There are statics available for an article of this description. One has to depend on personal observation and the opinion of others who are in a position to have experience along these lines.

In referring to the condition of the negro of the old regime in the South prior to 1865 and in Central Cuba prior to 1877, these observations will include only the conditions existing on the constituted the vast majority of the race.

I was born on a plantation in Louisiana, lived on one in Cuba from 1866 to 1877, and have practiced medicine in middle Georgia since 1883, so have had unusual opportunities of observing the negro race under various conditions.

Prior to 1860, a vast majority of the negroes in the southern states, and prior to 1877 in Cuba, lived on plantations. These plantations were to all intents and purposes isolated communities of from one hundred to five hundred inhabitants. The negro quarters invariably placed in the healthiest available spot; the houses usually consisted of two rooms, and were never overcrowded; each room had its open fireplace, and fuel was abundant--thus the best ventilation was secured all the year around. There was ample air-space between the houses and the quarters always had an abundance of shade trees. On account of the climate, most of the idle time was spent out doors. Absolute cleanliness was enforced in and around the quarters. Each house, whether wood or brick, had its coat of whitewash inside and out three or four times a year, and oftener if any disease threatened. Communication between plantations was not encouraged and when any disease became prevalent, absolutely prohibited. The water supply was always a source of solicitude, and the best obtainable secure. All innocent amusements, so dear to the heart of the African, were not only permitted, but encouraged. Dissipation of all types was prohibited, and under existing conditions, this prohibition could be easily enforced. There was no mental solicitude, no competition in the ordinary sense and no care for the future. Work was never excessive, always in the best hygienic surroundings and of the healthiest type, also in proportion to the age, strength and sex of the individual. Food was cooked in the plantation kitchen, abundant, nutritious and well prepared. Clothing was always sufficient and in accordance with the season. As soon as a woman was over her lying-in period the infant was transferred to the nursery, where it was only nursed at regular intervals, and fed according to its age. Each negro reported in the morning, sick or well; if sick, he went to the infirmary. The doctor visited each plantation once or twice a week, and was called in any emergency. Thus each negro who was not physically perfect was under constant medical supervision.

In Cuba the arrangement of the quarters was different, they being on the type of the old Spanish barracoon. A barracoon was built with a line of rooms on one side, with windows 00026opening in the rear and a door opening into the general inclosure. This inclosure was twice or three times the depth of the rooms, roofed over with tiles and fenced in with iron bars on the three sides not occupied by the rooms, with one large central door, giving the negroes this inclosure as a loafing place, for under the Spanish law all slaves had to be locked up at night. All other surroundings were practically the same as in the South. On all plantations, early to bed and early to rise was the rule, with a long midday rest and meals by the clock.

I can state, without fear of contradiction, that no race of human beings ever lived as healthy a life as the plantation negro in the South and in Cuba.

In Louisiana, practically all of the negroes were Creoles (native born) and lived the regular family life until Marriageable. Marriages were always made an event on the plantation, the bride was decked out in all the finery that could be secured. She was usually given away by the owner and married by the white preacher of the owner's family, all the whites on the place attending the ceremony and staying until the beginning of the wedding supper. Negroes had their classes, and as a rule married within their class. There was as wide as gulf between the maid of the mistress and the common corn field negro as there is between the factory girl and the leader of the four hundred.

If a negro became enamored of the girl of another owner, an effort was always made to have them both come under one ownership, and this was usually successful. After marriage there was no such thing as divorce. All the power vested in the owner was exercised in making the married life as perfect as possible and summarily correcting any lapse from virtue, consequently venereal disease were unusual and the increase of the race was continuous.

In Cuba other conditions existed. A large percentage of the negroes were African, and kept up their tribal rights to a great extent. There were as a rule no regular marriages. When they arrived at an age where their sexual passions began to be an element of danger in the main barracoon, the unattached man and woman were put in separate barracoons. When any of these desired to live together, they went to the highest authority on the plantation and expressed their desires. Then they were given a room in the main barracoon. Any lapse of virtue in the main barracoon was for many obvious reasons most summarily dealt with. If the couple found out that they could not agree, all they had to do was to state the fact, and they were returned to the smaller barracoon and allowed to mate again at their pleasure. At the same time, these marriages were on an average more permanent than the marriages of the present generation of negroes. With this existing constant supervision, no negro could be afflicted with venereal diseases for any length of time without discovery. As soon as the case was discovered, it went to the hospital, and a demand was made for the source of infection, and for the name of everyone with whom intercourse had taken place since infection. These names were always given, for they knew that if withheld, it was only a matter of time until they would found out. Each of these were examined, and if found infected, put through the same course. The owners of adjoining plantations where there had been exposures were notified by messengers, and, in the course of a few hours, all affected or suspicious cases were in quarantine, and what would have been a serious 00037epidemic was stopped in its incipiency. Even these cases were rare.

There were no nomadic negroes and no chance for illicit intercourse except on the adjoining plantations. In Cuba, also, the race multiplied. There was a law freeing a slave from duties for forty days after confinement.

On the plantation in Louisiana, there was no lock between any negro and my mother's bedroom. My father was often absent. During the war, there were thousands of white women on isolated plantations alone under the care of the slaves for months, and even years. Many women made trips through the country day and night alone in charge of negro drivers. If this trust was ever betrayed, I have never heard of it. It is not worth while to discuss the reasons for the sexual status of the slave in the South and in Cuba. The results were the same to the negro.

Freedom came. The entire proposition is reversed. They flock to the cities with about as much capacity for self-care as children; hard work, inadequate clothing, poor food, poor houses, overcrowding in insalubrious localities, no attention to the most elementary laws of hygiene, all the mental cares and solicitude that freedom brings. Scant wages, spent in the lowest and most degrading vices, at the sacrifice of absolute necessities, irregular hours, with practically no medical attention, or care in sickness. They have added to their freedom an almost universal infection from venereal disease and tubercolosis. This condition originally started in the cities, but is rapidly spreading through the country.

They are naturally nomads, and are on the go all the time. Once infected, they become a constant menace to their race. In the years that I have practiced, where the population was 50 percent, negro, I have yet to see one who would continue treatment for any venereal, disease, either as a private patient in an out-door clinic, or a hospital, any longer than there was extreme discomfort to himself. Not less than 50 per cent of the cases of emergency coming into the hands of the surgeon are suffering from active and infectious venereal lesions at the time. The towns are infested with professional prostitutes, and clandestine prostitution is the rule. They still marry, and for long time filled the courts with divorce suits-latterly this formality is being dispensed with, as it is not necessary and expensive. They simply move and take up another woman by marriage or otherwise. It is a standard joke among those of us who are familiar with railroad damage suits, that it costs nothing to kill a negro, because he always has so many wives that no one can prove her claim.

A retired physician who operates a large lumber industry in the country, and who prides himself on giving high wages and securing the best of hands, informs me that of his 100 to 125 hands, 25 per cent are syphilitic, in the active stages, and he does not try to calculate the percentage of gonorrhoeaics. On his place there have been six babies born in five years.

Another gentleman, who operates a plantation of 11,000 acres, informs me that practically no babies are raised there.

In fact the condition of the race is pitiable to us of the old South who can appreciate what the negro has been. His rapid degeneration, physically, mentally and morally, and his reversion to barbaric tendencies, with all the added vices of civilization, is appalling. From the most healthy race in the country, forty years ago, he is today the most diseased. There is no comparison in his moral status. He has been educated to a certain extent 00048along lines that have not benefited him as a race, for when it comes to an education that would make him of value to himself, or anyone else, he will not take it.

You will find the houses of prostitution full of colored ladies who can read, write, play the piano, and possibly have a rudimentary knowledge of Latin and Greek, because they are unfitted by their education for airthing else. You will find our jails and chain-gangs full of colored gentlemen, with the same amount and type of education, because they think a man of education should not work, and they try to make a living by petty forgeries and confidence games on the less highly educated of their race; but when it comes to the question of a first-class workman like carpenter, mason, engineer, cooper, blacksmith, cook, seam-stress, valet, ladies' maid or washerwoman, on whom dependence can be placed, one could be found on any ordinary sized plantation under the old regime easier than one can be found today in an ordinary negro population of ten thousand, if we will except the old slaves.