The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-01-31

years of age are illiterate. One notice.
able change in the later generations is
that the excess of illiteracy which was
that the excess of illiteracy, which was
formerly among the women, is now
The study of occupations is interest
ing. There are no colored physicians or
lawyers in Farmville, preachers and
teachers being the only representa-
CT the learned professions. The posi-
ton of preacher is the most influential
of all positions among the negroes, and
brings the largest degree of personal
respect and social prestige. The two
leading preachers in the town receive,
the one $3.50 and house rent; the other,
5000 year. Both are graduates of
theological seminaries and represent the
younger and more progressive element.
They use good English, and no scandal
attaches to their private life, so far as
the investigator could learn. Their in
fuence is, on the whole good, although
they are not particularly spiritual
guides. being rather social leaders.
Such men are slowly but surely crowd
ing out the ignorant but picturesque
preacher of slavery days. The latter
type is now to be found only in small
churches and receive salaries ranging
from $75 to $500 year.
Teachers stand next to preachers in
general esteem. An increasing number
of these are now young women, and
those in Farmville teach the schools of
the surrounding country districts. The
school terms are from four to six
months. and in addition there is con-
siderable private teaching done. The
teachers earn from 500 to $3.50 year
by teaching, and sometimes do other
work in vacation.
The individual undertaken of business
enterprise is a new figure among ne
groes, and his rise means much for the
future of the race. FarmVille negroes
engage on their own account in brick
making. the grocery trade, barbering,
housekeeping, furniture repairing,
siiversmithing and clock repairing, shoe
making, wood selling, whip making,
steam laundering, contracting and
building, painting, blacksmithing,
wheelwrighting, hotel keeping and
farming. representing in all thirty-two
separate enterprises conducted by
thirty-six proprietors, and employing,
besides, about forty other persons.
The entire brickmaking business Of
Farmville and vicinity is in the hands
of a freedman, who bought his own
and his family's freedom, purchased
his masters estate and eventually hir-
ed his master to work for him. He
owns a thousand acres or more of land
in Cumberland county and considera-
BILE Farmville property. In his brick
yard he hires about fifteen hands,
mostly boys from sixteen to twenty
years of age, and runs five or six
months a year, making from 100000 to
800 900 bricks. His men receive about
S12 a month. Probably half the brick
houses in and near Farmville are built
of brick made in his establishment, and
he has repeatedly driven white COM
petitors out of business. A new enter
prise in the town is bakery and
hotel. 1t occupies a neat building on
M rTafn IJ
a Hampton graduate and her husband.
There is considerable dissatisfaction
over domestic service which negroes
are coming to regard as relic of
slavery. Employers, on the other hand,
find an increasing number of careless
and impudent young people, who neg
lect their work, and in some cases
show vicious tendencies and democrat
ize the children of the family. They
pay low wages, partly because they
cannot afford to pay much, and part
ly because they do not believe the
service rendered is worth more. The
servants receiving less than they think
they ought, are often careful to render
as little for it as possible. They grow
to despise the mental work they do,
partly because their employers them
selves despise it and teach their
daughters to do the same.
This may not represent the open,
conscious thought of the community,
but it is the unconscious tendency of
the present situation, which makes one
species of honorable and necessary Ia
bor difficult to buy or sell without loss
of self-respect on one side or the
other. One result of this situation is
the wholesale emigration of the bet
ter class of servants to the North,
where they can earn three and often
four times the wages for less work.
One curious modification of the do
nestle service system is the fact that
negroes themselves are beginning to
hire servants. Ten families among
Farmville negroes regularly hire one
servant each, and several others have
a woman to help occasionally.