The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-03-01

cmnty Missouri. says they are run
ming all Of the negroes out of Fayette
and Howard counties and the whipping
post awaits those who tarry, and that
the race war Is on i'm earnest. That is
bad-very bad. Where are the poor
creatures TO go. for it is awful weather
in Missouri. with the thermometer below
zero and blizZards raging around. l won
der what they have been doing to pro-
woke such treatment. II they move to
another country. how long before they
will have to move again? and it looks
like they will perish or freeze before the
winter is over Some towns in Illinois
have given them marching orders, and
it looks like they have no friends but
the Southern people. We used to wonder
why they all did not leave here and go
up to their deliverers and bask on their
bounty but only few were fools enough
and now they would come back if they
could. We are getting sorry for the
negro. He has no abiding place. They
are tenants at will of the landlords.
When Russia gave freedom to her serfs
a few acres and cottage were allotted
10 every family. and this could not be
taken away not even for debt. The
poor, shiftless laborer has hard time
everywhere. friend writes me from
Quemadas. Cuba. that the wealthy Span
iards who live in Spain own all the land
in Cuba, and it is exempt from all tax
but the laborers who rent ii have to pay
tax on everything, their shanties, thelr
horses and carts and stock OF all xmas
and plantation tools, and on what pro-
duce is left after paying rent, ana Wheh
they buy anything with Spanish money
they are charged 70 cents in the dollar,
and when they sell they have to take 6o
cents. They are generally no account,
but can live fairly well on the bountiful
products of a fertile soil and the fruits
that abound everywhere. My friends says
il is a most delightful climate. He has
n wife and five children and never
DAYS sickness. In drive around his
place you will see $4,000 worth of pine
apples growing, and he is now planting
20 600 more plants. and they make good
crops from five to ten years without
replanting and are worth from 212 to
cents a piece. Ii costs $50 per acre to
prepare the land and $95 more to buy the
plants. The sweetest and best oranges
you ever saw grow all over the hills and
sell for 81 a thousand. Then there is
grape fruit and lines and lemons and
mangos, guavas, plantins, figs and
grapes.
Now, I was Illuminating with our ne
groes didn't go to Cuba, where they
would not have to work half the time
and where they could mix and miscege-
nate with the natives and have social
equality to their hearts content. The
Cubans are all colors now from nearly
white to nearly black, and they will mix
with any race. One day l saw curious
looking specimen in the negro car, and
the conductor didn't know whether to
move him or not, and so he asked him:
Are you a white man or negro, and
he replied my fader was Portugee
and my muder vas a mayer. The con-
ductor smiled and let him stay. Go into
a cigar factory in Tampa and you will
see a fair assortment of Cubans-four
hundred in one long room, and of all
shades, sizes and compilations. They have
no national or race color. / should think
Cuba would suit most of our negroes
very we'll for they could live on fruit
and honey. My friend says he has
framed hives 10 feet square and robs
the hives every other day in the dry
season. and it is a profitable business
But | don't see any good reason for
driving negroes from one town or coun
ty tc another. 1t is not playing fair
with the other towns Chief Ball re-
ports that he is driving them out of At
lanta 1t does not seem to concern him
where they go so they leave Atlanta.
Why not take up the vagabonds and
punish them under the vagrant law and
put them to work; why not call back
the whipping post? 1t will cure the ne
gro of small crimes and idleness quicker
than anything in the world. When they
get into the chaingangs they get whip
ping poster no post-and good whip
ping before hand would keep many
one from going there. But the most
remarkable treatise on the negro and
his race traits has just been writtn and
spoken of by Professor Dowd of Wiscon-
sin University. Such a deliverance from
a Northern source is amazing. He has
been down here and gone from town to
town and studied the negroes actual
condition. and declares he is on the down
grade in morality, in health and physical
condition, and the race will become eX-
tfnct il some great change is not made
in their education and some radical con-
troll placed over their morals. They have
almost ceased to marry, but take up
and cohabit at pleasure and change when
they feel like it. He says that out of
one hundred families he visited at Dur
ham. n. c.. only twenty of the wo-
men had husbands, and the children are
almost universally supported by the
mothers. while the fathers spend their
time in SIS or have took up" with
some n. He writes like he
tersville. for in sight of
woman with three sets of
in abby three fathers
no husband and has never
l"r d. She works hard FOR those
&c, md stands well in the church'
er has four children and no nus
for he has abandoned her. fhe
ID barber who shaved me for years
three wives with children, and ran
FAY with another one and went 10 beS-
5emer and there snapped her off There
are no doubt a hundred bastard negro
children within our town limits, ana as