In many ways this unhappy state of things is a survival of frontier practices which once were common in the Northwest as well as in the South, but which have nearly disappeared there as civilization has advanced; but in the South there is a special element of lawlessness through the Negroes. One of the few advantages of slavery was that every slaveholder was police officer and judge and jury on his own plantation; petty offenses were punished by the overseer without further ceremony, serious crimes were easily dealt with, and the escape of the criminal was nearly impossible. Freedom, with its opportunity of moving about, with its greatly enlarged area of disputes among the blacks, and between Whites and Negroes, has combined with the influence of the press in popularizing crime, and perhaps with an innate African savagery, to make the black criminal a terrible scourge in the South. To begin with the less serious offenses, there is no doubt that the Negro has a very imperfect realization of property rights, partly because of the training of slavery. The vague feeling that whatever belonged to the plantation was for the enjoyment of those who lived on the plantation is deliciously expressed by Paul Dunbar: Folks ain't got no right to censuah othah folks about dey habits; Him dat giv' de squir'ls de bushtails made de bobtails fu' de rabbits. Him dat built de gread big mountains hollered out de little valleys, Him dat made de streets an' driveways wasn't 'shamed to make de alleys. We is all constructed diff'ent, d' ain't no two of us de same; We cain't he'p ouah likes an' dislikes, ef we'se bad we ain't to blame. If we'se good, we needn't show off, 'case you bet it ain't ouah doin' We gits into su'ttain channels dat we jes' cain't he'p pu'suin'. But we all fits into places dat no othah ones could fill, An' we does the things we has to, big er little, good er ill. John cain't tek de place o' Henry, Su an' Sally ain't alike; Bass ain't nuthin' like a suckah, chub ain't nuthin' like a pike. When you come to think about it, how it's all planned out, it's splendid. Nuthin's done er evah happens, 'dout hit's somefin' dat's intended; Don't keer whut you does, you has to, an' hit sholy beats de dickens,-- Viney, go put on de kittle, I got one o' mastah's chickens.