The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-02-08
SIR HARRY JOHNSTON
 WRITES ON THE NEGRO
He Tells of His Trip Through Ths
 Black Belt of Alabama.

Sir Harry Johnston, the we'll known English traveller, is printing in The London Times a series of letters on his trip through Alabama # will be re- lcalled that he was in Middle Alabama several weeks ago as the guest of Referee J. O. Thompson and Represen- ltative E. W. Thompson of Macon Coun- ty. In an interview at that time in negro had more opportunities than the European peasantry.
 The New York Sun has the following to say of his articles in The London Times:
 Ordinarily you would not look to London for first hand information con- lcernfng the United States. It is a fact, however, that an American citizen may about the southern section of our coun- ltry lately contributed by Sir Harry Johnston to The London Times. Es- tpecially interesting Is the article deal- ing. with agricultural and industrial
 The writer of these articles. who travelled in an American buggy, found the roads from the Georgia line to Montgomery the worst he had seen up that they were not so bad as those In Mississippi. In the tract of country thus trayersed the English traveller ob- served that the agricultural negroes either own their farms in fee or rent them from white land owners. or work the farm on the method of turning over half the gross produce to the land own CTS. In Macon county one of the Ala bama counties through which he pass ed. 421 negro farmers own among them | in fee nearly 5e,000 acres of land, or more than one-seventh of the soil.
 Sir Harry Johnston was impressed with the grade of civilization exempli- fled by the better class of negro plant iers in the agricultural region of Ala bama. The dwelling house, he says, Is neatly built of gray blanks. with a q mounted on brick piles few feet above the ground and equipped with glass windows, green painted shutters and green veranda rails. The front garden Is usually fenced off from the road and beds. To the right of the flower beds there is g kitchen garden for vege- tables. The back premises enclose an abundantly furnished poultry yard. and and horses. cow sheds, barns and stacks of fodder. A cotton plantation extends from ten to twenty acres around the homestead The interior of and Is divided into at least two bed rooms, hall, kitchen and a parlor. Most of the negro farmers whom Sir Harry Johnston visited had a substan- tial deposit in the local bank. He notes that in addition to their other agricul- tural work they made sirup from sugar cane or sorghum, using in the manu- facture sometimes up-to-date machin- mill worked by a mule. The illumina- tion of the house at night was gener- ally furnished by petroleum lamps or candles. although in a few of the ruder and isolated dwellings, pine rosin was the only source of artificial light. Only one of the negro planters whom the English traveller saw lived in typi- cal log house: and this man, In addi- fO nP ed 200 acres of pine wood enclosed by barbed wire fence. Sir Harry notes finally that at intervals of few miles in the agricultural region one would Der ana a schoolhouse, both of which buildings as a rule were painted.
 1 Passing to Birmingham, perhaps the most important industrial centre of the South, Sir Harry Johnston found that in the adjacent iron mines about 90 per cent of the labor is negro. while the black race furnishes 55 per cent of the coal miners and at least 50 per cent of the men employed In the great steel works and iron foundries. In connection with these facts he recalls that throughout the southern states no less than 75 per cent of the men en- railways are negroes. Tn Birmingham he found several negro banks. also negro doctors, dentists, haberdashers. aressmakers' 6arbers; Eroesrs sESos.rs. and and colored people, at which only negro actors and actresses perform. Sir liar ry Johnston testifies that the perform ances in musical comedy which he wit messed were excellent. There are negro chuI ches in Birmingham which have cost, 1t seems from ten thousand to thirty thousand dollars. There Is a negro press, and there are numbers Of young negro men and women who are expert stenographers and typists. We note lastly that our traveller. visited the great Bessemer steel works In . suburb of Birmingham and was much struck by the conspicuous parts there taken by highly skilled negro mechanics On the whole he Is evi- dently convinced that the South Is for almost limitless stock of negro labor well adapted to both agricultural and industrial work.