THE NEGRO SINCE THE CIVIL WAR. 



29 



bubbles. This peculiar feature must have been a secondary ac- 

 quisition. The bubbles not only surround the insect and the stem 

 upon which it rests, but flows in a continuous sheet between the 

 ventral plates of the abdomen, and the insect probably utilizes 

 this air in the manner of other air-breathing aquatic larvae — 

 namely, through its spiracles. As many aquatic larvae respire in 

 two ways, either inhaling air through the spiracles or by means 

 of branchial leaflets, so Aphrophora may likewise utilize its bran- 

 chial tufts for the same purpose. For this reason we can under- 

 stand how each fresh bubble added to the mass may aerate the 

 fluid, so to speak, and thus insure at intervals a fresh supply of 

 oxygen. 



THE NEGRO SINCE THE CIVIL WAR. 



By N. S. SHALEE, 



DEAN OF THE SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 



THE admirable conduct of the negro during the civil war made 

 it seem possible to have the readjustment of his relations on 

 the basis of freedom brought about with a minimum of friction. 

 As a whole, the former slaves had stayed on the land where they 

 belonged. Many of those who had wandered, moved by the hom- 

 ing instinct so strong in their race, found their way back to their 

 accustomed places. The bonds of mutual interest and old affec- 

 tions were enough, had the situation been left without outside dis- 

 turbance, to have made the transition natural and easy. It is true 

 that the negro, with his scant wage paid in supplies, would not 

 have advanced very far in the ways of freedom. He would have 

 been hardly better than the middle-age serf bound to his field. It 

 would, however, have been better to begin with a minimum of 

 liberty, with provision for schooling and a franchise based on 

 education. But this was not to be. Political ends and the popu- 

 lar misconception of the negroes as beings who differ from our- 

 selves only in the color of their skin and in the kink of their hair 

 led to their immediate enfranchisement and to the disenfranchise- 

 ment of their masters. This was attended by an invasion into the 

 South of the worst political rabble that has ever cursed the land. 

 There were good and true men among the carpet-baggers, but as a 

 lot they were of a badness such as the world has not known since 

 captured provinces were dealt out to the political gamblers of 

 Rome. 



The effect of the carpet-bag period on the negroes was to raise 

 their expectations of fortune to the highest point, and then to 



