The Negro Stampede

The telegraph brings daily accounts of the emigration of colored people from Mississippi and Louisiana to Kansas and of the organized efforts in different eities to check it or to aid the destitute emigrants. The Itev. Richard Cordley, recently a Baptist minister at Flint, now of Emporia, Kansas, writes of the movement as foilows: There are already two large settlements of colored people in the western part of Kansas. They cali their village "Nicodemus." They think it is time to wake the old gentlemen from his sleep by the "Old Gum Tree." In this village they have stores and shops, and two churches. Many of the farms are already quite valuable. One man has built a good frame house, employed a number of hands, has a large quantity of stock, and is worth eight or ten thousand dollars. Not all do as well, but they are making their living. These new-eomers expect to do the same thing. They do not intend to remain in the eities, or to be chargear ble to charity. They expect to work and make their way. They will take up homesteads. Some of them have a little money, and can buy teams and tools to open a farm. Others have no money, but they can make them a 'dag-out," and on this rich soil they can cultivate enough with a spade and hoe to furnish them bread, and by degrees they can advance to better things. Other writers give a much gloomier account of the situation. A correspondent of the Fhiladelphia Times, wiiting from St. Louis, April 18, says: Meanwhile the condition of the colored people in Kansas is by no means assuring. lielief committees have been organized at Wyandotte. The place is overrun with the destitute, and as quickly as possible they are sent on to some other point. The place can not possibly take care of all who arrive. One in every thirty have died, and most of the refugees are sick. Climatic changes are working on their health. Medicine is scarce, and the outlook for the poor blacks is anything bnt cheering. Committees have been appointed to prevent, if possible, the landing of any more colored people in Wyandotte until the present ones are provided for. An agent has also been sent to Fort Leavenworth to see if the negroes cannot be given work there. Some of the colored men have been sent on to Kansas City, but evidently Kansas City doesn't care for them. The Mayor, a day or two ago, telegraphed to the Secretary of War at Washington, saying that two thousand refugees were eocunped about the city. Tbey were ignorant, helpless and dying. The city, he said, could take care oí its own poor, but the country could not expect it to care for the poor of several States. He asked that a part of the reservation at Fort Leavenworth be set aside, and that rations be issued, at least for the present. To this Secretary McCrary replied that he '■could not take the responsibility of issuing Government rations to emigrants without authority, and wliile Congress is in session that body has full power, and may be applied to." Evidently there is a disposition to allow Kansas to "bleed" as much as she wants to, and, from all appearances,she has quite enough of the "Meeding" process already. No one can look upon these ignorant people on the levee without pity. Many of them are destitute to the last extremity. One of the curiosities of the exodus is the number of dogs which follow their masters. Every boat that lands a new band of emigrants, lands a small army of dogs. They are as hungry looking as their masters. Where this hegira will end no one can teil. It seems almost certain that many of the emigrants must die from disease. Already sickness has carried off many of them.