church
membership of 2,673,977 shows that there is one communicant to every
2.79 of the Negro population, against one in every 3.04 for the whites.
There were 1,288,736 pupils in the common schools and 34,129 in the
higher schools, colleges, and universities. Ordinarily these facts are
regarded as the most wonderful evidences of progress which the world has
ever witnessed on the part of a backward people. But not so with Mr.
Hoffman; the necessities of his theories compel him to explain away
every apparent advantage in favor of the Negro. The author announces
with an implied negative response to the suppressed question: "It
remains to be shown whether the educational process which the race has
undergone during the past quarter of a century and the additional
efforts and opportunities for religious instruction have materially
raised the race from its low social and economic condition at the time
of emancipation."[49]

This statement needs no refutation, for it will fall beneath the
ponderous weight of its own absurdity.

CRIMINAL RECORD.

The following table, if unexplained, tells a startling tale of the
Negro's criminal propensity:

_Prisoners in the United States, 1890._[50]

Total. Male. Female.

White 58,052 53,519 4,433
Colored 24,277 22,305 1,972

Male, Female,
per cent. per cent.

Proportion of Negro criminals to total (over 15) 29.38 30.79
Proportion of Negro population to total (over 15) 10.20 11.09

The Negro element, which constitutes only 12 per cent of the population,
commits 30 per cent of the crimes. Before concluding that this
preponderance of crime is due to "race traits," let us examine more
closely into the circumstances of the case. The discrepancy in the
administration of the law in the South has undoubtedly some effect upon
this relative showing. In order to escape the charge of slander, I will
use the words of a distinguished Virginian who boasts of "my southern
ancestry, birth, rearing, residence and interest."

"And is not the law the same for all, and does it make any distinction
between rich and poor, white and black? Literally, the law is the same
for all. Then what more can be desired? The trouble is not that the