Negro hiring.
--The prices asked for negroes in this city this year are too high in all conscience, and the tenacity with which owners adhere to their demands will inevitably result in great pecuniary disadvantage to them.
While many persons are sadly in need of servants, and would willingly pay liberal prices for them, yet there is a settled determination to suffer any inconvenience rather than yield to the unjust exactions of the negro extortioners.
What is the consequence of the high price in this branch of business?
Why, you will find our streets in the day time crowded with these creatures, greatly to the annoyance of citizens who have business out of doors, and at night, in the neighborhood, of the hiring agents' rendezvous, they are huddled up like pigs in a pen, participating in all kinds of dissolute and demoralizing practices, while in other portions of the city they are skulking about in private alleys and plundering the premises of those who are in bed and asleep, unconscious of the depredations which are being made upon them.
Would it not be better for those who have the hiring out of negroes to take reasonable prices for them, and thus at once secure good homes and kind treatment, than keep them in the market till half the year has elapsed and eventually be compelled to dispose of them upon any terms!
Taking into consideration the present high prices for clothing and provisions, there is not one negro in fifty whose services are worth more than what they can eat and wear, and we hope all who can possibly get along without their help will refuse to yield to the unreasonable demands at which they are now held.
