The Negro Laborer: A Word to HimCouncill, W. H. (William Hooper)
History
The Negro Laborer: A Word to Him
Councill, W. H. (William Hooper)
African Americans -- Employment; Work ethic
The Negro is here to stay. He is a citizen according to forms of law.
He must be, and can be, according to the light of the nineteenth
century civilization. Let the past be as oblivious as the contents of
an ante-deluvian reliquary. Turn the eye and the effort to the living
present, and the rising sun of the future, which shall make his course
across the skies of the nations, to the adjustment of all difficulties
and the guidance of mankind up the broad plains of highest christian
development, and THE NEGRO SHALL BE THRIFTY, INTELLIGENT, HONEST AND
FAITHFUL IN ALL THINGS.
[Illustration: Decoration]
USEFUL INFORMATION.
Negro Vital Statistics.
It is a fact that the death rate among the colored people of the United
States is greater since than before the war, and that it is far in
excess of the white race, often doubling it.
Consumption and pneumonia are the diseases which are mowing down
the ranks of our colored population. "In Charleston, S. C., the
number of deaths from consumption for 1882-5 were 830 colored to 234
white; Memphis, Tenn., 471 colored to 323 white; Savannah, Ga., 391
colored to 212 white; Nashville, Tenn., 330 colored to 232 white. The
mortality from pneumonia for the same period stands: Charleston, S.
C., 219 colored to 85 white; Memphis, Tenn., 262 colored to 159 white;
Savannah, Ga., 166 colored to 60 white; Nashville, Tenn., 155 colored
to 100 white. The difference is also excessive in heart diseases,
dropsy, scrofula, venereal diseases, and, when prevalent, from
small-pox."
"In Savannah, Ga., in 1885, 7 whites and 114 blacks died without having
a physician in attendance; in 1883, 6 whites and 145 blacks. Moreover,
the fact should not be ignored that numbers of negroes are also the
victims of empiricism and experiment. Some poor negroes are undoubtedly
sacrificed for the benefit of science." This is the case all over the
country.
Scrofula is said to be more fatal to mulattoes than to Negroes, and
more deadly to both than to whites. It is seven times greater among
colored than whites.
I believe, also, that the prevalence of scrofula among the Negroes is
promoted by the immense quantities of meat consumed by them, to the
exclusion of a sufficient quantity of vegetable food. I am led to this
conclusion for two reasons: firstly, so far as I have been able to
ascertain, scrofula is rarely found among the native Africans, whose
diet is purely vegetable; seldom do they eat meat. Again, from a recent
medical journal, I learn that the Esquimaux, whose diet is exclusively
meat, usually die between the ages of 30 and 45, and among them
scrofula is exceedingly prevalent.--_Conrad._
The number of still births is greater among colored than whites. This
is due to many causes. Among them exposure of the mother, poor living,
and lack of attention during the period of gestation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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