ing first been made under written
contract to the negro, the breaking of such contract or the omission
to repay such advances, is declared to be in the nature of fraud; the
entering into such contract with intention to break it is declared to
be a misdemeanor, etc., etc. The negro refusing to carry out his labor
contract is then cited before the nearest magistrate, who imposes
under the statute a nominal fine. The negro, being of course unable to
pay this fine, is remanded to the custody of his bondsmen, who pay it
for him, one of them of course being the master. The negro leaves the
court in custody of his employer and carries away the impression with
him that he has escaped jail only by being committed by the court to
his employer to do his employer's work, an impression possibly not too
remote from the fact. It is easy to see how to the African mind the
magistrate may appear like an Oriental cadi, and how he may be led to
carry out his work as submissively as would the Oriental under similar
circumstances.

[Footnote 1: Jaremillo _v._ Parsons, 1 N.M. 190; _in re_ Lewis, 114
Fed. 963; Peonage cases, 123 Fed. 671; United States _v._ McClellan,
127 Fed. 971; United States _v._ Eberhard, 127 Fed. 971; Peonage
cases, 136 Fed. 707; charge to jury, 138 Fed. 686; Robertson _v._
Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275; Clyatt _v._ United States, 197 U.S. 207; Vance
_v._ State, 57 S.E. 889, Bailey _v._ Alabama, 211 U.S. 452; Torrey
_v._ Alabama, 37 So. 332.]

There can be no question, except in the minds of those utterly
unfamiliar with the tropics and Southern conditions generally, of the
difficulty of this labor problem throughout the world. It has appeared
not only in our Southern States but in the West Indies and South
Africa--in any country where colored labor is employed. The writer
knows of at least one large plantation in the South where many hundred
negroes were employed to get in the cotton crops, and the employer
was careful never to deliver their letters until the season had
terminated; for on the merest invitation to attend a ball or a wedding
in some neighboring county, the bulk of the help would leave for
that purpose and might or might not return. Railway labor is not
so difficult, because the workmen commonly work in gangs under an
overseer who usually assumes, if he is not vested with, some physical
authority; but the case of the individual farmer who is trusted upon
his own exertions to till a field or get in the crop seems