ow things
looked." That the scruples of proprietors occasionally prevented the
placing of slaves is indicated by a letter of a Georgia woman anent her
girl Betty and a free negro woman, Matilda: "I cannot agree for Betty to
be hired to Matilda--her character is too bad. I know her of old; she is a
drunkard, and is said to be bad in every respect. I would object her being
hired to any colored person no matter what their character was; and if she
cannot get into a respectable family I had rather she came home, and if she
can't work out put her to spinning and weaving. Her relations here beg she
may not be permitted to go to Matilda. She would not be worth a cent at the
end of the year."[24]

The cooerdination of demand and supply was facilitated in some towns by
brokers. Thus J. de Bellievre of Baton Rouge maintained throughout 1826 a
notice in the local _Weekly Messenger_ of "Servants to hire by the day or
month," including both artizans and domestics; and in the Nashville city
directory of 1860 Van B. Holman advertised his business as an agent for the
hiring of negroes as well as for the sale and rental of real estate.

[Footnote 23: _Ibid_.]

[Footnote 24: Letter of Mrs. S.R. Cobb, Cowpens, Ga., Jan. 9 1843, to
her daughter-in-law at Athens. MS. in the possession of Mrs. A.S. Erwin,
Athens, Ga.]

Slave wages, generally quoted for the year and most frequently for
unskilled able-bodied hands, ranged materially higher, of course, in the
cotton belt than in the upper South. Women usually brought about half
the wages of men, though they were sometimes let merely for the keep of
themselves and their children. In middle Georgia the wages of prime men
ranged about $100 in the first decade of the nineteenth century, dropped to
$60 or $75 during the war of 1812, and then rose to near $150 by 1818. The
panic of the next year sent them down again; and in the 'twenties they
commonly ranged between $100 and $125. Flush times then raised them in
such wise that the contractors digging a canal on the Georgia coast found
themselves obliged in 1838 to offer $18 per month together with the
customary weekly rations of three and a half pounds of bacon and ten quarts
of corn and also the services of a staff physician as a sort of substitute
for life and health insurance.[25] The beginning of the distressful
'forties eased the market so that the town of Milledgeville could get its
street gang on a scale of $125;[26] at the middle of the de