BARBARISM IN THE SOUTHERN STATES.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13737, 19 May 1910, Page 6

BARBARISM IN THE SOUTHERN STATES.

It would be hard to find in the history of racial hatred in the Southern States of America a more horrible case of cruelty than is reported in our cable messages this morning. A number of negro convicts, leased out to a private, company, wero confined in a stockade under armed guards. One of them, hoping to escape, set fire to tho place,, and tho guards actually shot the wretched men as they tried to avoid being burned alive. The story of these negroes huddling together from the flames, and finally making a dash out, only £o be driven back by the rifles of their guards, seems too dreadful to come from a civilised country. But whero tho American negro is concerned, civilisation has often to bow her head in shame. The antagonism between the white man and thc. black too frequently blinds the former to even elementary ideas of humanity. Apparently the infamous convict-leasing system is still in full force in parts of the South, m spite of the outcry against it and tbe decision to abolish it in one of the States. Some- of the stories told

of tho treatment of prisoners under this system are almost incredible. White men as well as negroes are sent to these "chain gangs," but it is the negro who bears most of the burden of the iniquity. Mr William Archer, an Englishman who recently investigated the negro problem in tlie South, declares that the negro malefactor is iegarded as a profitable serf. "1 find it "alleged that in the year 1004 the " State of Georgia made a clear profit " of £-5,000 out of 'chain gang' labour "leased to private contractors. There " is perhaps some mistake about this, " since the average profit of tho pre*'vious three years had been only "£16,000 per annum. But even that " sum is surely £16,000 teo much." That the State should make a profit out of convict labour in this way is utterly opposed to all humanitarian principles, and that the system, with all its horrible possibilities, should continue to flourish under the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, shows to what extent hate and fear have unbalanced the humane instincts of the white man in the South.