Cooper's Clarksburg Register

G. P. R. James on Southern Slavery.

G. P. R. James, the well known and popular English Novelist, who has been a resident of Virginia for several years past, contributes to the Knickerbocker Magazine, a very interesting article on "Life in Virginia" and as the views expressed are so entirely at variance with those of all former British writers on the subject, we give a brief extract on "the Negro Life of Virginia," which, says Mr. James, differs very little, I believe, from the negro life all through the South. In return for food, clothing, house room, medical attendance, and support in old age, about one third of the labor which is required of the white man in most countries is demanded of the black. He performs it badly, and would not perform it at all if he were not compelled.

The rest of the time is spent in singing, dancing, chattering, and bringing up pigs and chickens. That negroes are the worst servants in the world, every man, I believe, but a thorough-bred Southern man will admit; but the Southerner has been reared amongst them from his childhood, and in general has a tenderness and affection for them of which Northern men can have no conception. Great care is taken by the law to guard them against oppression and wrong: and after six years residence in the State, I can safely say, I never saw more than one instance of cruelty toward a negro, and that was perpetrated by a foreigner. That there may still be evils in the system which might be removed by law, and that there may be individual instances of oppression and even bad treatment, I do not deny, but those instances are not so frequent as those of cruelty to wife or child in Northern lands, as displayed every day by the newspapers; and in point of general happiness, it would not be amiss to alter an old adage and say: "As merry as a negro slave."

I must not pursue this branch of the subject further, for I can pretend to no great love or Dr. Livingstone's friends the Makololos. There are, beyond all doubt, some very excellent people among them; but, as a race, the more I see of them the less do I think them capable of civilization or even fitted to take care of themselves.