The State House was refurnished on this scale: $5 clocks were replaced by $600 ones; $4 looking-glasses by $600 mirrors; $2 window curtains by $600 to $1,500 ones; $4 benches by $200 sofas; $1 chairs by $60 chairs; $4 tables by $80 tables; $10 desks, $175 desks; forty-cent spittoons, $14 cuspidors, etc. Chandeliers cost $1,500 to $2,500 each. Each legislator was provided with Webster’s Unabridged, a $25 calendar ink-stand, $10 gold pen; railroad passes and free use of the Western Union Telegraph were perquisites. As “Committee Rooms,” forty bed-rooms were furnished each session; legislators going home, carried the furniture. At restaurant and bar, open day and night in the State House, legislators refreshed themselves and friends at State expense with delicacies, wines, liquors, cigars, stuffing pockets with the last. Orders for outside entertainments, given through bar and restaurant, were paid by the State. An incident of Radical rule: “Hell Hole Swamp,” purchased by the Benevolent Land Commission as site for homes for homeless negroes. Another: Moses lost $1,000 on a horse race; next day the House of Representatives voted him $1,000 as “gratuity.” The order on the Treasurer, signed by Moses as Speaker, to pay this “gratuity” to Moses is on file in Columbia.
Bills made by officials and legislators and paid by the State, reveal a queer medley! Costly liquors, wines, cigars, baskets of champagne, hams, oysters, rice, flour, lard, coffee, tea, sugar, suspenders, linen-bosom shirts, cravats, collars, gloves (masculine and feminine, by the box), perfumes, bustles, corsets, palpitators, embroidered flannel, ginghams, silks, velvets, stockings, chignons, chemises, gowns, garters, fans, gold watches and chains, diamond finger-rings and ear-rings, Russia-leather work-boxes, hats, bonnets; in short, every article that can be worn by man, woman or infant; every article of furniture and house furnishing from a full parlour-set to a baby’s swinging cradle; not omitting a $100 metallic coffin.
Penitentiary bills display in abundant quantities fine liquors, wines, delicacies and plain provisions; yet convicts nearly starved; bills for the coloured Orphan Asylum, under coloured General Senator Beverly Nash’s direction, show silks, satins, corsets, kid gloves, all manners of delicacies and substantials for the table, yet it came out that orphans got at “breakfast, hominy, mackerel and bean coffee—no milk. At dinner, a little bacon or beef, cornbread and hominy, sometimes a little baker’s bread; at supper, a slice of baker’s bread and black molasses, each child dipping a slice into a saucer passed around.” The State-paid gardener worked Senator Nash’s garden; coal and wood bought “for the Asylum” was delivered at Senator Nash’s; ditto lumber and other supplies. The matron sold dry goods and groceries. I have mentioned trifles. For big “steals” and “hauls,” Railroads, Bond and Printing Ring swindles, consult the Fraud Reports.
RADICAL MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATURE OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
These are the photographs of sixty-three members of the “reconstructed” Legislature of South Carolina. Fifty of them were Negroes or Mulattos; thirteen were white men. Of the twenty-two among them who could read and write only eight used the vernacular grammatically. Forty-one made their mark with the help of an amanuensis. Nineteen were taxpayers to an aggregate of $146.10. The other forty-four paid no taxes, and yet this body was empowered to levy on the white people of the state taxes amounting to $4,000,000.
The State University was negroised, adult white and black men matriculating for the express purpose; its scholastic standard was reduced below that of an academy. Attempt to negroise the Deaf and Dumb Asylum closed it. At the Insane Asylum the tact and humanity of Dr. J. F. Ensor, Superintendent, made the situation possible to whites.[23]
South Carolinians beheld Franklin J. Moses, Jr., owner of the beautiful and historic Hampton-Preston home; at receptions and fêtes the carriages of a ring-streaked, striped and speckled host rolled up gaily to ancient gateways hitherto bars exclusive to all that was not aristocratic and refined. One-time serving-maids sat around little tables under the venerable trees and luxuriant vines and sipped wine in state. A Columbian tells me she used to receive a condescending bow from her whilom maid driving by in a fine landau. Another maid, driving in state past her ex-mistress’s door, turned her head in shame and confusion. One maid visited her ex-mistress regularly, leaving her carriage a square or two off; was her old, respectful, affectionate self, and said these hours were her happiest. “I’se jes myse’f den.” A citizen, wishing to aid his butler, secured letters of influence for him and sent him among rulers of the land. George returned: “Marster, I have associated with gentlemen all my life. I can’t keep comp’ny with these folks. I’d rather stay with you, I don’ care how poor we are.”
One night when Rev. William Martin’s family were asleep, there came a knocking at the door. Miss Isabella Martin answered. Maum Letty stood outside weeping: “Miss Isabella, Robert’s (her son) been killed. He went to a party at General Nash’s an’ dee all got to fightin’. I come to ax you to let me bring ’im here.” Permission was given. A stream of negroes flowed in and out of the basement rooms where the dead was laid. And it was, “The General says this,” “The General says that.” Presently the General came. “Good morning, Beverly,” said Miss Martin. “Good morning, Miss Isabella;” he had been a butler and had nice manners. “This is a sad business, Beverly.” “Yes, Miss Isabella. It happened at my house, but I am not responsible. There was a party there; all got to fighting—you know how coloured people will do—and this happened.” It is law for the coroner to see a corpse, where death has occurred from violence, before any removal or change is made. The coroner did not see Robert until noon. General Nash had gotten the body out of his house quickly as possible.
Belles of Columbia were Misses Rollins, mulattoes or quadroons. Their drawing-room was called “Republican Headquarters.” Thick carpets covered floors; handsome cabinets held costly bric-a-brac; a $1,000 piano stood in a corner; legislative documents bound in morocco reposed with big albums on expensive tables. Jewelers’ and other shops poured treasures at Misses Rollins’ feet. In their salon, mingling white and dusky statesmen wove the destinies of the old Commonwealth. Coloured courtezans swept into furniture emporiums, silk trains rustling in their wake, and gave orders for “committee rooms”; rode in fine carriages through the streets, stopped in front of this or that store; bareheaded white salesmen ran out to show goods or jewels. Judge M. (who went over to the Radicals for the loaves and fishes and ever afterward despised himself) was in Washington with a Black and Tan Committee, got drunk, and for a joke took a yellow demi-mondaine, a State official’s wife, on his arm and carried her up to President and Mrs. Grant and introduced her at a Presidential reception.