The Sun.
London, England, 1866-02-02 00:00:00

WORCESTERSHIRE.

The somewhat sudden spread of the disease in this
county this week has led to some additional orders
being issued by the magistrates. The plague, which
had hitherto been confined to the northern part of
the country, has now manifested itself at Knighton-
on-Teme, near Tenbury ; Leigh, about six miles
from Worcester ; at Severn Stoke, six miles on the
other side of Worcester, and at Chuddesley Corbett,
near Kidderminster, though at present in a very mild
form. These and some adjoining parishes have con-
sequently been proscribed by the Court of Quarter
Sessions at an adjourned sitting held this week, the
order being that no cow, heifer, bull, bullock, ox,
calf, sheep, lamb, goat, or swine shall be removed
out of these parishes to any other parish or place
adjoining, or from one farm to another in the said
parishes, under a penalty of £2O. The magistrates
have also made a further order prohibiting the re-
moval of hides, hoofs, and offal ia the county, ex-
cept in boroughs, where disinfectants must be used.
It was also agreed that sheep, swine, and goats
should be placed on the same footing as horned
cattle, being irremovable without a licence in con-
formity with the last order of the Privy Council.

The Insurrection of Negroes in Jamaica.

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Yesterday evening there was a special meeting of
the Anthropological Society at St. James's Hall, to
hear a paper read by Capt. Bedford Pim, R.N.,
entitled The Negro at Home and Abroad," in re-
ference to the insurrection of negroes in Jamaica.
The room was completely filled, when the president
of the society, Dr. James Hunt, took the chair.
Capt. Pl3l introduced the subject by some remarks
on the history and character of the negro from the
earliest known period to the present time, in lan-
guage, as he said, " somewhat different froin the
maudlin eulogiums bestowed upon the negro of
late by the enthusiastic negrophilists of Exeter
Hall. " Century after century," he observed,
" rolls away ; page after page of the hieroglyphics
is unfolded ; but not the smallest change is discover-
able in the condition of the negro. On the banks
of the Nile, I have myself carefully examined some
of the earliest hieroglyphics in which the negro is
depicted, and also some of a thousand years later ;
but it would have taken the eye of a microscope to
detect the slightest difference in any of the characte-
ristics of the race, although so wide an interval of
time had elapsed, and so close a connection with a
higher civilisation existed. Capt. Pim then proceeded
to consider the existing condition of the-negro in Af-
rica. In the interior of that continent, he said, we
have the most abundant testimony from all sorts of
eye-witnesses. Numbers of educated men have de-
voted their lives to explore and describe thepeople and
country, and from the time of Vasco de Gama to our
own the modern civilisation has been as much in con-
tact with Africa as the ancient. Travellers have ex-
plored the interior, sailors the coast line, men of busi-
ness have had practical dealings with the natives, but
there is only one opinion as to the innate cruelty of
the negro, his sensuality, his brutality under the in-
fluence of superstition, or when excited or misled, his
inbred sloth—in short, the almost total absence of
those attributes which enable other races of mankind
to advance in civilisation. Captain Pim contended
broadly for the right of civilised men to compel inferior
black races to work. The ancient custom, he said,
amongst civilised people of enslaving each other must
not be confounded with negro slavery; the " institu-
tions" are widely different. In the one case, men of
iron will and determination subjugated their less
daring fellow-countrymen, and by their aid made
great strides in the civilisation of the world, when
otherwise progress would be at a comparative stand-
still. In the other, a decidedly inferior race was res-
cued from a state of barbarism scarcely human, and
compelled to take a useful position ; theirrightto con-
tinue idlespectators of the toil of their fellow-crea-
tures being contrary alike to the laws of God and
man. No man, he said, can surely doubt that the in-
stitution of slavery has played a very important part
in the world's history, or that it has materially aided
the progress and advancement of mankind ; and that
it is simply falsifying all experience to stigmatise
tHhaeviinnsgtistkuetitoenhsedastahne
history of slavery to our own unmixed and monstrous evil.
time, he looked at the present condition of those who
live under this " peculiar institution," after being for
nearly a generation in a state of absolute freedom.
Although the geographical range of negro slavery
has been considerable, he said he should show that
the negro has not changed his characteristics, whether
located under the cold of a northern climate or the
heat of the tropics ; and, moreover, that while in
slavery he was incomparably better off than he is as
a freedman. Slavery has flourished in Spanish
America, the United States, and the West Indies ;
but of all countries England has derived the most
benefit from it. The slave-trade, he observed, may
emphatically be said to have laid the foundation of
our commercial greatness ; our cotton aristocracies
have been raised upon it ; while to it Liverpool and
Manchester mainly owe their prosperity. Never
had it fallen to the lot of any savages to enjoy so
many opportunities of elevating and improving
themselves as the negro, and the result had proved
how incompetent they are to appreciate European
civilisation. Captain Pim quoted from statistics of
the deaf and dumb and idiotic negroes in the free
and in the slave States of America, for the purpose
of showing that in the min-slaveholding States the
proportion of those so afflicted were much greater
than in the slave States, and he inferred from these
statements the inferiority of the negro, when re-
moved from control, not only to the white man, but
even to his fellows in slavery, and that the efforts

to elevate the negro will ever fail so long as they act

upon the unsound theory of
equality of races. Re-
ferring to his personal experience at Jamaica, Capt.
Pim said—" The most striking peculiarity is the

abandoned profligacy of the coloured races. Port
Royal and Kingston, in this respect, are sinks of
iniquity. Religion struck me as being at a very low
ebb everywhere. I remember in 1860 that the bishop
was compelled to reject the entire class assembled
for confirmation at Manchioneal. The Baptists'
revivals and prayer-meetings, if they had not ex-
cited in me a feeling of deep sorrow at the de-
pravity and hypocrisy which marked the proceed-
ings, would have been simply ludricous, the scream-
ing and chattering being more characteristic of a
meeting of monkeys than like an assemblage of men
and women ; and I am not surprised at the evident
anxiety of the leading Baptists in this country to
disclaim any spiritual connection with their black
imitators in Jamaica. In short, the unchecked de-
pravity of the &gm crops up on every side, details
of which would be quite unfit, for publication, and
which must be seen to be believed." The deductions
he drew from the character of the negro as he had
depicted it was, that the negro in a state of freedom
continues powerless to advance himself in civilisa-
tion, and that he is most improvable when under
moderate control. It is no longer expedient to make
a slave of him ; he has performed his part in the
world's history in that capacity ; and even, as he su-
perseded a weaker system of labour, the slavery of
the ancients, so Watt and Stephenson have surely