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 ili 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.
__ _

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. Pm 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 from 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. Pan 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 Pan 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
the institutions as au unmixed and monstrous evil.
Having sketched the history of slavery to our own
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 I'im 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 non-slaveholding States the
proportion of those so afflicted were much greater
than in the slave States, and he inferred from these
statements the inferiority Gf 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 negro 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 Stepliensou Kaye purely

and for ever emancipated him by the introduction of
an agency more powerful still. He has no right,
however, and civilised man has no right to allow
him, to pass his existence without in any way con-
tributing to the advancement of mankind. Capt.
Pim next proceeded to apply the principles he had
endeavoured to establish to the explanation of the
insurrection of the:negroes in Jamaica, and to the
measures adopted by Governor Eyre for its suppres-
sion. In this portion of his paper he spoke in very
severe terms of those who had censured the governor
for his energetic proceeding. In reference to the
proclamation of martial law and the trials by court-
martial, he said his countrymen generally confound
the two ; but there cannot be a greater mistake.
The latter is a law applied to the trial of naval and
military men who voluntarily make themselves
amenable to it by the act of joining the respective
services. It is written law, based on the Articles of
War and the Mutiny Acts, and also on the custom of
the service, to use the technical term. Martiallaw,on
the contrary, is in fact the absence of law. The Duke
of Wellington's definition is clear, and, like everything
that has emanated from that great man, to the pur-
polfe. " Martial law," he said, "is neither more
npp less than the will of the general who commands
the army ; in fact, martial law means no law at
$11; therefore the general who declares martial law,
and commands that it should be carried into execu-
tion, is bound to lay down the rules, regulations,
and limits, according to which his will is to be car-
ried out." The removal of Mr. Gordon from King-
ston to Sc. Thomas-in-the-East was, in Captain
Pim's opinion, in strict accordance with the laws of
the land, and he contended that the trial was deli-
berate and impartial, and that the officers who tried
him constituted a competent tribunal. Alluding to
the conduct of the Government at home in the mat-
ter, he condemned in no measured terms the treat-
ment that Governor Eyre had received, and he con-
trasted it with what it would have b9en if Lord
Palmerston had been alive. "On Governor Eyre's
devoted head," he observed, " will descend all the
wrath of Exeter Hall and its followers ; and, al-
though he will, doubtless, come out of the furnace
unscathed in reputation, yet the anxiety and trouble
he is now enduring must make him an old man
before his time. Little did he think when the news
of Lord Palmerston's death reached Jamaica that
he, of all men, would soon have bitter cause to re-
gret the loss of a statesman who never turned his
back on a loyal and dutiful public servant. To the
thinking Englishman and true lover of his country
a lesson has been taught, of no small import, by a
withdrawal of the curtain which usually shuts out
from public view the weaknesses, follies, and vacil-
lations of official routine. In the conduct of Jamaica
affairs we have W.cl ourselves open to the sneers of
both Europeans and Americans, and no one can
foresee what mischief may accrue to us from the
exhibition lately witnessed in high quarters."
Captain Pim contended that some well-con-
sidered plan of firmly governing the blacks
must be adopted, or the whites will shortly, in
self-preservation, be compelled to abandon Jamaica.
He expected the latter alternative, because the prin-
ciples on which distinct races ought to be governed
are not yet understood by our rulers. The negro
should be made to work ; he had been encouraged
to look upon liberty as license, and thirty years
of such teaching has vastly prejudiced his ad-
vance in civilisation, and at the same time ruined his
country. All practical men were united to the belief
that the first step to remedy the evils under which
Jamaica groansis the abolition of the Assembly,and
constituting the island a Crown colony. After this
primary step, he suggested that certain laws should
be enacted, with special reference to the blacks—a
vagrant act, for example—the sole punishment
banishment. If the negro is idle and debauched,
he should be sent out of the country ; those who
are disposed to work should be hired by contract,
for a given term ; breach of contract on either side
severely punishable ; no penitentiary or prisons as a
premium to negro sloth, but the one punishment—
banishment. Hayti, which is within sight of
Jamaica, should be selected as the locality for the
future residence of those negroes to whom the new
regulations in Jamaica might prove distasteful.
The laws of Hayti exclude the whites from any
rights whatever, but the country is open to a black
man, who becomes a citizen at once ; and we have
no doubt that the Jamaica blacks, leaving their
country for their country's good, would be received
with open arms by the Haytien brethren. At all
events, some well-considered plan of governing the
blacks must be adopted, or the whites will be com-
pelled to leave the island. At the conclusion of the
paper, and frequently during the reading of it, there
were loud bursts of applause, especially at those pas-
sages in which the negrophilists of Exeter Hall were
mentioned, and Governor Eyre was praised.
Several gentlemen personally acquainted with
Jamaica and with the negroes of Africa took part
in the discussion, including Mr. Aria, Mr. Semper,
Judge Hibbert, Mr. Winwood Iteade, Mr. Harris,
and Dr. Hunt, every one of them joining in their
commendation of the conduct of Governor Eyre,
for whom three hearty cheers were given before the
meeting separated.