commonwealth under
circumstances in which white men went free. The more severe industrial
discrimination at the North, which drove large numbers to an alternative of
destitution or crime, was furthermore contributive to the special excess of
negro criminality there.

[Footnote 81: The number of convicts for every 10,000 of the respective
populations was about 2.2 for the whites and 13.0 for the free colored
(with slave convicts included) at the South, and 2.5 for the whites and
28.7 for the free colored at the North. _Compendium of the Seventh Census_,
p. 166. See also _Southern Literary Messenger_, IX, 340-352; _DeBow's
Review_, XIV, 593-595; David Christy, _Cotton Is King_ (Cincinnati, 1855),
p. 153; E.R. Turner, _The Negro in Pennsylvania_, pp. 155-158.]

In some instances the violence of mobs was added to the might of the law.
Such was the case at Washington in 1835 when following on the heels of a
man's arrest for the crime of possessing incendiary publications and his
trial within the jail as a precaution to keep him from the mob's clutches,
a new report was spread that Beverly Snow, the free mulatto proprietor of
a saloon and restaurant between Brown's and Gadsby's hotels, had spoken in
slurring terms of the wives and daughters of white mechanics as a class.
"In a very short time he had more customers than both Brown and Gadsby--but
the landlord was not to be found although diligent search was made all
through the house. Next morning the house was visited by an increased
number of guests, but Snow was still absent." The mob then began to search
the houses of his associates for him. In that of James Hutton, another free
mulatto, some abolition papers were found. The mob hustled Hutton to a
magistrate, returned and wrecked Snow's establishment, and then held an
organized meeting at the Center Market where an executive committee was
appointed with a view to further activity. Meanwhile the city council held
session, the mayor issued a proclamation, and the militia was ordered out.
Mobs gathered that night, nevertheless, but dispersed after burning a negro
hut and breaking the windows of a negro church.[82] Such outrages appear to
have been rare in the distinctively Southern communities where the racial
subordination was more complete and the antipathy correspondingly fainter.

[Footnote 82: Washington _Globe_, about August 14, reprinted in the _North
Carolina Standard_, Aug. 27, 1835.]

Since the whites everywhere