The central record. (Lancaster, Ky.) 18??-current, 1911-04-07
A Suggestion.

Our neighboring towns are making
life miserable for the Migrants, giving
them heavy fines accompanied by heavy
sentences to the rock pile. This course
is very commendable, and one which
could well be emulated by Lancaster.
The Sunday excursion season is about
to open, when all the labor in and
around the town, good, bad and in
different will migrate "across the river"
or is "Injunoplis" or some other north
ern point, where they will spend the
summer, to return in the Fall. They
may work when they are away from
Lancaster, but the majority can not be
persuaded by any kind of inducement
to do anything in the way of manual
labor when they are here.
There is work here for all, of every
description, and for good wages, but in
the early Spring when you want few
hours of gardening done, you will be
compelled to do it yourself, for never a
''cullud gentlemen" can you persuade
to do it for you. 1t is not because they
are not here, anytime you may find at
least a dozen of them summing them
selves in front of the ramshackle dom
iciles of battle row. Nor are the fe-
male denizens of that sweet scented
locality any better than the men. 1t
is almost impossible to secure a cook,
=, IL o,,,oliG
cation are but Indifferent, and she will
only stay long enough to secure stake
and she is gone on the first ''scursion. "
This class of our citizens live off the
more industrious members of their race;
they always manage by some means,
fair or foul, most times the latter, to
get hold of piece of money, either a
crap game, selling little Ticker, or
some other equally as reprehensible
practice is brought to their aid, and
the hard working colored man or wom-
an is invariable the sufferer.
Some of them try petty thievery,
but this custom invariable lands them
in the penetentiary, and they have
profted by the fate of their predeces-
sors and seek some other less danger
GUS method of obtaining livelihood
without laboring for it. The blind
tiger evil has about been sqelched here
in so far as the males are concerned,
but it seems that the women have now
taken up the liquor selling habit. Last
week two of them were caught red
handed and fined heavily, sentence to
the rock pile might well have accompan-
led the fine, for if they will follow
these nefarious practices they should
expect nothing else but to suffer the
full penalty of the law for their wrong
doing.
The Devil is ever ready is furnish
mischief for idle hands to do, and if
these women were forced to seek some
honest means to earn their livelihood,
they would abandod these practices.
Bees kill off the drones, the non labor.
ing class, their more thrifty neighbors
refusing to allow them to reap the
fruits of their toll. We do not advo,
cateas severe remedies as the beas
employ, but we do advocate one which
would force them to go to work anC
earn living.
There are existing laws on the stat.
ute books, city ordinances, which il
rigidly enforced would not leave an able
bodied citized, male or female idle
within the city bounds.
Why not enforce them? 1t should be
done, other places are doing it, why
not Lancaster? Unless it is done oul
town will become refuge for the idle
who flee from the laws that are being
enforced by our neighbors. We are
not certain that this is not already t.
some extent the case, many of the I'm
desirable negroes from neighborinf
towns are frequently seen on oul
streets, especially on public days, and i
is a certainty that they are not looking
for work.
1t would not be bad idea for tn,
board of health to cooperate with thu
police department, and clean up thu
domiciles as well as their tenants