The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-02-12

tons of the negroes. Dividing the total
colored population above 10 years of
age according to the popular classifi-
cations Of pursuits, there are in pro-
fessional occupations %; in domestic,
2S7; in commercial, i5; in agriculture,
Is; in Industrial, 2S2; not engaged in
gainful occupations, $50.
Preachers and teachers from the pro-
fessional class, there being no coored
physicians or doctors in Farmville.
The two leading preachers receive sal
aries of $3.50 and $500 respectively, are
graduates of theological seminaries,
represent the younger and progressive
element, but are not particularly spirit
ual guides, being rather social leaders
or agents. Such mon are slowly but
surely crowding out the ignorant but
picturesque, and, in many particulars,
impressive preachers of slavery days.
Teachers stand next to preachers in
general esteem. An increasing num-
Der are now young women. Teachers
earn from 800 to 5000 year, and some
times do other work during vacations.
Tie individual undertaken of business
enterprise, says Prof. Du Bois, is a new
figure among negroes, and his rise de-
serves to be carefully watched, as it
means much for the future of his race
Farmville negroes are engaged OH their
own account in 32 separate enterprises
conducted by &c proprietors, and em-
ploying besides, about 40 other persons.
The entire brickmaking business of
FarmVille and vicinity is in the hands
of former slave, who bought his own
and his familv's freedom, purchased
his masters estate and eventually hired
his master to work for him. He owns
1000 acres of land and considerable
town property. His brickyard produces
from 200 600 to 900 bricks during the
annual working season, and he has re-
peatedly driven white competitors out
of the business.
SUCCESS IN BUSINESS.
Seven grocery stores are conducted
| by negroes. Three are tiourishing and
| do a business of from $50 to 800 a
| week. Two others are kept by young
men who got their capital by menial
service in New York. The wealthiest
negro in town is barber reputed to
| be worth $4,000. There are five bar
Der shops and two restaurants. Two
| blacksmiths and a wheelwright do q
| good business, sometimes earning from
| IS to $S per day. There are four shoe
| makers and two furniture repairers,
and one silversmith. Two are small
! building contractors, and one in paint
ing. The only steam laundry in the
county is conducted by two young col
ored men. 1t is conducted With the
latest machinery. The town jailer, a
negro, owns a house in town and a
| farm, and is also wood merchant
and whipmaker. A Hampton gradu-
] a
! hotel and bakery, and are doing a sue
cessful business.
Among the other skilled trades ne
groes are found as cabinetmakers,
coopers, brick masons, plasterers. car
penters and butchers. In the building
trades white and black mechanics
work side by side, apparently without
friction, but there is some discrimin-
alton in wages. Very little clerical
work is done by the negroes. There
is one railway mail clerk, who secured
his position through civil service ex-
| animation. Others work in the to-
bacco factories. foundries, feed mills,
and on the railway.
| Quite a number, women predominant
| ing, are employed in domestic service
but the negroes are coming to regard
the work as a relic of slavery and as
degrading, and only enter it from sheer
| necessity, and as a temporary make
shift. Low wages are paid-men re-
| ceiving from $S to $40, and women from
81 to S5, board and lodging, of course,
included-and the women grow to de-
| spse menial work, partly because their
| white employers despise it and teach
their daughters to do the same. But,
curiously enough, some negro families
employ servants. In this case, how
ever, the employers having worked all
their lives. do not despise common
labor or menial duties, and treat the
| servant practically as one of the fam
lily. AS to the unemployed" Farm
villes quota is the usual substratum
of loafers and semi-criminals who will
not work. There are some able-boded
men who gamble fight and drink.
Others work and spend their money in
company with the lowest classes. These
live in a few crowded tenements, and
are regarded by whites and blacks as
beneath notice.
HOMES.
AS to their homes, it can be said that
the one-room cabin is rapidly disap-
| pearing. There are only seventeen one
| room dwellings occupied by negroes,
| being 6.5 per cent. of the 262 families,
| Fifty-one per cent. occupy two-room
homes; 17.2 per cent. three-room homes
| Ills per cent. fOur-room homes, and
| 13. per cent. homes of five or more
rooms. Forty-three per cent. of these
262 families own their homes, and about
10 per cent. of the tenants rent from
negroes. The annual income of these
262 families range between with $50
or less and 6 with $3.50 or over. Forty
receive from 5000 to $3.50; SO from $3.50
to $780, "A from $3.50 to $500, and So
from $500 to $500. The estimated an
nual income of family of five in mod
crate circumstances, the husband and
| wife both being earners, is 1921; of a
family in poor circumstances, husband,
wife and boy working half the year,
$174; of family owning a home, the
husband a carpenter. working 32 weeks,
and the wife and boy 20 weeks in the
tobacco factory, 1884. Upon these es-
Inmates Prof. Du Bois concludes that
of these 262 families, 29 are in poverty.
12S in moderate circumstances, SO COM
Portable, and AZ well-to-do, according
to the standard of the town.
A building and loan association COM
posed of both colored and white share
holders, but largely managed by the
whites, facilitates the buying of prop
erty by negroes. With fairly steady
employment, and perhaps the aid of a
grown son or daughter an ordinary
colored family can buy lot for from
$50 to 800 and build three-room house
for S300 10 Sb0O There are 119 cOlored