rged, it is almost an
impossibility even to attempt to defend, if there be a white witness
against you, it being taken for granted that every Negro is a thief.
Now in courts of justice according to my judgment, and according to
the law, every man is presumed to be innocent until his guilt is
proven beyond a reasonable doubt, by legal evidence, and such evidence
must be furnished or obtained by the prosecution. But men are daily
convicted in our courts, simply because they are Negroes.

In concluding, let me say, that a majority of my people labor under
appalling disadvantages, but I hope that the time is not far distant
when our courts will be constituted as the "Altars of Justice," the
judges and their associates, as its priests, and the American citizen,
be his color what it may, can come and there receive at the hands of
unblemished and unspotted servants redresses for wrongs, compensation
for impeached innocence and justice for his wrongs.

The time is coming when all racial prejudice shall have passed away,
and when color will no longer impede our obtaining what is due us, and
when the Negro will receive a fair and impartial trial before a jury
of his peers; then will justice and equity rule sublime, and the Negro
being protected in all his rights; his liberty, life and reputation
will be held sacred, and virtue and worth will be considered; and man,
the prince of God's creation will be crowned for doing justice unto
man.

THIRD PAPER.

IS THE CRIMINAL NEGRO JUSTLY DEALT WITH IN THE COURTS OF THE SOUTH?

BY GEORGE T. ROBINSON, A. M., LL. B.

[Illustration: Capt. Geo. T. Robinson]

CAPTAIN GEORGE T. ROBINSON, A. M., LL. B.

George Thomas Robinson was born in Macon, Miss., January 12,
1854, of slave parents. An orphan, in 1865, he set out to
fight life's battles with no one to guide and protect him.
He has risen to a place of distinction--a journalist of
note, a lawyer of high standing, a learned professor of law,
an orator of repute, a molder of thought, and a reformer. He
received his first inspiration from a remark which he heard
Hon. C. S. Smith, now a bishop in the A. M. E. Church, make
to a public school of which he was a pupil. It was: "A boy
can make of himself whatever he has a mind to." George said
to himself, "I will make speeches, too." Since that time
Captain Robinson and Bishop Smith have delivered many
addresses