_Nov. 19._ Alden and I were put on Plantation Commission work as soon
as we got here, had a session Wednesday and tried several cases. The
untrustworthiness of these people is more apparent and troublesome
than ever. I feel as if it would not be safe to allow them to gin the
cotton--it seems certain that a great deal of it would be stolen.
Their skill in lying, their great reticence, their habit of shielding
one another (generally by silence), their invariable habit of taking a
rod when you, after much persuasion, have been induced to grant an
inch, their assumed innocence and ignorance of the simplest rules of
_meum_ and _tuum_, joined with amazing impudence in making
claims,--these are the traits which try us continually in our dealings
with them, and sometimes almost make us despair of their
improvement--at least, in the present generation. It is certain that
their freedom has been too easy for them,--they have not had a hard
enough time of it. In many cases they have been "fair spoiled."