pon our future social system, thus giving the public the full benefit
of the experiment. The fact is just this. Negro labor has got to be
employed, if at all, because it is _profitable_, and it has got to
come into the market like everything else, subject to the supply and
demand which may arise from all kinds of enterprises in which it
chances to be employed. It is not likely that it can be protected on a
large scale by the amount of disinterested philanthropy which happens
to be present on the Sea Islands, but if it can be open to private
enterprise, by an occupation of lands free from unnecessary
restrictions and under a proper sense of the security of property, it
can afford to _lose_ some of the Methodism now bestowed upon it at
Beaufort. We want first to prove that it is profitable, and then it
will take care of itself.

E. S. P. TO W. C. G.

_Sept. 24._ Limus' seine was shipped in the schooner. I have not yet
ordered any for 'Siah, for I thought it would be too late for him to
use it this year, and he had better wait and see if Limus' seine was
all right. Moreover, entre nous, I don't believe it will do him any
good to spend his time a-fishing. It has a sort of excitement, like
gold-digging, which unfits a man for steady, plodding industry,
witness Limus. Now the present demand for fish will not be permanent.
After the war the negroes will have to fall back upon field-labor for
a living, and it will be better for them if in the meanwhile they do
not acquire a distaste for steady labor and get vagrant habits. I
would talk this over with 'Siah and ask him in serious mood if he
really thinks best to spend so much money in fishing-gear, when he
could buy land with it by and bye.

Here begins again the rambling narrative of plantation
happenings.

FROM H. W.

_Sept. 26._ C. was very busy paying for cotton, and we found him on
the piazza, sitting at a little table with the drawer full of money
and the gang of women standing and sitting about at the foot of the
steps, while he called them up one at a time. He paid old Nancy first,
asking her how much she thought it was. "Me dunno, Massa, you knows."
As much as ten dollars? "Oh yes! Massa, I tink you gib me more nor
dat." Fifteen, perhaps? Five for you, Doll, and Peg, each? "Yes,
Massa, I tink so." And it was pleasant to see the corners of her mouth
go as he counted out $48--which she took in perfect quietness and with
a sober face, a curtsey and "Tank