It is no part of my intention in this paper to go generally into the relation of the two races since the emancipation of the Negroes. Certain phases of this relation have been dealt with by me elsewhere. While it is easy to see what mistakes have been made in dealing with the subject, no one can tell with any assurance how a different system might have worked out. All we can say, with absolute certainty, is that hardly any other system could have been more disastrous than the one which was adopted. One fact, I think, cannot be soundly controverted—that the estrangement of the Negro from the white race in the South is the greatest misfortune that has befallen the former in his history, not excepting his ravishment from his native land. VI The old-time Negro has almost quite passed from the earth, as have his old master and his old mistress. A few still remain, like the last leaves on the tree, but in no long time they, too, will have disappeared. But so long as he survives, the old family feeling of affection will remain in the hearts of those who knew him. Every week or two the newspapers contain the mention of the passing from the stage of one or more of those whose place in some old family made them notable in their lives and caused them to be followed to the grave by as sincere mourners among the whites as among the blacks. But how many of them pass without any other notice than the unfeigned mourning of those whom they loved and served so faithfully! No Southerner, whatever his feelings of antagonism may be to the Negro race, ever meets an old Negro man or woman without that feeling rising in his breast which one experiences when he meets some old friend of his youth on whom Time has laid his chastening hand. Nor has the old feeling by any means died out in the breast of the old Negro himself. Only as the whites look on the young blacks with some disapproval, so the old Negro regards the younger generation of whites as inferior to the generation he knew. Not long since a friend in Richmond told me the following story: A friend of his in that city invited him in the shooting season to go down to his father’s place to shoot partridges. The house had been burned down, but old Robin was still living there, and had told him not long before that there were a good many birds on the place. Accordingly, the two gentlemen one morning took their guns and dogs and drove down to the old Ball plantation, where they arrived about sunrise. Old Robin was cutting wood in front of his cabin, and my friend began to shout for him: “Oh, Robin! Oh, Robin!” The old fellow stopped, and coming to the brow of the hill above them, called: “Who dat know me so much bettuh den I know him?” “Come down here!” called his master. When the old fellow discovered who it was he was delighted.