HEAVY SHIPPING TOBACCO. 329 



through successive generations in the tobacco fields and 

 directed by highly intelligent managers, the negroes in 

 the tobacco-growing districts of Kentucky, Virginia and 

 Tennessee take naturally to the work and seem to 

 prefer it to any other. They are diligent, careful, 

 patient and faithful, and yield a ready and cheerful 

 obedience to their employers. Their physical vigor 

 gives them the strength to endure and perform the 

 severe labor required in transplanting and housing the 

 crop. Many of them become expert curers, assorters 

 and packers of tobacco. They are peculiarly fitted to 

 withstand the climate of the Southern states. They are 

 scarcely affected in health by the malarial districts. 

 The burning heat of a summer's sun only awakens in 

 them a higher sense of enjoyment. They are children 

 of the sun, and are as much distressed by extreme cold 

 as the Northern laborers are by extreme heat. 



They are not only preferred by the planters, but the 

 warehousemen find them most desirable in the work of 

 stripping the casks from the tobacco, and preparing it 

 for sale. Their cheerful faces are seen and their merry 

 laughter is heard in every warehouse of the South, 

 where they are employed in rolling the heavy casks in and 

 out, applying the break lever for the inspectors, reprizing 

 the loose tobacco in the cask and doing all other heavy 

 manual work. They are always good humored, good 

 natured, obliging and respectful to white people, though 

 fond of guying each other in a friendly spirit. 



The negro rarely seeks a higher aim in life than a 

 modest living. His earnings are -spent with a lavish 

 hand, and however large his wages he rarely makes any 

 provision for old age. He lives for the present, 

 happy, thoughtless, contented. His emotional nature 

 is extreme and hence he enjoys above all things the 

 excitement of a "big meeting," a dance, or a horse race. 

 Social by nature, he will spend every moment of leisure 



