Daily Advocate
Baton Rouge
May 8, 1861
The question has often been propounded in our hearing, is it politic that slaves should be permitted to live around and away from their master’s premises. There are several slaves in our city who not only live in this way, but keep boarding houses, where many transient persons rendezvous. This ought to be stopped. We know not who these strangers may be, or for what they are here. All white men found living in this way should be arrested and undergo a strict investigation, as to who they are, where from, and what they follow for a livelihood. These are not the days to stand idly by, but it behoves our white population to be on the look-out. Our whole Southern country is invested with “wolves in cheeps clothing.” We meet many strange looking faces on our streets every day; we see them stopping at houses kept by slaves and free persons. We do not wish to fasten suspicion on any innocent man, nor to dictate to our efficient city officials, for we know that they are on the alert; but we do wish to arouse our citizens to the necessity and importance of seeing and knowing what their servants are doing. Negroes congregate daily around the numerous small groceries that infest our city, where the seeds of vice, crime and demoralization are dolled out to our colored population, by the glass and the gallon. This all results from the too common habit of allowing slaves to hire their own time. There are severe penalties against it, and they ought to be enforced rigidly, without fear or favor.