332 TOBACCO LEAF. 



and prosperity possible. The negro laborer never 

 crosses a stream until he reaches it. He is, therefore, 

 contented and happy, jolly and hilarious oftentimes, 

 when, under precisely similar conditions and circum- 

 stances, the white laborer will worry and give way to 

 irritability, or senseless passion. The colored laborer 

 enjoys more happiness and contentment ; the white 

 laborer more thrift and prosperity. The one is pro- 

 gressive, the other conservative. Great prosperity 

 springs from the exertions of the one ; old customs are 

 perpetuated by the other and scarcely any progress is 

 made by him in the development of accumulated wealth. 

 The negroes occupy a unique, but useful place, in the 

 social structure of the United States. They never 

 indulge in strikes, but they always have profitable em- 

 ployment, and their employers become attached to them 

 and they to their employers. There is less suffering 

 and more contentment among them than among any 

 other laborers in the United States. 



