1 68 Musings by Camp-Fh'e and Wayside 



This same quality is laid down at the mills for one 

 dollar and fifty cents per ton. Abundance of cheap 

 food, wood, iron, stone, water-power, a docile 

 labor, give unapproachable advantages. The chief 

 expense of old-time production, labor, is practically 

 canceled. An acre of automatic looms, every one 

 running with incredible celerity, gives a powerful 

 impression of the suppression of operative skill and 

 muscle. The docile negro is here, and he has the 

 Oriental aptitude for manipulation in a given line. 

 The South will get all there is in cotton, from start 

 to finish, and she does not intend to be shut out 

 of the market. If the "door" is closed it will only 

 be necessary to let the contract for opening it to 

 the Southern state that will take the job at the 

 lowest bid. It was comical to see these fiery fel- 

 lows playing Quaker last summer. 



In the "good old slavery times" — and there 

 were good times for both the slaves and masters in 

 old Kentucky and Virginia, not so good in the cot- 

 ton and rice fields — when a master cared nothing 

 for his slaves but for what he could get out of them, 

 he would employ either a Yankee or a "nigger" 

 overseer. They were about on a par, but the 

 Yankee generally was the worst. We may say, 

 with limitations, that the Yankee and negro over- 

 seers abolished slavery. 



A gentleman — I forget names in a minute, and I 

 did not have his card — invited me to visit his cot- 

 ton-mill. I took the invitation as good for the first 



