3 8 POP ULAR S CIENCE MONTHL Y. 



shouting. Fearing the boy might be struck from behind, I moved 

 near to him, intending to caution him not to fire too soon, for I 

 was sure that his opponent would quickly break down. The young- 

 ster needed no advice of mine. In a steady, low voice he called, 

 "Put up your knife — one!" With that the throng became sud- 

 denly still. " Put up your knife — two ! " whereupon the ugly fel- 

 low slowly hid his knife and sank into a seat with bowed head, 

 while the newsboy went on crying his wares, as if nothing unusual 

 had happened. 



Thinking that the negro might have had some grudge in mind, 

 I asked the newsboy for the facts. He assured me that he had 

 never seen the fellow before, and had no reason to expect the 

 attack. He agreed with me that none of the people were drunk, 

 and accounted for their conduct much as I was disposed to do — 

 that " coons would get wild when there was a racket going on." 

 It was interesting to note that the brakemen, who, with their pis- 

 tols ready, came from either end of the car, took the affair as quietly 

 as did the newsboy, making no kind of comment on it. I stayed 

 on for an hour or so in the car. While I was there the negroes 

 were perfectly quiet, it being evident that although the offender 

 was not arrested and no blow had been struck, not even a brutal 

 word used, a profound impression had been made on those half- 

 savage people, as in another way on me. We both felt what means 

 the strong hand of a masterful race — the stronger when it with- 

 holds from smiting. I had seen a good example of one of the 

 ways by which the wild men of Africa have been shaped to the 

 habits of their masters. Such a scene as I have sketched is hap- 

 pily possible in only a limited part of the South — that in which 

 there is a great body of negroes who have not yet been to any 

 extent influenced by civilizing contact with the whites. 



There is a common assertion that the male negroes are sexually 

 dangerous animals. The lynchings for assaults on white women 

 appear at first sight to give some color to this view. It is, how- 

 ever, evidently a difficult matter on which to form an opinion. 

 It may be fairly said that these instances of violence occur in by 

 far the larger proportion in the States where the blacks are least 

 domesticated, where they have been in the smallest measure re- 

 moved from their primitive savagery. If we could eliminate this 

 uncivilized material, mostly that which took shape, or rather kept 

 its primitive shape, on the great plantation, the iniquity would be 

 as rare everywhere as it is in Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, North 

 Carolina, and Tennessee. When we recall the fact that there are 

 now some five million negro men in the South, and that probably 

 not one in ten thousand is guilty of the crime, we see how imper- 



