convicts. In New-York one thirty-fifth part are blacks; and one fourth of the convicts in the City State-prison are blacks. In New Jersey the proportion is one thirteenth colored, and of the convicts one third. In Pennsylvania one thirty-fourth part of the population is colored; and more than one third part of the convicts is black. We might pursue further these illustrations of the degradation of the free blacks in the non-slave-holding States, but it is unnecessary. Suffice it to say, that as appears from these statements (which are found in the First Annual Report of the Prison Discipline Society), about one-quarter part of all the expense incurred by these States for the support of their prisons, is for colored convicts. The bill of expense in three of these States, namely, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York, for an average period of less than eighteen years, was 164,000 dollars, upon convicts taken from a population of only 54,000 colored persons."[1]
This is, indeed, a fearful picture; and almost sufficient, if considered by itself, to dishearten the friends of emancipation, and deter them from further efforts, when they are seen to be followed by such lamentable results. In the slave-holding States the condition of the free blacks is said to be still worse, if possible, inasmuch as the influences surrounding them are still more debasing. "It would be easy," says Mr. Freeman, "to multiply instances showing the rapid deterioration, generally, of slaves, as respects morality, industry, and all virtue, when set free, without the stimulus afforded by a change of locality, in which encouraging prospects of due eleva-
- ↑ Plea for Africa, Conversations XVII. and XVIII.
