INTERIOR OF A NEGRO WORKINGMAN’S HOME, ATLANTA, GEORGIA
INTERIOR OF A NEGRO HOME OF THE POOREST SORT IN INDIANAPOLIS
“What’s the trouble here?” asked the judge.
“Coke,” said the officer.
“Ten-seventy-five,” said the judge, naming the amount of the fine.
They buy the “coke” in the form of a powder and snuff it up the nose; a certain patent catarrh medicine which is nearly all cocaine is sometimes used; ten cents will purchase enough to make a man wholly irresponsible for his acts, and capable of any crime. The cocaine habit, which seems to be spreading, for there are always druggists who will break the law, has been a curse to the Negro and has resulted, directly, as the police told me, in much crime. I was told of two cases in particular, of offences against women, in which the Negro was a victim of the drug habit.
So society, in pursuit of wealth, South and North, preys upon the ignorant and weak—and then wonders why crime is prevalent!
One has only to visit police courts in the South to see in how many curious ways the contact of the races generates fire.