ce; and even
that pittance did not go to the servant, but was paid into the treasury
of the county, and thus relived the white men from their proper share
of taxation. There may have been more cruel laws enacted, but the
statute-books of the world might be searched in vain for one of meaner
injustice.

The foregoing process for restoring slavery in a modified form was
applicable to men or women of any age. But for "minors" a more speedy
and more sweeping methods was contrived by the law-makers of Alabama,
who had just given their assent to the Thirteenth Amendment to the
Constitution. They made it the "duty of all sheriffs, justices of the
peace, and other civil officers of the several counties," to report
the "names of all minors under the age of eighteen years, whose parents
have not the means or who refuse to support said minors," and thereupon
it was made the duty of the Court to "apprentice said minor to some
suitable person on such terms as the Court may direct." Then follows
a suggestive _proviso_ directing that "if said minor be the child of a
freedman" (as if any other class were really referred to!) "the _former
owner_ of said minor shall have the preference;" and "the judge of
probate shall make a record of all the proceedings," for which he
should be entitled to a fee of one dollar in each case, to be paid, as
this atrocious law directed, by "the master or mistress." To tighten
the grasp of ownership on the minor who was now styled an apprentice,
it was enacted in almost the precise phrase of the old slave-code that
"whoever shall entice said apprentice from his master of mistress, or
furnish food or clothing to him or her, without said consent, shall be
fined in a sum not exceeding five hundred dollars."

The ingenuity of the Alabama legislators in contriving schemes to
re-enslave the negroes was not exhausted by the odious and
comprehensive statutes already cited. They passed an Act to
incorporate the city of Mobile, substituting a new charter for the old
one. The city had suffered much from the suspension and decay of trade
during the war, and it was in great need of labor to make repairs to
streets, culverts, sewers, wharves, and all other public property. By
the new charter, the mayor, aldermen, and common council were empowered
"to cause all vagrants," . . . "all such as have no visible means of
support," . . . "all who can show no reasonable cause of employment or
business in the city," . .