lunder for the negroes when the rations furnished them
were scanty. I believe that in nine cases out of ten the petty thefts
which the negroes committed were designed to supply personal wants,
rather than for any other purpose. What the negro stole was usually an
article of food, and it was nearly always stolen from the plantation
where he belonged.

Sometimes there was a specially bad negro--one who had been caught in
some extraordinary dishonesty. One in my employ was reported to
have been shot at while stealing from a dwelling-house several years
before. Among two hundred negroes, he was the only noted rascal. I
did not attribute his dishonesty to his complexion alone. I have known
worse men than he, in whose veins there was not a drop of African
blood. The police records everywhere show that wickedness of heart
"dwells in white and black the same."

With his disadvantages of position, the absence of all moral training,
and the dishonesty which was the natural result of the old system
of labor, the negro could not be expected to observe all the rules
prescribed for his guidance, but which were never explained. Like
ignorant and degraded people everywhere, many of the negroes believed
that guilt lay mainly in detection. There was little wickedness in
stealing a pig or a chicken, if the theft were never discovered, and
there was no occasion for allowing twinges of conscience to disturb
the digestion.

I do not intend to intimate, by the above, that all were dishonest,
even in these small peculations. There were many whose sense of right
and wrong was very clear, and whose knowledge of their duties had been
derived from the instructions of the white preachers. These negroes
"obeyed their masters" in every thing, and considered it a religious
obligation to be always faithful. They never avoided their tasks, in
the field or elsewhere, and were never discovered doing any wrong.
Under the new system of labor at the South, this portion of the negro
population will prove of great advantage in teaching their kindred the
duties they owe to each other. When all are trained to think and
act for themselves, the negroes will, doubtless, prove as correct in
morals as the white people around them.

Early in the present year, the authorities at Davies' Bend, below
Vicksburg, established a negro court, in which all petty cases were
tried. The judge, jury, counsel, and officers were negroes, and no
white man was allowed to interfer