The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-12-04
NEGROES DRIFTING NORTHwARD.

NEGROES DRIFTING NORTHWARD.
1t is being predicted that the next CEN
sus will show an exceptionally large in
crease in the negro population of New
York. Not only have occasi onal Wis
itors from the South noted a swell
ing of the black population in that city
but the residents are beginning to be-
come aware of the increase and ask them
selves what viii be the outcome of il,
not only for the incoming blacks but for
the whites who have lived there al of
their lives. MIR. F. L. Batner is one New
Yorker who has noted the trend of events
During the past eight or ten months"
he told the Washington Post the other
day, Il have been struck with the in
creasing numbers of colored people that
one sees in the section of the city above
Twenty-third street. Doubtless New
York is luckily in being as remote as Il
is from the plantations. lest great crowds
of Afro-Americans might come swarming
our way to their own detriment, as well
as our own"
Mr.. Batner, like the majority of North
ern men. no doubt, has the warmest
sympathy for the negro. rs long as he re-
mains on the plantations of the South
and is no menace to Northern communi-
ties. But when he goes North in any num-
bers he becomes a 'detriment to our in
terests." Be that as it may the negro
is going North, and that in such num-
bers that it is practically sure he viii
make himself felt, and that before
great while. An observant gentleman of
this city who recently spent some time in
New York expressed himself as being
astonished at the increase of the numter
of negroes to be seen in the
very section referred to by Mr.. Bat
ner; and he was more than astonish-
ed TO learn upon inquiry that
many OF the negro men were
the husbands OF white wives. He was
told, that the white women who married
the black men were usually of the class
that furnishes the shop girls, the factory
operatives and other workers, and that
they married the negroes because the
black men who would marry them were
able to earn more money than the white
men whom they might expect to marry
The negroes who marry white women are
usually head walters, janitors in large
buildings, porters on palace cars, messen-
gers in office buildings, or something of
the sort, where the income is fair; and the
women are either immigrants or natives
who have been so far removed from the
black race all of their lives that they
have no prejudice on account Of race
What this condition of affairs forecasts
can only be conjectured. The New York
ers will before a great while find item
selves face 10 face with a prodigeous ne
gro problem, of which this will be one of
the details.
Meantime the movement of negro es to
New York is unquestionably going on in
considerable volume II is not beyonl
bounds to say that the next census will
find the black population Of Greater New
York TO be twice what it was at the time
of the last census; aud the movement Is
likely to be augmented rather than
diminished. To the average negro of the
South heretofore New York has been as
an unknown world to be talked about and
specialized upon with awe and wonder.
But it is becoming more familiar now.
The blacks who have gone there are writ
ing back TO their people and telling them
about it, and those on the plantations are
thinking more and more of going TO see
the wonderful city for themselves. ordl-
narily city life is more attractive TO a ne
gro than a white man, hence, when the
Negroes natural fear and superstition has
been reduced or removed, ii is not strange
that he should desire to go TO New York.
The time is about past for the race ques-
tion TO be peculiar to the South. New York
is rapidly acquiring an interest in it.
Maj A. r. Calhoun Of New York, who
has spent some time in Pretoria AMI knows
Dom Paul personally says the Transvaal
President eats with his knife end wears