voices in exhortation or denunciation. As travellers
from a distant past, it is interesting to observe them sitting with bent
backs and hands resting on their sticks in the door-ways of their cabins
on bright days in summer, or by the warm firesides in winter, while
members of younger generations talk around them or play about their
knees.

The negro laborers marry in early life, and the size of their families
is often remarkable, the ratio of increase being, perhaps, greater with
them than with the families of the white laborers on the same
plantation, and the mortality among their children as small, for the
latter have an abundance of wholesome food, are well sheltered from cold
and dampness, and have good medical attendance. As soon as they are able
to walk so far, they are sent to the public school, which is situated on
the borders of the plantation, where they have a teacher of their own
race to instruct them, and they continue to attend until they are old
enough to work in the fields and stables. They are then employed there
at fair wages, which, until they come of age or marry, are appropriated
by their parents; and in consequence of this many of the young men seek
positions on the railroads or in the towns before they reach their
majority, in order that they may secure and enjoy the compensation of
their own labor. In a few years, however, the greater number wander back
and offer themselves as hands, are engaged, and establish homes of their
own.

Tobacco being a staple that requires work of some kind throughout the
whole of the year, a large force of laborers are hired for that length
of time. It is not like wheat, in the cultivation and manipulation of
which more energy is put forth at one season than at another, as, for
instance, when it is harvested or threshed. A certain number of laborers
are engaged on the plantation on the 1st of January, who contract to
remain at definite wages during the following twelve months. Whoever
leaves without consent violates a distinct agreement, under which he is
liable in the courts, if it were worth the time and expense to subject
him to the law. He is paid every month by an order on a firm of
merchants who rent a store that belongs to the owner of the plantation
and is situated on one of its divisions; and this order he can convert
into money, merchandise, or groceries, as he chooses, or he gives it up
in settlement of debts which he has previously made there in
anticip