of my lands.  The negro possesses two remarkable qualifications:  one is that he is imitative, and the other is that he has got pride; he wants to dress well; he wants to do as well as anybody else does when you get him aroused, and with these two qualifications I have very great hopes for him in the future.

Q. What do you think of his intellectual and moral qualities and his capacity for development?  —­A.  There are individual instances I know of where negroes have received and taken a good education.  As a class, it would probably be several generations, at any rate, before they would be able to compete with the Caucasian.  I believe that the negro is capable of receiving an ordinary English education, and there are instances where they enter professions and become good lawyers.  For instance, I know in the town of Greenville, Miss., right across the river from me, a negro attorney, who is a very intelligent man, and I heard one of the leading attorneys in Greenville say he would almost have anybody on the opposite side of a case rather than he would that negro.  The sheriff of my county is from Ohio, and a negro, he is a man whom we all support in his office.  We are anxious that the negroes should have a fair representation.  For instance, you ask for the feeling existing between the proprietor and the negroes.  The probate judge of my county is a negro and one of my tenants, and I am here now in New York attending to important business for my county as an appointee of that man.  He has upon him the responsibilities of all estates in the county; he is probate judge.

     Q. Is he a capable man? 
     —­A.  A very capable man, and an excellent, good man, and a
     very just one.

Q. Do you see any reason why, with fair opportunities assured to himself and to his children, he may not become a useful and competent, American citizen?  —­A.  We already consider him so.

     Q. The question is settled? 
     —­A.  I thought you were speaking personally of the man I
     referred to.

     Q. No; I was speaking of the negro generally—­the negro
     race. 
     —­A.  Let me understand your question exactly.

Q. Do you see any reason why the negroes, as a component part of the American population, may not, with a fair chance, come to be useful, industrious, and competent to the discharge of the duties of citizenship?  —­A.  I think they may as a class, but it will take probably generations for them to arrive at that standard.

     Q. It has taken us generations to arrive at the standard,
     has it not? 
     —­A.  Yes, sir.