes:
In nine cases out OF ten advanced
education is a positive 0etriment to
the negro, and it will ba, not only as
long as the educated colored man feels
too proud to work at labor, but
as long as the present race discrimina-
ton exists and the negro fails to ac-
cept his isolation; as long as practical
ly all professional employment, save
the ministry and some few positions
as teachers, is closed to him. He can
not find employment as a clerk or shop
hand-tO him only manual occupations
are open. Forced to 1t by the negro
himself, the discrimination. in this
town, becomes more and more rigid.
Not only are the avenues to the high
er forms of labor closed, but he is not
wanted by white churches as a mem
Der; if he goes to them as a wOrshiper
he finds himself assigned to the back
seats of the meeting house. In the
court room he is restricted to certain
seats, and this by the ruling Of a re-
publican judge; he cannot obtain en-
t~ertainn,ant at leading hotels, nor be
shaved in barber shops p~atrOniZed by
whites, n these instances are but q
few of the many restrictions.
THE white population Of Carlisle re-
spects the older negroes, for they. as a
rule, are polite, hard working citizens.
but it is weary of the younger genera
ton. Eighty per cent. of negroes born
since 1865 are worthless, inSOlent loaf
ers, immoral, criminal, a sorrow to
their parents and a curse to their par
entS and a curse to the community.
"Statistics from other towns and
cities of the north bear out the figures
from Carlisle. They show that while
much has been done by the n gro,
much yet remains to do. his forces
upon US the conviction that we have
patience and earnestly 10 max
the negro worthy of the station the
law gives him."