_Boston, March 24._ I hope no cases of merchandise will be opened
without carefully comparing contents with the invoices, and if any
errors are found they should be reported immediately. I am sorry to
see that a considerable deficit was found in some of the stores, which
I can only account for on the supposition of theft. I think sufficient
care has not been taken to guard against theft from carts on road. The
value of the property lost is not a matter of so much consequence as
the demoralization to the thief and to others who are encouraged to
similar practices by his example. I don't think the negroes one bit
worse in this respect than the laboring classes of other countries,
and not nearly so bad as the lower classes in all large cities. But we
ought to be very careful how we expose them to temptations which they
are not strong enough to resist, till such time as they acquire more
self-respect than they are likely to in this generation.
I shall not be able to make any dividend to the shareholders this
year. After paying my advances and settling with superintendents,
there will not be any surplus over the needs of the current year.
Mr. F. J. W. has been quite talkative and rides his hobby to
death,[155] concerning the rights of the negro to have land for
nothing, etc., etc., expatiating upon the tyranny of the newly forming
_landed aristocracy_, the gigantic speculators who are grinding the
negro down, etc., etc., ad libitum. He held forth on these topics at
length at a meeting of the Educational Commission about two weeks ago,
and succeeded in making Professor Child and some others believe that
the whole labor of the Commission for two years past had been wasted
or overthrown by the recent changing policy, which had ousted them out
of their promised rights and cast them out upon the merciless open
jaws to devour them alive, etc., etc.