prominent feature, one building devoted to the coloured people being capable of receiving 1,000 scholars.

There is in Charleston a well-organized system of medical relief, and much attention is paid to sanitary conditions and arrangements. The city is divided into five health districts, over each of which there is appointed a physician in charge, with an office and dispensary, where attendance is given an hour every morning and an hour every afternoon. The physicians are also required, when called upon, to visit certain public institutions— such as the Alms House, the Old Folks' Home, the Small-pox Hospital-situated in their districts. From the annual report for last year of Dr. Lebby, the City Registrar, which is very full, it appears that the total mortality of whites was 220 males and 233 females-453; and of blacks, 421 males and 497 females -918. The greatest mortality of whites occurred in the months of June, July, and August, and of blacks in July, August, September, and October. Of the 453 whites who died, 181 were children of five years and under; and of the 918 blacks who died, 461 were children of five years and under-the mortality of infants among the coloured people being proportionately much greater than among the whites. Both races seem equally long-lived, though the coloured people would seem to have the advantage. Among the deaths are recorded 33 whites from 70 to 80 years, 9 from 80 to 90 years, and 6 from 90 to 100 years; and 44 blacks from 70 to 80 years, 29 from 80 to 90 years, and 10 from 90 to 100 years. But the remarkable fact is the greatly larger mortality of the negroes, in proportion to their total number, as compared with the white people. The census taken last year by order of the Governor, and generally accepted as substantially correct for Charleston, gave the population of the city as 20,354 whites, and 24,570 blacks and coloured. On this basis, the mortality of 1869 shows one death in 44·93 whites, and one death in 26'77 coloured people. In other words, very nearly twice as many coloured people died as white people in proportion to their respective numbers. Before the war this disparity in the mortality of the two races was not so marked. The returned population of Charleston in 1860 was 26,969 whites, and 21,440 coloured. The mortality of whites in that year was 719, or one in 37-5, and the mortality of coloured people 753, or one in 28-47. The health of the whites has greatly improved since the war, while the health of the negroes. has declined, till the mortality of the coloured population, greater than the mortality of the whites before the war, has now become so markedly greater, that nearly two coloured die for every one white person out of equal numbers of each. To those accustomed to think of slavery only as prolific of every form of evil, this increased mortality of the negroes under emancipation

may appear surprising. But when one considers the strict, almost domestic control under which the slaves were kept in Charleston, how they were cared for when young and provided for when old, and how their number in the city was kept down to the actual demand for their services, one finds natural reasons enough for an increased liability to death in the severe ordeal they have passed through since their emancipation. In 1860 there were 5,529 more white than coloured people in Charleston. There are now 4,217 more black and coloured than whites. The absolute increase of the negro population of Charleston since 1860 is 3,130. They flocked in from the country at the close of the war, deserting the Sea Islands in large bodies, and produced all the evils of overcrowding at a time when the white population, who could alone employ and maintain them, were not only thinned in numbers, but reduced to poverty, and the trade and wealth of the town were destroyed. Such a state of things could only have a disastrous effect on health and life, the traces of which still remain. The physicians in charge of the health districts also complain of the extreme carelessness of the negroes in following their advice, and administering the medicines prescribed. A negro woman will come with her sick child to the dispensary at the morning hour, but does not return in the afternoon or next day as she ought, but makes her appearance a few days after to announce that she administered some charm of her own, and that the little patient is dead. New classes of disease are also notable in the returns of negro mortality—such as consumption, from which they used to be peculiarly exempt, and diseases which spring from immoral causes. Yet with all this access of negro mortality in Charleston, the whole deaths in 1869 were not more than 1 in 3277, which it would be quite possible to match, and even exceed, in the mortality returns of various large cities of the United Kingdom. But if the negro population and mortality of Charleston be excluded, and the white population only considered, there is a degree of healthfulness which is almost unequalled in large towns of the old country. The mortality of whites in 1869 in Charleston was only 1 in 44.93. The mortality of all England in the same year I find to have been 1 in 44:17, and of all Scotland 1 in 42:52.

I imagine there is much nonsense thought and spoken about the unhealthiness of these Southern countries and Southern seaports. Any passing impressions of mine, indeed, would be a very unsafe guide; for I have been travelling in an atmosphere so bright and clear, and yet so temperate and agreeable, and so pleasant by night and day, as to form a rather fascinating contrast to the climate of the United Kingdom at the same season of the year. This is the famous "Indian summer" of the South, and Charleston has its earlier and fiercer summer, when there is

a considerable amount of sickness, and when febrile affections prevail. But this city has been singularly free from all epidemic disease for some years past. On the hottest day in 1869 the mean temperature at 2 P.M. was 86-77, and the thermometer is never known to rise above 97 degrees; while in eight months of the year the temperature has an equable range from 50 to 65 degrees, with fair weather, and rainfall only heavy at very rare intervals, as the prevailing characteristics of the climate. No doubt the health of the town owes much to the well-organized staff of medical officers and the efficient arrangements made for the treatment of disease among the poorer classes. I was politely shown through the City Hospital by Dr. Lebby-an establishment of great extent, marked by scrupulous cleanliness and order, and devoted equally to white and coloured subjects. The white female ward is probably as lightsome, airy, and fine a sick-room as is to be seen in a public hospital anywhere. There is a lunatic ward, the inmates of which are chiefly blacks of a very low order. There were only two white women in the number-one of whom, a lady of Italian origin, had been driven to distraction in her matrimonial relations. Surgical cases, some of them very difficult, are also treated with marked success, the proportion of negroes operated upon being about 6 to 1 of whites. There is no general registry of births and marriages in Charleston, which detracts from the light thrown by its otherwise ample vital statistics on the physical and social condition of the population.

That the negroes are improving, and many of them rising under freedom into a very comfortable and civilized condition, is not only admitted in all the upper eircles of society, but would strike even a transient wayfarer like myself in the great number of decent coloured men of the labouring class and of happy coloured families that one meets. There is an institution in Charleston which early attracted my attention. In Broad Street one sees the office of the National Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company. I believe this form of National Savings Bank for the negroes was founded by the Freedmen's Bureau in the first years after the war. It has spread over all the chief towns of the South, and has already in deposit upwards of two millions of dollars, almost entirely the savings of the negro population. The deposits in the Charleston branch were 165,000 dollars at the end of October, and are monthly on the increase. Go in any forenoon, and the office is found full of negroes depositing little sums of money, drawing little sums, or remitting to distant parts of the country where they have relatives to support or debts to discharge. The Freedmen's Savings Bank transacts a general exchange business betwixt the various points at which it has branches. Perhaps "branches" is not the exactly proper

designation, for each bank is an independent corporation in itself, has a subscribed capital, is governed by its stockholders, and is altogether probably too like an ordinary commercial bank for the humble functions it has to discharge. Yet there is a certain degree of national concentration and control. The banks are under the patronage and protection of the Federal Government, and from the centre at Washington a monthly Circular is published, which reports the progress of all the various offices, and contains an amount of general matter very suitable to the negroes, and very desirable for them to read, The funds are for the most part invested in the Federal Debt, the high interest of which enables from 5 to 6 per cent. to be paid to the depositors. But the Federal Government does not appear to be bound to make good to the depositors any loss accruing from the failure of a bank through embezzlement or any other cause. The responsibility in such a case would fall on the subscribed capital of the stockholders so far as it was sufficient to make good the deficiency. There is an opening in this state of affairs for partial and local disasters, which is happily closed in the National Security Savings Banks of the United Kingdom. But practically the Freedmen's Savings and Trust Companies do for the negroes what our National Savings Banks do for the working classes of England, Scotland, and Ireland; and it is gratifying to find that the negroes have in five years accumulated nearly half a million sterling of deposits. This result is the more significant since it is confined almost wholly to what were formerly the Slave States, and is but very feebly developed in New York and other Northern towns where it has been tried. The number of depositors in Charleston is 2,790, of whom nine-tenths are negroes. The average amount at the credit of individual depositors is about 60 dollars. The negro begins to deposit usually with some special object in view. He wishes to buy a mule and cart, or a house, or a piece of land, or a shop, or simply to provide a fund against death, sickness, or accident, and pursues his object frequently until it has been accomplished.

While some portion of the former slaves are probably sinking into an even worse condition than the first, there are others who are clearly rising, both morally and socially. The system of free labour, as was to be expected, will thus, in its own rough but salutary way, sift the chaff from the wheat; and but for the electoral antagonism of the moment, and the parading more than enough of negroes as senators, as policemen, as militia, as the armed force and the dominant power of the State, the relations of the two races on both sides would here be more kindly and cordial, and the prospects of the negroes themselves more hopeful than could well have been anticipated.

CHAPTER IX.

The Capital of South Carolina.-The State Fair a failure.-Usury.-Governor Scott on the Position of Affairs. The Blue Ridge Railway project.-Mr. Treasurer Parker on Taxation and Negro Free Labour.-Political Opinions of the Farmers.-Arguments for and against Payment of Negro Farmlabourers by Wages or Share of the Crops.-Railway Freight.-Cottonbagging and the Price of Cotton.

[COLUMBIA, S.C.-Nov. 15-16.]

It was on the morning of the first frost this season in the South that I was landed on the railway platform here from Charleston. Day had just broke, and nothing could be more inspiriting than the clear sky and sharp air, the paling moon and stars being just visible and no more, as the glorious effulgence along the eastern horizon shot its golden light up to the zenith. The country all round cultivated and interesting. The hills, or rather mounds, lower and rounder, the hollows less deep and abrupt, and the whole landscape presenting a more swelling outline than at Richmond in Virginia, with woods no more than enough for ornament. The hotels in these parts are very obliging. They send carriages to the railway depôts for guests, whether they can entertain them or not, while an express company's van picks up the baggage, for both of which services a handsome fee has to be paid. Columbia is a city of such "magnificent distances" that a stranger is never quite sure when he is in it or out of it. I am conscious of having arrived at the depôt, and of being there in the country; of having by-and-by seen a stately building on an eminence which was clearly the Capitol, and two or three church spires about as widely apart as such objects may be seen in any English country landscape; of having been set down at a hotel full from floor to roof with country-people who had come in to the State Fair; and finally, of having sauntered forth to look for another inn and found myself in the country again. Columbia, it will be remembered, was completely burned down by Sherman in the war, the State House being almost the only building that was spared or, fireproof, proved impervious to the flames. The town is being built up anew by degrees, and