"They don't sing as they used to," she said. "You should have known the old darkeys of the plantation. Every year, it seems to me, they have been losing more and more of their care-free good humour. I sometimes feel that I don't know them any more. Since the riot they have grown so glum and serious that I'm free to say I'm scared of them!" One of my early errands that morning led me into several of the great new office buildings, which bear testimony to the extraordinary progress of the city. And here I found one of the first evidences of the colour line for which I was looking. In both buildings, I found a separate elevator for coloured people. In one building, signs were placed reading: FOR WHITES ONLY In another I copied this sign: THIS CAR FOR COLOURED PASSENGERS, FREIGHT, EXPRESS AND PACKAGES Curiously enough, as giving an interesting point of view, an intelligent Negro with whom I was talking a few days later asked me: "Have you seen the elevator sign in the Century Building?" I said I had. "How would you like to be classed with 'freight, express and packages'?" I found that no Negro ever went into an elevator devoted to white people, but that white people often rode in cars set apart for coloured people. In some cases the car for Negroes is operated by a white man, and in other cases, all the elevators in a building are operated by coloured men. This is one of the curious points of industrial contact in the South which somewhat surprise the Northern visitor. In the North a white workman will often refuse to work with a Negro; in the South, while the social prejudice is strong, Negroes and whites work together side by side in many kinds of employment. I had an illustration in point not long afterward. Passing the post office, I saw several mail-carriers coming out, some white, some black, talking and laughing, with no evidence, at first, of the existence of any colour line. Interested to see what the real condition was, I went in and made inquiries. A most interesting and significant condition developed. I found that the postmaster, who is a wise man, sent Negro carriers up Peachtree and other fashionable streets, occupied by wealthy white people, while white carriers were assigned to beats in the mill districts and other parts of town inhabited by the poorer classes of white people. "You see," said my informant, "the Peachtree people know how to treat Negroes. They really prefer a Negro carrier to a white one; it's natural for them to have a Negro doing such service. But if we sent Negro carriers down into the mill district they might get their heads knocked off." Then he made a philosophical observation: "If we had only the best class of white folks down here and the industrious Negroes, there wouldn't be any trouble." _The Jim Crow Car_