of
whites, it shows a tendency to improve similar to that of the white
population when a fairly impartial treatment is accorded.

As with health, so with other phases of the Negro's city life. There
is no place for pessimism. Improvements in intelligence and in moral
conditions can not be counted by case and set down in figures and
tables.[23] But any one at all familiar either by reading or
recollection with the condition of the Negro at the beginning of his
freedom, who now takes an impartial and unprejudiced view of his
intellectual and social life in urban communities, will come to no
other conclusion than that in the face of peculiar whims and
prejudices a large and increasing number in the group is arising to
the full consciousness of a freeman and has assimilated the best that
America affords in morals and intelligence; and that they are vitally
concerned for the uplift of themselves and their people, persistently
seeking to partake of all that makes for progress.[24]

For the whole Negro population in cities some light is thrown upon
developments by the few facts at hand on crime among Negroes.[25]
Statistics of crime are, of course, of limited worth in judging of
moral conditions. Arrests and prison commitments have many factors
which figures do not show and are quite as much a commentary upon the
white communities at large as upon the unfortunate Negro law-breakers.
Yet, along with other facts, these records of crime are a part of the
social barometer.

An analysis of three periods of crime (prior to 1866-1867; 1867 to
1880, and 1880 to 1903) made by Mr. Monroe N. Work gives indicative
results. Speaking of arrests per thousand of the Negro population in
nine cities, he says,[26]

Taking the period from 1866 to 1882, it appears that at some
time during this period the arrest-rate, with the possible
exception of St. Louis, for each of the cities decreased. From
1882 to 1892-1896 there was, with some exceptions, a marked
increase in the arrest-rates of the several cities. This was
especially true of Chicago, Cincinnati, Washington and St.
Louis. From 1892-1896 to 1902-1903 there appears to have been a
general tendency for the Negro arrest-rates of these cities to
decrease. It appears that, on the whole, we are warranted in
concluding that for the nine cities considered, the rate of
Negro arrests per thousand of the Negro population is
decreasing.

The ra