City and Inter-State Migration 143 



y^per cent of white commitments were for non-payment of fines. 

 J This seems rather to indicate that relatively more Negroes are 

 \ to be found serving the short sentences through inability to pay 

 / fines, and yet it was noted that the percentage serving the short 

 /S sentence is much smaller than the percentage of whites. In 

 I J the North only 52.5 per cent of Negroes are serving through 

 / inability to pay fines imposed. This again indicates that a much 



^ larger proportion of Negroes committed in the South are serving 



through inability to pay fines than is the case in the North. 



These figures seem to indicate a definite tendency on the 

 part of Southern courts to impose heavier sentences on 

 the Negro than upon whites, and heavier sentences than 

 those imposed by the Northern courts upon the Negro. 

 The strikingly small number of commitments for less than 

 a month is also indicative of a tendency on the part of 

 Southern judges to condone or merely reprimand certain 

 pecadillos of the Negro which are punished with short 

 imprisonment in the North. 



In some districts the system of employing convicts on 

 the roads of the county in which they are convicted, influ- 

 ences judges in imposing heavy sentences, but in most 

 instances there is an honest belief on the part of the judge 

 that the best way to apply correction to the Negro is to 

 follow somewhat the method applied to children, i. e., either 

 merely to reprimand and warn, or to impose a heavy punish- 

 ment. 



This question of summary disposal of minor offenders 

 is, however, but a part of the story. If adequate figures as 

 to ratio of arrests to convictions could be secured, it would 

 be noted that many officers are overzealous in arresting 

 Ne groes. Th e following quotation from an editorial of a 

 leading Georgia daily during the migration indicates that at 

 least some of the Southern communities are awakening to 

 this consideration: 



V 



"Everybody seems to be asleep about what is going on 

 right under our noses — that is, everybody but those farmers 

 who waked up on mornings recently to find every Negro 



