As a consequence the white people have largely been drawn to the towns and cities: the wealthier own and control the various business interests while the poorer ones contribute their help or labor. Few Negroes work in the factories, for the Negro seems to lack the qualities necessary: namely, punctuality, dependability, and a certain amount of mental alertness. So, in some parts of the South the whites are nearly all living in the towns [63]and cities, while the country districts are filled with Negroes. However, even in such places there are some whites in the country, and as is evident, in additional danger.

[63]

Moreover, the population of several Southern States is nearly half Negro, while in two,—South Carolina and Mississippi,—it is even more than half Negro, being 55+ per cent and 56+ per cent, respectively. Indeed, in 53 counties of the South the Negro population of each exceeds 75 per cent. In Tensas Parish, La., and Isoquena County, Miss., the Negro population is 91.5 per cent and 94.2 per cent, respectively. That is, in every 1,000 persons one meets in Isoquena County, Miss., 942 are Negroes and but 58, white. Such conditions should be readily appreciated. Is it any wonder that the white man thinks it necessary to strike terror into the soul of the possible or incipient Negro criminal by any method that may cause him to stand in fear of an immediate and dreadful death?

Further, the origin of a great part of these Negroes, especially those of the farther South, is, also, worthy of consideration.

During the operation of the internal slave trade, it was usually the most undesirable, unruly, and the criminally inclined Negroes of the border slave States that were sold to the States of the [64]farther South; nor should it be forgotten that between 1808 and 1860 the farther South received around 270,000 Negroes from outside the United States.[64:9] It seems likely that the greater part of these were barbarous Negroes, directly from Africa. It was these criminal and barbarous Negroes, along with their children and grand-children, who by the fortune of war, without home or master, were turned loose on the South.

[64]

Thus it is that the white woman is obliged to be constantly on her guard against the Negro,—otherwise rape cases would be multiplied.[64:10] An idea of the necessity of this and the hardship of it may be had from the following quotation:

“In a population about evenly divided in North Carolina was a family of unpretending 

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