It was the policy of the Government to help the freedmen on to their feet; to give them a start in the race of self-support and manhood. They received such assistance as was given them with thankful hearts, and were not long in placing themselves upon a safe foundation for their new existence. Out of a population of 350,000 in North Carolina only 5,000 were receiving aid from the Government in the fall of 1865. Each month witnessed a wonderful reduction of the rations issued to the freedmen. In the month of August, 1865, Gen. C. B. Fisk had reduced the number of freedmen receiving rations from 3,785 to 2,984, in Kentucky. In the same month, in Mississippi, Gen. Samuel Thomas, of the 64th U. S. C. I., had reduced the number of persons receiving rations to 669. In his report for 1865, Gen. Thomas said:

"The freedmen working land assigned them at Davis's Bend, Camp Hawley, near Vicksburg, De Soto Point, opposite, and at Washington, near Natchez, are all doing well. These crops are maturing fast; as harvest time approaches, I reduce the number of rations issued and compel them to rely on their own resources. At least 10,000 bales of cotton will be raised by these people, who are conducting cotton crops on their own account. Besides this cotton, they have gardens and corn enough to furnish bread for their families and food for their stock till harvest time returns. * * * A more industrious, energetic body of citizens does not exist than can be seen at the colonies now."

Speaking of the industry of the freed people Gen. Thomas added: "I have lately visited a large portion of the State, and find it in much better condition than I expected. In the eastern part fine crops of grain are growing; the negroes are at home working quietly; they have contracted with their old masters at fair wages; all seem to accept the change without a shock."

From June 1, 1865, to September 1, 1866, the Freedmen's Bureau issued to the freed people of the South 8,904,451½ rations, and was able to make the following financial showing of the Refugees' and Freedmen's fund. From November 1, 1865, to October 1, 1866, the receipts and expenditures were as follows:

In September, 1866, the Bureau had on hand:

But the estimate of Gen. Howard for funds to run the Bureau for the fiscal year commencing July 1, 1867, only called for the sum of three million eight hundred and thirty-six thousand and three hundred dollars, as follows:

This showed that the freed people were rapidly becoming self-sustaining, and that the aid rendered by the Government was used to a good purpose.

Soon after Colored Troops were mustered into the service of the Government a question arose as to some safe method by which these troops might save their pay against the days of peace and personal effort. The noble and wise Gen. Saxton answered the question and met the need of the hour by establishing a Military Savings Bank at Beaufort, South Carolina. Soldiers under his command were thus enabled to husband their funds. Gen. Butler followed in this good work, and established a similar one at Norfolk, Virginia. These banks did an excellent work, and so favorably impressed many of the friends of the Negro that a plan for a Freedman's Savings Bank and Trust Company was at once projected. Before the spring campaign of 1865 opened up, the plan was presented to Congress; a bill introduced creating such a bank, was passed and signed by President Lincoln on the 3d of March. The following is the Act:

"An Act To Incorporate the Freedman's Savings and Trust
"Company.

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled: That Peter Cooper, William C. Bryant, A. A. Low, S. B. Chittenden, Charles H. Marshall, William A. Booth, Gerrit Smith, William A. Hall, William Allen, John Jay, Abraham Baldwin, A. S. Barnes, Hiram Barney, Seth B. Hunt, Samuel Holmes, Charles Collins, R. R. Graves, Walter S. Griffith, A. H. Wallis, D. S. Gregory, J. W. Alvord, George Whipple, A. S. Hatch, Walter T. Hatch, E. A. Lambert, W. G. Lambert, Roe Lockwood, R. H. Manning, R. W. Ropes, Albert Woodruff, and Thomas Denny, of New York; John M. Forbes, William Claflin, S. G. Howe, George L. Stearns, Edward Atkinson, A. A. Lawrence, and John M. S. Williams, of Massachusetts; Edward Harris and Thomas Davis, of Rhode Island; Stephen Colwell, J. Wheaton Smith, Francis E. Cope, Thomas Webster, B. S. Hunt, and Henry Samuel, of Pennsylvania; Edward Harwood, Adam Poe, Levi Coffin, J. M. Walden, of Ohio, and their successors, are constituted a body corporate in the City of Washington, in the District of Columbia, by the name of the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, and by that name may sue and be sued in any court of the United States.

"Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the persons named in the first section of this act shall be the first Trustees of the Corporation, and all vacancies by death, resignation, or otherwise, in the office of Trustee shall be filled by the Board, by ballot, without unnecessary delay, and at least ten votes shall be necessary for the election of any Trustee. The Trustees shall hold a regular meeting, at least once in each month, to receive reports of their officers on the affairs of the Corporation, and to transact such business as may be necessary; and any Trustee omitting to attend the regular meetings of the Board for six months in succession, may thereupon be considered as having vacated his place, and a successor may be elected to fill the same.

"Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That the business of the Corporation shall be managed and directed by the Board of Trustees, who shall elect from their number a President and two Vice-Presidents, and may appoint such other officers as they may see fit; nine of the Trustees, of whom the President or one of the Vice-Presidents shall be one, shall form a quorum for the transaction of business at any regular or adjourned meeting of the Board of Trustees; and the affirmative vote of at least seven members of the Board shall be requisite in making any order for, or authorizing the investment of, any moneys, or the sale or transfer of any stock or securities belonging to the Corporation, or the appointment of any officer receiving any salary therefrom.

"Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That the Board of Trustees of the Corporation shall have power, from time to time, to make and establish such By-Laws and regulations as they shall judge proper with regard to the elections of officers and their respective functions, and generally for the management of the affairs of the Corporation, provided such By-Laws and regulations are not repugnant to this act, or to the Constitution or laws of the United States.

"Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That the general business and object of the Corporation hereby created shall be, to receive on deposit such sums of money as may, from time to time, be offered therefor, by or on behalf of persons heretofore held in slavery in the United States, or their descendants, and investing the same in the stocks, bonds, Treasury notes, or other securities of the United States.

"Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of the Trustees of the Corporation to invest, as soon as practicable, in the securities named in the next preceding section, all sums received by them beyond an available fund, not exceeding one third of the total amount of deposits with the Corporation, at the discretion of the Trustees, which available funds may be kept by the Trustees, to meet current payments of the Corporation, and may by them be left on deposit, at interest or otherwise, or in such available form as the Trustees may direct.

"Sec. 7. And be it further enacted, That the Corporation may, under such regulations as the Board of Trustees shall, from time to time, prescribe, receive any deposit hereby authorized to be received, upon such trusts and for such purposes, not contrary to the laws of the United States, as may be indicated in writing by the depositor, such writing to be subscribed by the depositor and acknowledged or proved before any officer in the civil or military service of the United States, the certificate of which acknowledgment or proof shall be endorsed on the writing; and the writing, so acknowledged or proved, shall accompany such deposit and be filed among the papers of the Corporation, and be carefully preserved therein, and may be read in evidence in any court or before any judicial officer of the United States, without further proof; and the certificate of acknowledgment or proof shall be prima facie evidence only of the due execution of such writing.

"Sec. 8. And be it further enacted, That all sums received on deposit shall be repaid to such depositor when required, at such time, with such interest, not exceeding seven per centum per annum, and under such regulations as the Board of Trustees shall, from time to time, prescribe, which regulations shall be posted up in some conspicuous place in the room where the business of the Corporation shall be transacted, but shall not be altered so as to affect any deposit previously made.

"Sec. 9. And be it further enacted, That all trusts upon which, and all purposes for which any deposit shall be made, and which shall be indicated in the writing to accompany such deposit, shall be faithfully performed by the Corporation, unless the performing of the same is rendered impossible.

"Sec. 10. And be it further enacted, That when any depositor shall die, the funds remaining on deposit with the Corporation to his credit, and all accumulations thereof, shall belong and be paid to the personal representatives of such depositor, in case he shall have left a last will and testament, and in default of a last will and testament, or of any person qualifying under a last will and testament, competent to act as executor, the Corporation shall be entitled, in respect to the funds so remaining on deposit to the credit of any such depositor, to administration thereon in preference to all other persons, and letters or administration shall be granted to the Corporation accordingly in the manner prescribed by law in respect to granting of letters of administration, with the will annexed, and in cases of intestacy.

"Sec. 11. And be it further enacted, That in the case of the death of any depositor, whose deposit shall not be held upon any trust created pursuant to the provisions hereinbefore contained, or where it may prove impossible to execute such trust, it shall be the duty of the Corporation to make diligent efforts to ascertain and discover whether such deceased depositor has left a husband, wife, or children, surviving, and the Corporation shall keep a record of the efforts so made, and of the results thereof; and in case no person lawfully entitled thereto shall be discovered, or shall appear, or claim the funds remaining to the credit of such depositor before the expiration of two years from the death of such depositor, it shall be lawful for the Corporation to hold and invest such funds as a separate trust fund, to be applied, with the accumulations thereof, to the education and improvement of persons heretofore held in slavery, or their descendants, being inhabitants of the United States, in such manner and through such agencies as the Board of Trustees shall deem best calculated to effect that object; Provided, That if any depositor be not heard from within five years from the date of his last deposit, the Trustees shall advertise the same in some paper of general circulation in the State where the principal office of the Company is established, and also in the State where the depositor was last heard from; and if, within two years thereafter, such depositor shall not appear, nor a husband, wife, or child of such depositor, to claim his deposits, they shall be used by the Board of Trustees as hereinbefore provided for in this section.

"Sec. 12. And be it further enacted, That no President, Vice-President, Trustee, officer, or servant of the Corporation shall, directly or indirectly, borrow the funds of the Corporation or its deposits, or in any manner use the same, or any part thereof, except to pay necessary expenses, under the direction of the Board of Trustees. All certificates or other evidences of deposit made by the proper officers shall be as binding on the Corporation as if they were made under their common seal. It shall be the duty of the Trustees to regulate the rate of interest allowed to the depositors, so that they shall receive, as nearly as may be, a rateable proportion of all the profits of the Corporation, after deducting all necessary expenses; Provided, however, That the Trustees may allow to depositors to the amount of five hundred dollars or upward one per centum less than the amount allowed others; And provided, also, Whenever it shall appear that, after the payment of the usual interest to depositors, there is in the possession of the Corporation an excess of profits over the liabilities amounting to ten per centum upon the deposits, such excess shall be invested for the security of the depositors in the Corporation; and thereafter, at each annual examination of the affairs of the Corporation, any surplus over and above such ten per centum shall, in addition to the usual interest, be divided rateably among the depositors, in such manner as the Board of Trustees shall direct.

"Sec. 13. And be it further enacted, That whenever any deposits shall be made by any minor, the Trustees of the Corporation may, at their discretion, pay to such depositor such sum as may be due to him, although no guardian shall have been appointed for such minor, or the guardian of such minor shall not have authorized the drawing of the same; and the check, receipt, or acquittance of such minor shall be as valid as if the same were executed by a guardian of such minor, or the minor were of full age, if such deposit was made personally by such minor. And whenever any deposits shall have been made by married women, the Trustees may repay the same on their own receipts.

"Sec. 14. And be it further enacted, That the Trustees shall not directly or indirectly receive any payment or emolument for their services as such, except the President and Vice-President.

"Sec. 15. And be it further enacted, That the President, Vice-President, and subordinate officers and agents of the Corporation, shall respectively give such security for their fidelity and good conduct as the Board of Trustees may, from time to time, require, and the Board shall fix the salaries of such officers and agents.

"Sec. 16. And be it further enacted, That the books of the Corporation shall, at all times during the hours of business, be open for inspection and examination to such persons as Congress shall designate or appoint.

"Approved March 3, 1865."

Eleven of these banks were established in 1865, nine in 1866, three in 1868, one in 1869, and the remainder in 1870, after the charter had been amended as follows:

"An Act to Amend an Act Entitled 'An Act to Incorporate the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company,' Approved March Third, Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-five.

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United Stales of America, in Congress assembled, That the fifth section of the Act entitled 'An Act to Incorporate the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company,' approved March third, eighteen hundred and sixty-five, be, and the same is hereby, amended by adding thereto at the end thereof the words following: 'and to the extent of one half in bonds or notes, secured by mortgage on real estate in double the value of the loan; and the corporation is also authorized hereby to hold and improve the real estate now owned by it in the city of Washington, to wit: the west half of lot number three; all of lots four, five, six, seven, and the south half of lot number eight, in square number two hundred and twenty-one, as laid out and recorded in the original plats or plan of said city: Provided, That said corporation shall not use the principal of any deposits made with it for the purpose of such improvement.'

"Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That Congress shall have the right to alter or repeal this amendment at any time.

"Approved May 6, 1870."

The company was organized on the 16th of May, 1865, and the trustees made their first report on the 8th of June, 1865. Deposits up to this date were $700, besides $7,956.38 transferred from the Military Savings Bank at Norfolk, Virginia, on the 3d of June. On the 1st of August the first branch office was opened at Washington, D. C., and on the 1st of September it had a balance due its depositors of $843.84.

Other branches were opened during the year at Louisville, Richmond, Nashville, Wilmington, Huntsville, Memphis, Mobile, and Vicksburg. December 14, 1865, the Military Bank at Beaufort, organized October 16, 1865, was, by order of General Saxton, transferred to this company, with its balance of $170,000. At the end of the first year, March 1, 1866, fourteen branch offices had been opened, and the balance due depositors was $199,283.42.

The total deposits made by freedmen in them, from their establishment up to July 1, 1870, was $16,960,336, of which over $2,000,000 still remained on deposit. The total amount of deposits in the Richmond branch up to that date was $318,913, and the balance undrawn $84,537. The average amount deposited by the various depositors was nearly $284. So far as the facts were obtained, it appeared that about seventy per cent. of the money drawn from these banks was invested in real estate and in business.

By the financial statement of the banking company, for August, 1871, it appears that in the thirty-four banks then in operation the deposits made during that month, which was considered "dull," amounted to $882,806.67, and that the total amount to the credit of the depositors was $3,058,232.81. In the Richmond branch, the deposits for that month were $17,790.60, and the total amount due depositors was $123,733.75; all of which was to the credit of Colored people, except $6,929.19. A branch shortly before had been established in Lynchburg, which showed a balance due depositors of $7,382.83.

The following table shows the business of the company for the years 1866-1871:

Table Showing the Relative Business of the Company for Each Fiscal Year.

In 1872 the trustees made the following interesting statement:

THE FREEDMAN'S SAVINGS AND TRUST COMPANY.

FINANCIAL STATEMENT FOR THE MONTH OF AUGUST, 1872.

Total amount of deposits for the month	$1,461,207 56
Total amount of drafts for the month	1,364,899 95
	——————
Gain for the month	96,307 61
	===========
Total amount of deposits	$38,245,163 80
Total amount of drafts	34,000,685,77
	——————
Total amount due depositors	$4,244,478 03
	===========

This first experiment of the new citizen in saving his funds was working admirably. Each report was more cheering than the preceding one. The deposits were generally made by day laborers, house servants, farmers, mechanics, and washerwomen. Two facts were established, viz.: that the Negroes of the South were working; and that they were saving their earnings. Northern as well as Southern whites were agreeably surprised.

But bad management doomed the institution to irreparable ruin. The charter was violated in the establishment of branch banks; "persons who were never held in bondage and their descendants" were allowed to deposit funds in the bank; money was loaned upon valueless securities and meaningless collaterals, and in the fall of 1873, having been kept open for a long time on money borrowed on collateral securities belonging to its customers, the bank failed!

During the brief period of its existence about $57,000,000 had been deposited. The liabilities of the institution at the time of the failure, as corrected to date, were $3,037,483, of which $73,774.34 were special deposits and preferred claims. The number of open accounts at the time of the failure were 62,000. The nominal assets at the time of the failure were $2,693,093.20. And in the almost interminable list of over-drafts amounting to $55,567.63, there appeared but one solitary surety!

On the 20th of June, 1874, Congress passed an act permitting the very men who had destroyed the bank to nominate three Commissioners, who, upon the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, should wind up the affairs of this insolvent institution. Section 7 of the Act reads as follows:

"Sec. 7. That whenever it shall be deemed advisable by the trustees of said corporation to close up its entire business, then they shall select three competent men, not connected with the previous management of the institution and approved by the Secretary of the Treasury, to be known and styled commissioners, whose duty it shall be to take charge of all the property and effects of said Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, close up the principal and subordinate branches, collect from the branches all the deposits they have on hand, and proceed to collect all sums due said company, and dispose of all the property owned by said company, as speedily as the interests of the corporation require, and to distribute the proceeds among the creditors pro rata, according to their respective amounts; they shall make a pro rata dividend whenever they have funds enough to pay twenty per centum of the claims of depositors. Said commissioners, before they proceed to act, shall execute a joint bond to the United States, with good sureties, in the penal sum of one hundred thousand dollars, conditioned for the faithful discharge of their duties as commissioners aforesaid, and shall take an oath to faithfully and honestly perform their duties as such, which bonds shall be executed in presence of the Secretary of the Treasury, be approved by him, and by him safely kept; and whenever said trustees shall file with the Secretary of the Treasury a certified copy of the order appointing said commissioners, and they shall have executed the bonds and taken the oath aforesaid, then said commissioners shall be invested with the legal title to all of said property of said company, for the purposes of this act, and shall have full power and authority to sell the same, and make deeds of conveyance to any and all of the real estate sold by them to the purchasers. Said commissioners may employ such agents as are necessary to assist them in closing up said company, and pay them a reasonable compensation for their services out of the funds of said company; and the said commissioners shall retain out of said funds a reasonable compensation for their trouble, to be fixed by the Secretary of the Treasury and the Comptroller of the Currency, and not exceeding three thousand dollars each per annum. Said commissioners shall deposit all sums collected by them in the Treasury of the United States until they make a pro rata distribution of the same."

There are several legal questions that history would like to ask. 1. Did not the trustees of the Freedman's Savings Bank and Trust Company violate their charter in establishing branch banks? 2. Were not the trustees personally liable for receiving deposits from persons who were neither "heretofore held in slavery" nor the descendants of such persons? 3. Were not persons "heretofore held in slavery" and "their descendants" preferred creditors? 4. Had Congress the authority to go outside of the Federal bankruptcy laws and create such special machinery for the settlement of a collapsed bank? This matter may come before Congress in a new shape some time in the future.

The three commissioners, at a salary of $3,000 per annum, were charged with the settlement of the affairs of the bank. They were Jno. A. J. Creswell, Robert Purvis, and R. H. T. Leipold. Mr. Creswell was retained by the United States before the Alabama Claims Commission at a salary of $10,000 per annum; while Mr. Leipold was a lawyer with considerable practice. But neither one of these gentlemen ever entered a court on behalf of the company. In a little more than five years they used up out of the assets of the company, $40,000 for their salaries; paid for salaries to agents, $64,000, and $31,000 for attorneys' fees, aggregating $135,000—nearly one half of the amount distributed among depositors for the same length of time.

The more the commissioners examined, the greater the liabilities of the company grew. On the 1st of October, 1875, a dividend of 20 per cent. was declared; on the 1st of February, 1878, a dividend of 10 per cent. was declared; on the 21st of August, 1880, they declared another dividend of 10 per cent.; and on the 14th of April, 1881, a circular was sent out as a crumb of comfort to the anxious, defrauded, and outraged depositors. It is not enough for history to pronounce the failure of this bank an irreparable calamity to the Colored people of the South; it should be branded as a crime! There was no more necessity for the failure of this bank than for the failure of the United States Treasury. Its management was criminal; and Congress should yet seek out and punish the guilty; and the depositors should be indemnified out of the United States Treasury. Justice and equity demand it.

The failure of the Freedman's Bank worked great mischief among the Colored people in the South. But hardy, persistent, earnest, and hopeful, they turned again to the work of making and saving money. They have been more prudent than their circumstances, in some instances, would seem to warrant. In Georgia the Colored people have made wonderful progress in business matters.

In Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, North and South Carolina, and in Maryland, Colored men have possessed themselves of excellent farms and moderate fortunes. In Baltimore a company of Colored men own a ship dock, and transact a large business. Some of the largest orange plantations in Florida are owned by Colored men. On most of the plantations, and in many of the large towns and cities Colored mechanics are quite numerous. The Montgomeries who own the plantation, once the property of Jefferson Davis, extending for miles along the Mississippi, are probably the best business men in the South. In Louisiana, P. P. Deslonde, A. Dubuclet, Hon. T. T. Allain, and State Senator Young are men who, although taking a lively interest in politics, have accumulated property and saved it.

There is nothing vicious in the character of the Southern Negro. He is gentle, affectionate, and faithful. If it has appeared, through false figures, that he is a criminal, there is room for satisfactory explanation. In 1870, out of a population, of persons of color, in all the States and Territories, of 4,880,009, there were only 9,400 who were receiving aid on the 1st of June, 1870; and only 8,056 in all the prisons of America. Nine tenths of these were South, and could neither read nor write.

During the Rebellion, when every white male from fifteen to seventy was out fighting to sustain the Confederacy—when the Southern Government was robbing the cradle and the grave for soldiers—the wives and children of the Confederates were committed to the care and keeping of their slaves. And what is the verdict of history? That these women were outraged and their children brained? No! But that during all those years of painful anxiety, of hope and fear, of fiery trial and severe privation, those faithful Negroes toiled, not only to support the wives and children of the men who were fighting to make slavery national and perpetual, but fed the entire rebel army, and never laid the weight of a finger upon the head of any of the women or children entrusted to their care! To this virtue of fidelity to their worst enemies they added still another, loyalty to the Union flag and escaping Union soldiers. All night long they would direct the lonely, famishing, fainting, and almost delirious Union soldier in a safe way, and then when the night and morning met they would point their pilgrim friends to the North Star, hide them and feed them during the day, and then return to the plantation to care for the loved ones of the men who starved Union soldiers and hunted them down with bloodhounds! This is the brightest gem that history can place upon the brow of the Negro; and in conferring it there is no one found to object.

Since the war the crime among Colored people is to be accounted for upon two grounds, viz.: ignorance, and a combination of circumstances over which they had no control. It was one thing for the Negro to understand the cruel laws of slavery, but when he found himself a freeman he was not able to know what was an infraction of the law. They did not know what in law constituted a tort, or a civil action from a sled. The violent passions pampered in slavery, the destruction of the home, the promiscuous mingling of the sexes, a conscience enfeebled by disuse, made them easy transgressors. The Negro is not a criminal generically; he is an accidental criminal. The judiciary and juries of the South are responsible for the alarming prison statistics which stand against the Negro. It takes generations for men to overcome their prejudices. With a white judge and a white jury a Negro is guilty the moment he makes his appearance in court. It is seldom that a Negro can get judgment against a white person under the most favorable circumstances. The Negroes who appear in courts are of the poorer and more ignorant class. They have no funds with which to employ counsel, and have but few intelligent lawyers to come to their rescue. In cases of theft, especially of poultry, pigs, sheep, fruit, etc., it is next to impossible to convince a white judge or jury that the defendant is not guilty. They reason that because the half-fed, overworked slave appropriated articles of food, as a freeman the Negro was not changed. They ascribed a general habit, growing out of trying circumstances, to the Negro as a slave that he soon learned to regard as morally wrong when a freeman.

But the most effective agency in filling Southern prisons with Negroes has been, and is, the chain-gang system—the farming out of convict labor. Just as great railway, oil, and telegraph companies in the North have been capable of controlling legislation, so the corporations at the South which take the prisoners of the State off of the hands of the Government, and then speculate upon the labor of the prisoners, are able to control both court and jury. It has been the practice, and is now, in some of the Southern States, to pronounce long sentences upon able-bodied young Colored men, whose offences, in a Northern court, could not be visited with more than a few months' confinement and a trifling fine. The object in giving Negro men a long term of years, is to make sure the tenure of the soulless corporations upon the convicts whose unhappy lot it is to fall into their iron grasp. In some of the Southern States a strong and healthy Negro convict brings thirty-seven cents a day to the State, while he earns a dollar for the corporations above his expenses. The convicts are cruelly treated—especially in Georgia and Kentucky;—their food is poor, their quarters miserable, and their morals next to the brute creation. In many of these camps men and women are compelled to sleep in the same bunks together, with chains upon their limbs, in a promiscuous manner too sickening and disgusting to mention. When a prisoner escapes he is hunted down by fiery dogs and cruel guards; and often the poor prisoner is torn to pieces by the dogs or beaten to death by the guards. No system of slavery was ever equal in its cruel and dehumanizing details to this convict system, which, taking advantage of race prejudice on the one hand and race ignorance on the other, with cupidity and avarice as its chief characteristics, has done more to curse the South than all things else since the war.

It was predicted by persons hostile to the rights and citizenship of the Negro, that a condition of freedom would not be in harmony with his character; that it would destroy him, and that he would destroy the country and party which tried to make him agree to a state of independent life; that having been used to the "kind treatment"(?) of his master he would find himself unequal to the responsibilities of freedom; and that his migratory disposition would lead him into a climate too cold for him, where he would be welcomed to an inhospitable grave.

It is true that a great many Negroes died during the first years of their new life. The joy of emancipation and the excitement that disturbed business swept the Negroes into the large cities. Like the shepherds who left their flocks on the plains and went into Bethlehem to see the promised redemption, these people sought the centres of excitement. The large cities were overrun with them. The demand for unskilled labor was not great. From mere spectators they became idlers, helpless and offensive to industrious society. Ignorant of sanitary laws, imprudent in their daily living, changing from the pure air and plain diet of farm life to the poisonous atmosphere and rich, fateful food of the city, many fell victims to the sudden change from bondage to freedom, from darkness to light, and from the fleshpots, garlic, and onions of their Egyptian bondage to the milk and honey of the Canaan of their deliverance.

But this was in accordance with an immutable law of nature. Every year a large number of birds perish in an attempt to change their home; every spring-time many flowers die at their birth. The law of the survival of the fittest is impartial and inexorable. The Creator said centuries ago "the soul that sinneth shall surely die," and the law has remained until the present time. Those who sinned ignorantly or knowingly died the death; but those who obeyed the laws of health, of man, and of God, lived to be useful members of society.

But this was the exception to the rule. The Negro race in America is not dying out. The charge is false. The wish was father to the thought, while no doubt many honest people have been misled by false figures. Nearly all white communities at the South had more than enough of physicians; and science and culture were summoned to the aid of the white mother in the hour of childbirth. The record of births was preserved with pride and official accuracy; and thus there was a record upon which to calculate the increase. But, on the contary, among the Negroes there were no physicians and no record of births. The venerable system of midwifery prevailed. In burying their dead, however, this people were compelled to obtain a burial permit from the Board of Health. Thus the statistics were all on one side—all deaths and no births. Looking at these statistics it did seem that the race was dying out. But the Government steps in and takes the census every decade, and, thereby, the world is enabled, upon reliable figures, to estimate the increase or decrease of the Colored race. The subjoined table exhibits the increase of the Colored people for nine decades.