GENERAL NOTES.
The Freedmen.
—In commenting on the Windom Emigration Scheme, the Atlanta Constitution says: “In Georgia the colored people are doing as well as could be expected. If they are to remain citizens they ought to be educated, and they ought to have constantly before them the example of the whites. They are beginning to appreciate the responsibilities of citizenship; they are thrifty enough to accumulate property, and they are anxious to take advantage of the educational opportunities afforded them.” The colored man is valuable to the South. The white people know it. The above is important testimony to his worth and increasing usefulness.
—The Bainbridge Democrat gives, unwittingly, testimony to the industry and thrift of the colored laborer: “The ambition of every negro man is to have a home of his own; and it is no mean ambition; yet, if something is not done, this generation will live to see the day when this class of labor cannot be obtained at any price; and if we cannot supply it with labor just as good, there will be no other alternative for the white man but to ‘go.’ People have no use for lands when there is nobody to cultivate them; and as the colored people set up in their little cabins upon their poor and sickly lands, just in proportion will our finest and best acres depreciate in value. This is a question big with interest to our people, beside which others sink into nothingness.” Application: The colored laborer is becoming a settled, independent property holder, and his own master. When he can work, buy and sell for himself, and own his cabin, he is emancipated from domineering dictation. Whoever owns his own labor must control the market.
—After all, there is an inclination to block this aspiration of the colored man. The Atlanta Constitution holds that it is an open question whether this effort should be encouraged. It holds that there are two solutions of the labor problem which is now vexing the farmers. Either the negro must be made comfortable as a tenant, or he must be encouraged to provide himself a home. Either something like the English tenant system must be adopted or the system of small farms will prevail. There is something peculiarly attractive in this English system. Whether it could be made to fit the peculiar needs of the present and the contingencies of the future, is a question that the editor is not just now prepared to discuss.
—The colored man being an American citizen, it is improbable that the English tenant system can be made to fit his case. The rights of citizenship will secure to him the rights of labor. The homestead delivers him from serfdom, and secures to him the independent ballot.
—Many influential colored men are advocating colonization as a remedy for the evils that afflict their race. One says, “We cannot get equal rights in the South before the law. A white man will pay ten dollars for the same offence that a negro will go to that second death, the chain-gang, for.” He also says, “There are some counties in Georgia, and in every one of the Southern states, where a white man will whip a negro just the same as formerly.” Again, a certain lawyer defending a white man the other day, at Jefferson, in Georgia, said, “God made the negro inferior, and the white man was justified in killing the negro for insulting him.” The jury acquitted the white man (Atlanta Rep., March 1). The darkness still lingers.
—The Marietta Journal, Cobb County, Ga., reports that a young colored man, now a school-teacher, but who has been studying law for the last three years, will soon apply for admission to the bar, and says that he is so thoroughly prepared that his application cannot be denied.
—A National Emigration Aid Society has been organized at Washington, with Senator Windom at its head, its object being to assist and regulate emigration from the South to the West. Rev. Dr. J. E. Rankin is one of its Executive Committee, as are also Senator Hamlin, Representative Garfield and other leading men.
—At the recent anniversary of the City Bible Society in Atlanta, Ga., it was reported that the colporteur, who had just commenced the canvass of the community, had found that of the first one hundred and fifty-eight white families visited in the first ward, twenty-six were destitute of the Word of God; and that of the first one hundred and seventy-two colored families visited in the same ward, forty-eight of them have no Bibles. Rev. Dr. Haygood, who stated the fact, said that it had surprised and gratified him to find that so large a proportion of the colored families had supplied themselves with the Scriptures. It gave him great encouragement for the welfare of the country. Of one hundred and seventy-two colored families, one hundred and twenty-four had the Bible. This people hunger for the Word. Here is a wide field for the American Bible Society.
Africa.
—The Church Missionary Society has ordained missionaries at nine stations on the River Niger, under the charge of the native Bishop Crowther. At some of these stations the idols have already been given up. At others there has been long and severe persecution, which, however, appears to have largely broken down. On the whole, these missions have been a great success.
—The “Cardiff Livingstone Mission” (Welsh) was originated about three years ago, and has two stations on the Congo River.
—Dr. Laws and Mr. Stewart, of the Scottish Missionary Society on Lake Nyassa, are examining the country on the west coast of the Lake to find a permanent location better adapted to the wants of the mission than Livingstonia. They have visited several of the tribes, being received with some suspicion, and finding it hard to make it understood that they are neither there to fight nor to trade. At last advices (Oct. 30th) they were still investigating.
—Gordon Pacha, Governor-General of Southern Egypt, reports that the capture of all the slave depots is considered certain. The Egyptians, he says, killed ten chiefs and 2,000 men while following up a victory they had gained over the slave-traders.
—The steamer Kangaroo, with part of the cable to be laid between Natal and Aden, last month left the Thames for Natal via the Suez Canal. The Natal and Zanzibar section will be open for business in July. This will place South Africa within a week’s communication of London. The remainder of the line will be completed before the end of the present year.
—Mr. Henry M. Stanley is reported to be now on his way to Zanzibar with a commission from the King of the Belgians to re-organize the hitherto unsuccessful Belgian expedition.
—The Khedive has dismissed his English and French Ministers, and appointed a Cabinet composed exclusively of his own subjects. He has also prepared a financial scheme on his own account, and set aside that of the English financier. This revolutionary conduct will re-awaken anxiety in both England and France, for the future of Egypt and for the safety of European capital invested in that country.