Emigration Of Colored People.
We have seen a large map of a Southern railroad, on one side of which were some highly-colored pictures. The first showed the tumble-down cabin of a colored man, himself, wife and boy carrying from it their few belongings to the favored land of promise. The next picture shows him and his family in the woods in his new location, getting ready to build his house. The third picture represents a fine log house, with green fields well fenced, a mule and pigs and chickens in the yard; and the last picture presents a large frame house with a veranda, in which the colored man is seated in a large arm-chair, reading a magazine, and his wife sitting by his side in a rocking chair, while near at hand is the capacious barn, with mules grazing in the adjacent lot.
By the side of each picture is a running comment, supposed to be made by the colored man himself, describing his hard lot 'where he first lived, [a] then telling of his purchase in the new land of promise, stating the price and the terms of purchase; then follows his happy rejoicing over his new location, and finally his triumphant joy in his wealth and fine mansion.
It is by such representations, we are told, that the colored people in various parts of the South are tempted to leave their homes for new locations. The experience of those of their number who have made such migrations has not usually been encouraging, and we fear that thousands more will acquire a good deal of bitter knowledge learned in that same expensive school.
A Comparison.
The French and the Negro.
A writer in the March number of The Forum has drawn a vivid picture of France in its poverty, misery and tyranny in 1789, and contrasted with this the thrift, the improved land culture, and the better clothing, food, home and intelligence of the French peasantry of 1889. The Revolution of 1789 broke the tyranny of the old crushing regime and opened the way for the new world that brightens and gladdens the France of to-day. But the Revolution did not itself make the great change; it simply made it possible.
Two factors developed in French character were the practical forces in the new prosperity—economy and the desire for ownership of lands and homes. That economy was pushed, in many cases, almost to the extreme of miserly hoarding. We give below a few brief extracts illustrating the point in question: