The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-04-16
MORALS OF DIXIE
eOUTHERNERs DECLARED TO BE BETTER THAN NOTHERN.
 BROTHERS.
Negro Condition is Sorry-WilIiam E. Curtis Tells of Interview With Bishop Charles B.
 Galloway.

Negro Condition is sorry-wilIiam E.
 Curtis Tells of Interview With
 Bishop Charles B.
 Galloway.
 William E. Curtis's Jackson, Miss.
 Special to Chicago Record Herald.
 While 1t is a delicate question to dis cuss, and one that is impossible to de- fermine, several people who have lived on both sides of Mason and Dixon's line have asserted to me since l have been in the South that the standard of oficjal integrity and private morality down here Is much higher than in the Northern States. particularly in the rIties of the North. It Is contensed that the Southern people, as a rule. are more regular in church attendance and in the performance of other re- U1ious duties: that they are more free from social scandals, and that divorce the South. and in many localities n,s, clergyman, who has preached both in the North and In the South, says that the private lives of city people down here as a rule are purer; that they are more critical of the behavior of their neighbors. and that greater disgrace qencies than in Northern cities. The women of the South as a rule have larger families than in the North. and there is less complaint and criticism of mothers who neglect their families for social excitement than is heard up North.
 There is very little crime among the white population, a fact which is at tributed to temperance legislation. great deal of whiskey Is drunk in the homes of the white people. but seldom to excess. As a rule every Southern man takes his toddy, either at his club, in his own dining room or with his friends, but at the same time he Is a prohibitionist so far as the sale Of 41 he that drinking demoralizes the negroes and the poor white" class and is the chief cause of crime. Hence there are comparatively few saloons, as l have told you in previous letters.
 The moral condition of the colored people is deplorable, and l have been told by everybody that crime, vice and immortality are spreading among them, even on the plantations. While socio- logists attribute the largest measure of the crime and vice to the idle ana towns, those who are familiar with plantation conditions and village life assert that there Is very little diff women and the colored preachers is concerned. In every city and town in the South there is large negro population. without regular occupation; upon odd jobs or do not work at all; or who rely for their living upon the t servants of white households. or upon different grades of theft, from pilfering to highway robbery.
 have not heard any complaint of the courts. I am told that the crimi- nal laws are justly administered; al, treat prisoners of that race more kindly. as a rule. than they do tho negroes. The prison population of victs for a population of one million and a half of people. The negro con- vlcts number 992, the whites 123, while there is one Indian undergoing life sentence Of the women prisoners two are white and twenty-six are colored, The convicts are mostly young men, 570 being under 25 years of age and s96 under 40.
 Mississippi convicts are humanely treated. and. instead of being kept within prison walls. they are worked in the open air upon plantations. where they are we'll fed and clothed, and have comfortable places to sleep. They work twelve hours day with an hour st noon, from ..So0s to o'clock t"r conI,oe The labor. One of them known as The Sunfiower Farm" over in the Yazoo Delta, contains 13.7S9 acres; another road. 3,200 acres; the Oakley Place. twenty miles south of Jackson. has 2,700 acres, and the Belmont planta- tIon. on the YaZoo and Mississippi Val 
 Bishop Charles B. Galloway of the Methodist Church, whom I have heard called the ablest man in the South, and who Is certainly one of the best posted men in this section. tells me that the moral and physical condition Of the coiored population in Mississippi is im- proving somewhat, but very little. He thinks that about 35 per cent of them are looking up, are becoming more in dustrious and are behaving better.
 ie country" said the bishop, than in the towns. which attract the idle shift less. improvident and vicious elements. The prisons are recruited from the towns. where even the best intentioned negro boy will soon learn bad habits if he allows himself to remain idle, and the race. This is all the more seri- ous on account of racial antipathy.
 Tn the villages and rural districts see some improvement: nro.r The T, e Sns1soOmeS Sosnr s@ay; 'a0tf the schools a0us and churches are improving. there is less superstition and better understand ing of religion; we are getting better class of preachers, both as to the char acter of their preaching and the man ner of their living. This is largely due schools which are furnishing every year numbers of qualified teachers and d better educated class of preachers. comparative sense. Unfortunately, however, the number is much smaller than 1t ought to be.
 "What is the State of Mississippi do- ing to improve the condition of its ne- gro population% I asked.
 Tt is doing a good deal replied Bishop Galloway; not by any means as much as it should do. but more than it has done, and it is accomplishing good results through the industrial schools. The people of the State do not sympathize with Governor Narda- man in his views about negro educa- tion. Public sentiment is against him. We believe in educating colored teach CTS because they are absolutely neces- sary for negro schools. White people viii not teach colored schools. and un- less we train colored teachers the schools would have to close. which would be a calamity. We believe in giving every child a common school education and the hand should be trained with the mind and where boys or girls show more than ordinary in- telIectual ability they are entitled to a college education.
 s.I do not believe the charge that ed ucation has a bad effect upon the nor ais of colored men or women. There may have been individual cases, but l have never seen the proof. On the contrary. while negro education now is imperfect and defective. not single 1F has hPaD n