whose weddings I had assisted ten years or so ago, in answer to my question, "Have you any children?" would answer, "I had" one, two, or three, as the case might be, "but dey all dead." Always inclined to be immoral, they have now thrown all semblance of chastity to the winds, and when I said to my old nurse how shocked and grieved I was to find how ill-conducted the young girls were, so much worse than they used to be, she said, "Missus, dere not one decent gal left in de place." Their thirst for knowledge, which made young and old go to school as soon as the war was over, seems to have been quenched entirely, for, with one or two laudable exceptions, no one sends even their children to school now, and soon we shall have to introduce compulsory education. The only two negroes on the place who can write and add up accounts are the one we had educated at the North, and the one we had in England three years. And yet it is twenty years since they were free, and have been their masters.

"Coming out of Egypt"

Senate Report on Labor and Capital, testimony, vol. iv, p. 776. Statement of Bishop Halsey of the Colored M. E. Church. [1883] It does seem sometimes that our people are not making much progress in the improvement of morals, but my belief is that there is a very great progress made in that direction. . I believe we are passing from chaos to order. If you will allow me to use negro phraseology, we are "coming out of Egypt," and our people say that there must be a wilderness between Egypt and the promised land. They say, "What else can you expect," and they say that for the last ten or fifteen years they have been in the wilderness. We have had a number of Moseses, you know, a great many of them, who have led us one way and another.

Criminal Negroes

Bruce, Plantation Negro, ch. vi. Copyright 1889. mission of Mr. Bruce.

Used by per

[1889]

THEY violate the principal clauses of the Criminal Code less

often than we would be led to expect... They rarely become desperate and turbulent by the force of the most vehement passion, except when under the dominion of an ardent physical ap petite... It should not be forgotten, too, that his usual temper is mild and easy, reflecting in its brightfulness and cheerfulness the sunny climate of his primitive continent. . . The greater number of the brawls in which individuals of their race are involved among themselves have their incentive in the vehement passions aroused by heated disputes as to proprietorship in women... The negro is not disposed to have affrays with members of the other race. . . Rape is the most frightful crime which the negroes commit against the white people, and their disposition to perpetrate it has increased. . and it will be seen that this disposition will grow in proportion as that vague respect which the blacks still entertain for a white skin declines. .. White women of every class, from the highest to the lowest, are afraid to venture to any distance alone, or even to wander unprotected in the immediate vicinity of their homes; their ap preciation of the danger being as keen, and their apprehension of corporal injury as vivid, as if the country were in arms.

Societies among the Blacks

Senate Report on Labor and Capital, testimony, vol. vi, p. 344. Statement of Mrs. Ward. These societies are an important factor in negro social life.

[1883]

THERE is a society organized among them to look after and provide for the wants of those who are out of a job. That makes them perfectly independent and relieves them from all fear of being discharged, because when they are discharged they go right straight to some of these "sisters." They have a great many societies and they have some funny names for them. They have the society of the "Immaculate Doves," and the society of the "Sisteren," and the society of the "Beloved Disciples," and societies with all kinds of curious names within their church organizations, and those societies undertake to take care of their members. When one dies the members all come out in uniform, men and women, and parade up

and down the town with white bonnets and black dresses, and, in fact, whenever they hear of the death of any brother or sister it is just like a 'scursion" to them.

Hostility of the Low Whites

Senate Report on Labor and Capital, testimony, vol. iv, p. 380. Statement of J. A. Scott, a negro lawyer of Birmingham. [1883] I CAN say that the advancement and progress of the colored people has been remarkable. The fact that they have rushed into the towns in the South has been caused by a desire which took possession of them just after the surrender and during the days of reconstruction, to obtain protection. The colored people and the poor white people have been two distinct classes, and they have been antagonistic to each other ever since they have been together in this country, and that natural antagonism just after the war was intensified, and all the trouble and disorder that we had in the South was the result, I believe, of the antagonism and bad feeling which existed between those two classes. During the days of slavery a colored man would refer to a poor white man as poor white trash, and there was a natural antipathy between them, and there has always been bad feeling.

"The Only Trouble Now"

Senate Report on Labor and Capital, testimony, vol. iv., p. 454. Statement of J. K. Green, negro, formerly a politician, now a carpenter in Montgomery, Alabama.

[1884]

HERE is the only thing that we are troubled about now, about civil rights. A colored man and his wife may go to work to get a little home, may go hungry and naked to educate a daughter, the dearest treasure that they have got, and the very moment that she begins to come up there is an inroad made upon her by the whites of this country, and we have got no redress in the world. They can't deny that. Now I want as much civil rights and rules to regulate and protect my family as any white man does, and if I catch a man under such circumstances I won't hurt him but once! . .

That is what we want, to protect the virtue of our girls. That is the rights I want. I don't want no social equality with the white people, and I don't want them to have none with me. I see the influence of this thing every day. There has been a time when they were opposed to such things, but now that we are free the parents of the children can't even protect their children, and there ain't a white man here can deny it. That is the trouble in this country. Give the nigger a chance and he is going to till the white man's soil, and he is going to keep out of his house too. There is some fools, of course, but generally if they let the nigger alone he won't interfere with them.

A gentleman white man won't lose no time to aggravate and insult and abuse away his time with a colored man unless he happens to be drunk. It is no hard thing for us to get along with the gentlemen in this country. You can get along with the gentlemen here or anywhere, on the cars or on the streets, or anywhere.

Jim Crow Cars

Senate Report on Labor and Capital, testimony, vol. iv, p. 382. Statement of J. A. Scott, a negro lawyer. [1883] THERE has been a universal discrimination here in Alabama, and, indeed, all over the South, in the treatment of the colored people as to cars they are permitted to ride in. The white people have always labored under the impression that whenever a colored man attempted to go into a ladies' car, he did it simply because it was a car for white people. Now if the white people looked at it as we look at it, taking a commonsense view of it, they would see that that idea is erroneous and false. We go into those cars simply because there are better acommodations there, and because we secure better protection in the ladies' car, for the general sentiment of the white men certainly protects their ladies. But in the cars allotted to the colored people a white man comes in and smokes cigars, and chews tobacco, and curses and swears, and all that kind of thing, and the conductors on the various roads don't exercise their powers for the protection of the colored passengers. We made these complaints to the railroad commission, and the pres

ident of the commission told us that it was a matter within their jurisdiction, and that they would take cognizance of it, and would see that those complaints were looked into, and those evils remedied. We asked simply for equal accommodation and protection with the white people in riding on the railroads, and the 22d day of this month was set for a final hearing, and the superintendent of railroads was summoned to be there at the final hearing of the matter, and we have the assurance of the gentlemen of the commission that the subject will be acted upon promptly, and that the vexed question - for this is one of the most vexed questions that we have to deal with in the South — will be settled. We expect, therefore, that so far as Alabama is concerned, the people of both races will have equal accommodation. Our people do not care whether they are put in the front of the train or in the middle or at the tail end, so long as they have proper accommodation and proper protection.

Superstition among the Blacks

Twenty-first Report, Freedmen's Aid Society, p. 45. This report represents conditions, not general, but widespread; it also is an indication of that discouragement that came over the Northern missionaries after the 70's.

[1888]

THE Christian religion is supposed to lengthen the lives of those who possess it; but when it takes the form of fatalism, it has the contrary effect. When a person believes that he can not die until his time comes, he is likely to become careless in regard to his health, and neglect those things which would tend to preserve it; and when sickness comes, it is, of course, useless to call a physician, as he would be unable to overrule the decrees of fate; but it is certainly a great satisfaction to the doctor who may be called to attend such a case, and the patient dies, to be informed by the friends that they felt that he had done all he could, and that no one, however skillful, could have saved the person's life; for it was manifest that the time to die had come. Superstition plays no small part in increasing the deathrate. Voudoo doctors, conjurers, and quacks, here find a most inviting field in which to ply their art.