ll
will be beggars, and we must starve_!"

Poor Miss L. is one of that unfortunate class who have hitherto gained a
meagre support from the stolen hire of a few slaves, and who, after
entire emancipation, will be stripped of every thing. This is the class
upon whom emancipation will fall most heavily; it will at once cast many
out of a situation of ease, into the humiliating dilemma of _laboring or
begging_--to the _latter_ of which alternatives, Miss L. seems inclined.
Let Miss L. be comforted! It is better to beg than to _steal_.

We proceeded from Morant Bay to Bath, a distance of fourteen miles,
where we put up at a neat cottage lodging-house, kept by Miss P., a
colored lady. Bath is a picturesque little village, embowered in
perpetual green, and lying at the foot of a mountain on one side, and on
the other by the margin of a rambling little river. It seems to have
accumulated around it and within it, all the verdure and foliage of a
tropical clime.

Having a letter of introduction, we called on the special magistrate for
that district--George Willis, Esq. As we entered his office, an
apprentice was led up in irons by a policeman, and at the same time
another man rode up with a letter from the master of the apprentice,
directing the magistrate to release him instantly. The facts of this
case, as Mr. W. himself explained them to us, will illustrate the
careless manner in which the magistrates administer the law. The master
had sent his apprentice to a neighboring estate, where there had been
some disturbance, to get his clothes, which had been left there. The
overseer of the estate finding an intruder on his property, had him
handcuffed forthwith, notwithstanding his repeated declarations that his
master had sent him. Having handcuffed him, he ordered him to be taken
before the special magistrate, Mr. W., who had him confined in the
station-house all night. Mr. W., in pursuance of the direction received
from the master, ordered the man to be released, but at the same time
repeatedly declared to him that the _overseer was not to blame for
arresting him_.

After this case was disposed of, Mr. W, turned to us. He said he had a
district of thirty miles in extent, including five thousand apprentices;
these he visited thrice every month. He stated that there had been a
gradual decrease of crime since he came to the district, which was early
in 1835. For example, in March, 1837, there were but twenty-four persons
punis