his is not the whole of the sad tale that must be recorded. Gloomy
as was the picture of crime among the colored people of New Jersey, that
of Massachusetts was vastly worse. For though the number of her colored
convicts, as compared with the whites, was as _one_ to _six_, yet the
proportion of her colored population in the penitentiary was _one_ out
of _one hundred and forty_, while the proportion in New Jersey was but
_one_ out of _eight hundred and thirty-three_. Thus, in Massachusetts,
where emancipation had, in 1780, been _immediate_ and unconditional,
there was, in 1826, among her colored people, about six times as much
crime as existed among those of New Jersey, where _gradual_ emancipation
had not been provided for until 1804.

The moral condition of the colored people in the free States, generally,
at the period we are considering, may be understood more clearly from
the opinions expressed, at the time, by the _Boston Prison Discipline
Society_. This benevolent association included among its members, Rev.
Francis Wayland, Rev. Justin Edwards, Rev. Leonard Woods, Rev. William
Jenks, Rev. B. B. Wisner, Rev. Edward Beecher, Lewis Tappan, Esq., John
Tappan, Esq., Hon. George Bliss, and Hon. Samuel M. Hopkins.

In the First Annual Report of the Society, dated June 2, 1826, they
enter into an investigation "of the progress of crime, with the causes
of it," from which we make the following extracts:

"DEGRADED CHARACTER OF THE COLORED POPULATION.--The first cause,
existing in society, of the frequency and increase of crime is the
degraded character of the colored population. The facts, which are
gathered from the penitentiaries, to show how great a proportion of the
convicts are colored, even in those States where the colored population
is small, show, most strikingly, the connection between ignorance and
vice."

The report proceeds to sustain its assertions by statistics, which
prove, that, in Massachusetts, where the free colored people constituted
_one seventy-fourth_ part of the population, they supplied _one-sixth_
part of the convicts in her penitentiary; that in New York, where the
free colored people constituted _one thirty-fifth_ part of the
population, they supplied more than _one-fourth_ part of the convicts;
that, in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, where the colored people
constituted _one thirty-fourth_ part of the population, they supplied
more than _one-third_ part of the convicts; and that, in New Jer