But this phœnix was soon called for by the wants of the time, and was worth more than we could give, and went from us to enjoy forty dollars per month as cook in a hotel.
Such has been the good fortune of all the well-trained house-servants since emancipation. They command their own price.
The untrained plantation hands and their children are and will be just what education may make them.
The education which comes to them from the State from being freemen and voters, able to make contracts, choose locations, and pursue their own course like other men, is a great deal; and it is operating constantly and efficaciously.
We give the judgment of a practical farmer accustomed to hire laborers at the North and the South; and, as a result of five years' experiment on this subject, he says that the negro laborer carefully looked after is as good as any that can be hired at the North.
In some respects they are better. As a class they are more obedient, better natured, more joyous, and easily satisfied.
The question as to whether, on the whole, the negroes are valuable members of society, and increasing the material wealth of the State, is best answered by the returns of the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company,—an institution under the patronage of government.
The report of this institution for the year 1872 is before us; and from this it appears that negro laborers in the different Southern States have deposited with this Trust Company this year the sum of THIRTY-ONE MILLION TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETY-NINE DOLLARS.
The report also shows, that, year by year, the amount deposited has increased. Thus, in 1867, it was only $1,624,883; in 1868 it was three million odd; in 1869 it was seven million and odd; in 1870, twelve million and odd; in 1871, nineteen million and odd.
These results are conclusive to the fact, that, as a body, the Southern laborers are a thrifty, industrious, advancing set; and such as they are proved by the large evidence of these figures, such we have observed them in our more limited experience.