attorneys, with their huge law books and green bags before them. The bar
was surrounded by a motley assemblage of black, colored, and white
faces, intermingled without any regard to hue in the order of
superiority and precedence. There were about a dozen cases adjudged
while we were present. The court was conducted with order and dignity,
and the justices were treated with great respect and deference both by
white and black.

After the adjournment of the court, we had some conversation with the
presiding justice. He informed us that whites were not unfrequently
brought before him for trial, and, in spite of his color, sometimes even
our own countrymen. He mentioned several instances of the latter, in
some of which American prejudice assumed very amusing and ludicrous
forms. In one case, he was obliged to threaten the party, a captain from
one of our southern ports, with imprisonment for contempt, before he
could induce him to behave himself with proper decorum. The captain,
unaccustomed to obey injunctions from men of such a complexion, curled
his lip in scorn, and showed a spirit of defiance, but on the approach
of two police officers, whom the court had ordered to arrest him, he
submitted himself. We were gratified with the spirit of good humor and
pleasantry with which Mr. J. described the astonishment and gaping
curiosity which Americans manifest on seeing colored men in offices of
authority, particularly on the judicial bench, and their evident
embarrassment and uneasiness whenever obliged to transact business with
them as magistrates. He seemed to regard it as a subject well worthy of
ridicule; and we remarked, in our intercourse with the colored people,
that they were generally more disposed to make themselves merry with
American sensitiveness on this point, than to bring serious complaints
against it, though they feel deeply the wrongs which they have suffered
from it, and speak of them occasionally with solemnity and earnestness.
Still the feeling is so absurd and ludicrous in itself, and is exhibited
in so many grotesque positions, even when oppressive, that the sufferer
cannot help laughing at it. Mr. Jordon has held his present office since
1832. He has had an extensive opportunity, both as a justice of the
police court, and as a member of the jail committee, and in other
official stations, to become well acquainted with the state of crime in
the island at different periods. He informed us that the number of