the never-ending, still-beginning importunities to
help this or that negro object of charity or philanthrophy to which such
a reputation inevitably subjects them. Nine-tenths of the free blacks
have no idea of setting themselves to work except as the hirelings and
servitors of white men; no idea of building a church, or accomplishing
any other serious enterprise, except through beggary of the whites. As a
class, the blacks are indolent, improvident, servile and licentious; and
their inveterate habit of appealing to white benevolence or compassion
whenever they realize a want or encounter a difficulty, is eminently
baneful and enervating. If they could never more obtain a dollar until
they shall have earned it, many of them would suffer, and some perhaps
starve; but, on the whole, they would do better and improve faster than
may now be reasonably expected."

In tracing the causes which led to the organization of the American
Colonization Society, the statistics of the penitentiaries down to 1827,
were given, as affording an index to the moral condition of the free
colored people at that period. The facts of a similar kind, for 1850,
are added here, to indicate their present moral condition. The
statistics are compiled from the Compendium of the Census of the United
States, for 1850, and published in 1854.

_Tabular Statement of the number of the native and foreign white
population, the colored population, the number of each class in the
Penitentiaries, the proportion of the convicts to the whole number of
each class, the proportion of colored convicts over the foreign and also
over the native whites, in the four States named, for the year 1850:_

_Classes, etc._ _Mass._ _N. York._ _Penn._ _Ohio._

NATIVE WHITES, 819,044 2,388,830 1,953,276 1,732,698
In the Penitentiary, 264 835 205 291
Being 1 out of 3,102 2,860 9,528 5,954

FOREIGN WHITES, 163,598 655,224 303,105 218,099
In the Penitentiary, 125 545 123 71
Being 1 out of 1,308 1,202 2,464 3,077

COLORED POPULATION, 9,064 49,069 53,626 25,279
In the Penitentiary, 47 257 109 44
Being 1 out of 192 190 492 574

Colored convicts over
foreign, 6.8 time