Page:The Under-Ground Railroad.djvu/153

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and absolutely do suffer much, before they will make known their condition, or apply for aid to their white friends. Even, considering all these things, it is to be supposed, in a population of 1600, many and frequent would be the applications. But the true cause is found in the fact, that there is a great disposition in the better classes to assist their less fortunate brethren, and that they are very industrious.

Hamilton, at the head of Lake Ontario, around which the railway trains pass to the Niagara Falls, New York, and the Eastern States, has a population of 24,000, 600 of whom are coloured people. Among them are blacksmiths, carpenters, plasterers, and one wheelwright. Many of them own property, but how much or to what extent, I cannot say. Mr. M., a mulatto, who still drives his own hack, is worth 15,000 dollars. He came to Hamilton 17 years ago, and acted as porter in a store 12 years, he then bought a hack, and he has now two carriages and four horses. He takes three newspapers, one weekly and two daily. On the 14th of January, 1859, he said to me, "I shall have to emigrate to the West Indies to educate my children, for, the other day, my two daughters were refused admission into the Female Academy, because they are coloured." This may startle some, but it is nevertheless a lamentable fact; prejudice so prevails against the coloured race, even in