FLORIDA FOLKS AND


FAMILIES.


lations with this enterprise in several capacities, I was at one
time commissary, and this, of course, involved almost con-
stant relations with the laborers. These laborers, who were
all negroes, except the mechanics, numbered about six hun-
dred, and were mostly Georgians, who came in gangs espe-
cially for the railway service.


 They were:a strange set of beings.
who visits a minstrel entertainment in
pose he is seeing a comical creature of
it is not so ; in fact, the most grotesqu
distorted lingual expressions that the
ever perpetrated on the stage is far fr
ality as seen and heard in a camp of n
wonderful jokes, such crushing retor


technics, and suc
be heard elsewh
pantomime are ol


the language itself.


 The pleasure-seeker
 the North may sup-
 the imagination, but
e acting or the most
"nigger delineator"
rom equaling the re-
egro laborers. Such
ts, such verbal pyro-


h uproarious shouts of laughter, can never
ere; and the accompanying gestures and
Often more original and characteristic than


The only drawback to the amusement


of listening at- these gatherings is the shocking profanity
and disgustingly vile language in which the negroes indulge.
The most simple remarks in their social conversation are
commonly interlarded with a number of oaths and foul
words that is positively startling. They seem to think that
it strengthens and emphasizes their conversation ; and there
can be no doubt that the practice is partly due to their as-
sociation with low whites, and to a desire to talk as big as
the white folks."
 The camp reached, after a day's labor, all hands would
speedily bring out their stowed-away "grub-boxes." Fires
were quickly burning, and soon a multitude of skillets were
ranged over the coals, in each a chunk of fat side-pork;
this, and a cupful of boiled "grits" or hominy, with mo-
lasses for sauce, and a cup of coffee, is their usual meal.
Sometimes they vary this with a can of salmon, or a fresh
fish caught in the innumerable lakes, or a gopher caught in