uttered some strange sentiments, and that the jury decided against Dr Pennington.

Mrs Webb, a coloured lady, apparently a quadroon, from the United States, has lately visited England on an elocutionary tour. Accomplished in manners, well educated, and every way acceptable as a guest in the houses of people of distinction, this lady has become well known for her elegant readings of the works of popular writers. It gives one a curious idea of American notions on colour, to know that this ladylike person has been subject to indignities in different

the United States, to shew that there was a line of demarcation between the two races, and asked the jury if a coloured man would be permitted to sit at the public table of the St Nicholas, or any of our principal hotels. He also stated that the number of cars provided by the defendants for the coloured people was larger in proportion to the population than the number for white people. Judge Slosson, in charging the jury, spoke of this as a peculiarly difficult case; the chief point for consideration being, whether the business and interests of the company would suffer, from allowing blacks an equality as passengers with whites. The jury, after two hours' deliberation, found a verdict for the defendants. The European quotes the following opinion from the New York Herald: 'Upon this point our northern people are remarkably squeamish, while we know that all over the South it is quite a common thing to see master and mistress and slave, whites and blacks, occupying the same stage or car, without any symptom of a turned-up nose on account of the presence of Pomp or Dinah.' The European adds the remark: 'If no legal distinctions were made in the free states between white and coloured men, the prejudice against the latter would soon disappear (it has no existence in Europe), and they would be allowed by the whites to work along with them, learn trades, and become lawyers and physicians. They are now a persecuted race-reviled, too, on account of the direct and inevitable consequences of the bad treatment to which they are subjected. When sick, they must be doctored, if at all, by a white physician; when their property, their lives, liberties, or reputations are imperiled by judicial procedures, if they have any counsel at all, he must be a white man-for no coloured man is, in this city, allowed to become a physician or a lawyer. It is different, however, in Massachusetts. This brutal prejudice, which exists in no other country, is encouraged by the slave-owners for their own purposes. The enforced degradation of the coloured man of the North is used as an argument for keeping up slavery in the South.'

parts of the states, for no other reason than she is not a pure white. She has mentioned to us, that in travelling through Pennsylvania, she was refused access to a railway-car, although she had purchased the appropriate ticket. On presenting herself for admission, the conductor put his arm across the door, to debar her entrance, and could not be induced to admit her. With much spirit, she stooped suddenly below his arm, and gaining an entrance, she pushed his arm down, to enable her husband to follow her into the car, where both received the congratulations of the passengers. The conductor was enraged, but, from the aspect of affairs, did not dare to expel them.

About a year ago, on visiting Boston, Mrs Webb went by recommendation to the Marlboro Hotel in that city. The Marlboro is known as 'the pious hotel.' It is an establishment celebrated for its religious usages-public prayers every morning, and a grace at every meal to which the guests assemble. Well, here, surely, she was safe? Quite the reverse. Mrs Webb was not allowed to attend prayers, nor to take her meals at the public tables, but compelled to remain in her own apartment. This was not all. The landlord had the meanness to charge the usual additional price for private meals, although remonstrated with, and shewn that exclusion from the public rooms was his own act. Much to the credit of the press of Massachusetts, this abominable treatment was strongly condemned; and we can fancy that by the drilling on the occasion, the Marlboro's sense of religious consistency must have undergone some improvement.

In Massachusetts and some other free states, coloured persons are legally recognised as American citizens; but this is only a local advantage. As formerly mentioned, the federal government does not allow that they belong to the category of citizens.

They are tolerated, and have a kind of protection; that is all. They will be given a pass, but not a passport. They are all of them 'niggers,' not Americans; and a few years ago it was no uncommon thing to hear an Irish or German immigrant, who had not been six months in the states, talk of sending the niggers out of the country, back to Africa, to which they belonged.

In the refusal of citizenship, the supreme government has forgotten the public services of the coloured race in the trying times of American history, when the clouds of adversity were most threatening. Answering to the call, blacks of every shade stood side by side with the whites in the revolutionary war. The first blood shed in the cause of American independence was that of Christopher Attocks, a mulatto, who was shot by British troops in the streets of Boston. In the swamps of the Carolinas, under the banners of Sumpter and Marion-with Lafayette at Yorktown, and with Washington at Valley Forge and Trenton-wherever the flag of the struggling Americans was unfurled, there might be found the negro cheerfully fighting for the national cause, for that liberty in which his descendants are denied to participate. Hundreds of coloured men, who are to-day deprived of all political privileges in the United States, can remember the scars displayed by their grandfathers-scars inflicted in defence of a country which has not only bestowed on their children obloquy and the hardest bondage, but denies their right to call themselves Americans.

To resume a former comparison, the free coloured people inhabiting the United States have, like the down-trodden Hebrew race in England and other parts of Europe, thriven under adversity. As the Jews, by being excluded from the enjoyment of common political privileges, bestowed their whole energies on certain branches of trade, and thus accumulated

immense wealth, so have the free coloured race- -negroes, mulattoes, quadroons, and so forth-betaken themselves to such industrial courses as were left open to them, and in many instances with the most favourable results. Though contemned or neglected, they form among themselves social circles of no mean quality. They dress as well as their white compeers; and in point of manners there is nothing, as a general rule, to find fault with. At all events, we can testify that the more aspiring among them who have visited Great Britain, do no discredit to the land of their nativity, and are treated in every respect as if they could boast of a purely Anglo-Saxon origin.

WHAT THE CLERGY THINK OF IT.

SLAVERY, and also the general prejudice against free people of colour, in the United States, are understood to have been in no small degree fortified by the conduct of the clergy of nearly every denomination-some better, some worse, but in too many instances, for the sake of conciliation, chargeable with perverting the religious doctrines which it is their duty to inculcate in a state of purity. It may be admitted that the position of clergymen, north as well as south, is exceedingly difficult and unpleasant. They see that the federal constitution and civil laws are in conflict with the law of the Gospel. Conviction may draw one way, livelihood another. Ministering to congregations who, to say the very least, are opposed to all action on the slavery question, it may be said their choice is in many quarters narrowed to the single point-either to follow public opinion, or give up preaching altogether, and so leave society in a state of spiritual destitution. Unfortunately, the American clergy do not confine themselves to passive obedience, nor with simply and conscientiously protesting on all suitable occasions against acts falling within the sphere of their duty. They industriously throw the weight of their influence and their dialectics on the side of slavery, which they make out to be a truly Christian institution, of the highest spiritual value to its victims; and, further, seize every opportunity of reviling those who advocate anti-slavery principles-calling them confusionists, infidels, and what not. Many clergymen in the South hold slaves; and also connive at their congregations possessing and