e girls of various ages, who are employed at the spindles, had, for the
most part, a sallow, sickly complexion, and in many of their faces, I
remarked that look of mingled distrust and dejection which often
accompanies the condition of extreme, hopeless poverty. "These poor
girls," said one of our party, "think themselves extremely fortunate to be
employed here, and accept work gladly. They come from the most barren
parts of Carolina and Georgia, where their families live wretchedly, often
upon unwholesome food, and as idly as wretchedly, for hitherto there has
been no manual occupation provided for them from which they do not shrink
as disgraceful, on account of its being the occupation of slaves. In these
factories negroes are not employed as operatives, and this gives the
calling of the factory girl a certain dignity. You would be surprised to
see the change which a short time effects in these poor people. They come
barefooted, dirty, and in rags; they are scoured, put into shoes and
stockings, set at work and sent regularly to the Sunday-schools, where
they are taught what none of them have been taught before--to read and
write. In a short time they became expert at their work; they lose their
sullen shyness, and their physiognomy becomes comparatively open and
cheerful. Their families are relieved from the temptations to theft and
other shameful courses which accompany the condition of poverty without
occupation."

"They have a good deal of the poke-easy manner of the piny woods about
them yet," said one of our party, a Georgian. It was true, I perceived
that they had not yet acquired all that alacrity and quickness in their
work which you see in the work-people of the New England mills. In one of
the upper stories I saw a girl of a clearer complexion than the rest, with
two long curls swinging behind each ear, as she stepped about with the air
of a duchess. "That girl is from the north," said our conductor; "at first
we placed an expert operative from the north in each story of the building
as an instructor and pattern to the rest."

I have since learned that some attempts were made at first to induce the
poor white people to work side by side with the blacks in these mills.
These utterly failed, and the question then became with the proprietors
whether they should employ blacks only or whites only; whether they should
give these poor people an occupation which, while it tended to elevate
their condition, secured