population of the whole Union exceeds by no more than onehalf of one per cent. the rate of increase of the conquered side in one of the bloodiest and most exhausting civil wars the world has ever seen.

In round numbers the white population of the Confederate States amounted in 1860 to five and a half millions -say, the present population of Ireland. It waged a desperate contest for four long years against a population nearly four times as numerous, and in the course of the struggle it raised armies amounting altogether, according to the estimate of the Superintendent of the Census, to a million of men. In other words, out of every eleven men, women, and children, two men were withdrawn from all productive industry, and actually sent into the field. There they had to meet armies at least twice as numerous, and to guard every portion of thousands of miles of coast and frontier against their attacks. In consequence the soldiers had to serve for a longer term than in the Federal armies, being generally, indeed, enlisted for 'the war,' and, therefore, they were used more completely and continuously than the Northerners. Moreover, the South was strictly blockaded, and thereby prevented from obtaining the supplies it needed. Necessarily, therefore, the losses in battle as well as from privation and hardship of every kind were heavier than in the Federal armies, and the deaths from wounds and sickness were more numerous, owing to the want of skilled medical and surgical attendance, as well as of proper and sufficient hospital stores. For all these reasons the Superintendent of the Census estimates the actual deaths in the Confederate armies at 350,000, or, seven-twentieths of the entire strength. That is to say, according to this estimate, almost every white man capable of bearing arms in the Confederate States was drafted into the army, and of every three so drafted one died on service. Such having been the frightful mortality, it is easy to understand that the constitutions of the two that returned must have been seriously injured. Moreover, the service having been so continuous, but few births can have taken place in the families of the absent soldiers. Yet, as we have seen, the rate of increase of the white population of these States is within a fraction as high as the rate of increase of the coloured population throughout the Union. It is not to immigration, as the reader may be inclined to suppose, that this astonishing result is due. The Census officers have been happily inspired to accompany their reports with coloured maps showing the distribution of the immigrants over the Union. But on these maps the whole Confederacy is a blank

with the exception of three or four faint and minute dots at immense distances from one another. The increase, then, it is erbent, is mainly a natural one. It would be difficult to addose stronger proof of the abiding vitality of the white race in the South. With such a people, it is safe to predict the North ... again have to count, at no great distance of time, unless it manages, while there is yet opportunity, to allay its discontent.

The facts now given afford a measure of the fearful waste of negro life occasioned by the reckless, inconsiderate manner in which emancipation was effected. It must not be forgotten that the majority of the slaves remained quietly working on the plantations to the very end of the war. This it was that permitted the whole white male population of fighting age to march against the enemy. Like Russia in the Crimea, the South kept her assailants at bay on the outskirts of her territory as long as her resources lasted. When the interior was pierced the contest was virtually ended. But during all this time, that is to say for half the period embraced by the Census, the value of the slaves was at least as great as it ever had been-it may be doubted if it were not greater, since in the absence of the able-bodied whites upon the slaves devolved nearly all business of every kind. As a matter of course, therefore, their owners took care that so valuable a property did not deteriorate. In plain language, they took care that there was no falling-off in the number of births. So far, therefore, as all but exceedingly small strips here and there of the Secessionist States is concerned, the extraordinary retardation in the rate of the negroes that has occurred has taken place only in the latter half of the decade under review. Moreover, it must also be borne in mind that in the Border States emancipation was peaceably effected. No part of the retardation there observable can consequently be attributed to the direct influence of war. And lastly, it should be remembered that the proportion of blacks enlisted on either side was comparatively small. How, then, are we to account for the fact that the rate of increase of this population so slightly exceeded the rate of increase of the population that suffered so terribly from battle, disease, want, and exhaustion? It is to be accounted for in three ways. From the very opening to the very close of the struggle, wherever a Northern army appeared, the slaves of the neighbouring plantations took refuge within its lines. At first they were most frequently repulsed by the commanding generals; partly because the Government was anxious to dissociate itself from Abolitionist propagandism, partly because the generals were supporters of slavery, partly

because they dreaded the presence of spies amongst the refugees, and partly because the reception of them would impose a very expensive burden on the commissariat. The miserable slaves, thus repelled, and without means of subsistence of their own, died in thousands of slow hunger, or their distress bred pestilence that swept them away in crowds. At length their sufferings created a scandal, and the Government was obliged to undertake their relief. Wherever afterwards a Federal army made its way, a commission, specially appointed for the duty, organised employment for the runaway negroes. But everybody knows how ineffectual public works are for the relief of real distress on a great scale. In a letter published in The Times' last November, Sir G. Balfour gives it as the result of his experience of Indian famines that, with regard to certain famine-relief works I have no hesitation in saying there is a delusion as to their merit.' And those who watched the attempts to afford relief made during the Irish famine of 1847-48 would readily endorse this opinion. It is not very strange, then, that the efforts of the American Government to find employment for the refugee negroes failed to prevent great distress and a frightfully high mortality amongst them. But, in general, flight to the camps was only the first step in flight to the cities, and in them were repeated the same heartrending scenes of distress, sickness, and death. Moreover, both in camp and city the suffering, great as in any case it must have been, was intensified by the vice and immorality in which the runaways indulged. They had escaped from a state in which they were not recognised as persons, in which, as laid down in Chief Justice Taney's famous decision, they had no rights which white men were bound to respectno right to remuneration for their labour, no right to their own persons, no right of marriage, no right even to bring up their children or provide for them. Prevented thus from all exercise of forethought, they possessed none, and were incapable as children to resist temptation. Another cause of the phenomenon we are considering was the almost total absence of the maternal instincts amongst the negro women.. Under slavery the raising of slaves was as much a matter of business as the breeding of cattle, and the mother was as little considered in the one case as in the other. As soon as she was able to work, and the child could spare her, to work she had to go, while an old woman past labour was entrusted with the care of the child. Under such a system the maternity itself could not but wither, and consequently when the women obtained freedom, they neither knew how to nurse their infants nor were they

willing to submit to the restraint. Hence, there being no longer an owner to see to the preservation of the children, they perished in multitudes. This cause of excessive infant mortality was by no means confined to the early days of emancipation, all accounts agree in representing it in full activity still. Lastly, the wrath of the masters, when in defeat and poverty they found their liberated slaves rushing away from the plantations, inflicted cruel suffering on the unhappy negroes. While slavery lasted, the aged and infirm slaves were maintained by their owners. When emancipation was enforced, the practice ceased. Old men and old women, long past the time when they could support themselves, were turned adrift upon the world, and perished miserably. In these several ways the slight increase of the coloured population is sufficiently accounted for.

A notion has prevailed in some quarters, both in America and in this country, that the negroes are gradually drifting to those parts of the South where, on account of the climate, they possess an advantage over the whites in the matter of labour, and that there they will ultimately form the bulk of the population. Baron Hübner, as we had lately occasion to point out, inclined to this opinion. The statistics of the Census lend this notion little countenance,--we should say lend it none, were it not that there has been an actual decrease of the coloured population in Kentucky, and that we are unable to offer a satisfactory explanation of the fact. There has been a slight decrease in both Virginia and Missouri also. But these two States, it will be remembered, were the theatre of the most desperate and long-continued fighting of the war; they were traversed in almost every direction again and again by Federal armies, and consequently the slaves had abundant opportunities to escape in multitudes, while for this very reason the masters would naturally send great numbers of them farther South. In these two States, then, it is natural to expect a decrease. On the other hand, in Georgia, a State not peculiarly favourable to the negro, the increase has been very nearly double the average coloured increase. Again, in Louisiana, where if anywhere the blacks have an advantage, as it is not only a great cotton but also a great sugar State, the coloured increase is considerably less than half the average. In Alabama also it is under the average. In Mississippi it is below two per cent. ; and in South Carolina it is actually less than one per cent. Yet these are the cotton States par excellence. It is true that Texas is likewise a great cotton State, and the increase there has been enormous. But then the increase of the whites has

been very nearly equal. Moreover, Texas was the last portion of the South subdued. For a while the Confederates dreamt of being able there to continue the struggle, and consequently they transported their slaves thither in great numbers. Before, therefore, the increase in Texas is accepted as proof of the alleged movement of the negroes it must first be ascertained how far it was voluntary. The real movement, as a matter of fact, appears to be, not from the more northern towards the Gulf States, but from the rural districts to the towns. For example, the coloured population of Charleston increased fifty per cent. during the ten years; that of New Orleans doubled; and that of Washington actually trebled. The result is injurious to the morals of the negroes, and equally injurious to their health, as they are cooped up in filthy, overcrowded dwellings, where every sanitary rule is set at defiance. It is injurious, again, as it gives the carpet-baggers' (as they are called) control of the municipal governments. And lastly, it is injurious, as it deprives agriculture of the labour it so sorely needs, and which alone can enable the South to recover from its losses.

So far the statistics of the Census hold out no brilliant promise for the future of the negro race in America. In two particulars, however, there is very decisive evidence of highly encouraging progress. In the whole Union in 1870 the number of coloured boys and girls of school age-in this case 5 to 18-amounted to 1,620,978. Of these as many as 180,372 were attending school for at least some portion of the year. If we were to compare these figures with the figures dealing with the entire population, the proportion would not appear large. But to institute such a comparison would be utterly misleading. For generations public opinion in the Northern and Western States, at least, has required free parents to educate their children. Wherever a settlement has been made, therefore, in a new territory, one of the first steps has always been to provide a school. It is a matter of course, then, that the attendance of white children should be large. But as long as slavery lasted it was a punishable offence in the South to teach a slave to read or write, and no person known to have a drop of negro blood in his veins, though he might in reality be as fair as the fairest European, would, on any pretence, be admitted into a school attended by whites. Consequently we find that in all the United States there were in 1860 not more than 32,629 coloured persons at schools of every kind, including those specially provided by Abolitionists for the negroes in the North. In thirteen years, therefore, the