New-York daily tribune., 1858-11-05

There are plenty Of them N Virginia, and we
think We have seen them in Georgia. But lei US
hear Mr.. Cobb himself upon that point.
In sslsvehosiing State, the greatest evidence Of
wealth IN the planter is the number II his slaves. The
uloet desirable property for remuneratiye income is
slaves. The best property leave 10 his children,
snd from which they viii part with the greatest re-
luctance, is slaves Hence: the planter invests ms
surplus income in slaves. The natural result - that
lands are q secondary consideration. No surplus Is
left for their Improvement. The homestead Is vaIaed
only long the adjacent lands are prontaoie Tor
cutiy s,iou The planter himself, having no local AZ
tachmen.s his children inherit On the contrary,
b. encourages in them dispoSitout 10 seek new lands
His valuable property bis slaves are easily removed
TO fresh lands much easily than to bring the Ter
tizng materials the old. The result il that they, as
q class are never settled. Such population is almost
nomadc IL is useless seek ~ excite patriotic emo
tious in behalf Of the land Of birth when senterest
speaks so oudy. On the other hand, where no Slavery
exists and the planter surplus cannot be invested IN
lsborers Il Is appropriated 20 the improvement or
extension Of his farm the beautiiyng Of the home
stead where his fathers are bured ana where he hopes
TO die. Of course speak Of classes, not o indy -
nails. The result is the withdrawal oi al ln|es ents
from the improvements Of the lands, enotheF ueicse-
rious effect of Slavery TO the state.
Whatever the desolation of Jamaica, whatever
The decline OF the splendor hospitality, and great
estates for which she was once distinguished, Vr
einia, as Slave State has gone through the same
process, and now barely contriyes ~ make both
ends meet, not merely by scourging her slaves-to
borrow an expression from Gov. Wise, into scourg-
ing what they can out of her worn out lands-but
mainly-a resource which Jamaica does not pos
sess-by selling off all the increase of her negroes
to stock the new cotton plantations OF the South
West, which in their turn are undergoing like
rapid deterioration, under that nomadic system OF
agriculture which Mr.. Cobb 80 graphically de-
.crbes. Jamaica and the other British West India
colonies are now gradually passing out OF this
nomadic state The negroes are acquiring home
,teads which they are already beginning to beau
tfy, and we trust that by the end of the century,
the island may come as much to resemble New
England, as it does now the worn-out sections of
Georgia.
Mr. Cobb is IS much mistaken in what he says
of the emancipated negroes of the Free States, as
in his accounts of the West Indies. Accurate IN
formation on that subject was hardly to be OBJ
taned-if he will pardon us for suggesting it-from
slave catching Commissioners or dough-tace Gov
ernors. Little confidence rs he may have IN the
Judgment or honesty of Mr.. Garrison, or Theodore
Parker, he would have done much better to have
applied to them. They, at least, have given
some attention to the subject, and, therefore, have
4 chance to know something about it. The free
negroes of the North, of whom considerable part
are runaway slaves, or their children, had nothing
10 begin with, and almost everything to struggle
against, climate included. 1t is only within some
twenty years past that they have attracted any
sympathy or care from their white fellOw-ctizens.
Within that period their progress has been marked.
Whatever may be said Of their poverty or vices,
there is not town or city, in which any cons'dera'
bic number of them reside, that does not contain a
larger number of white people, who, taken as a
body, are in every respect, morally, Intellectually
and pecuniarily far below them.
Is it not a little rdiculous-does it not show the
extrayagant extent to which even an honest lawyer
will 20 in behalf of cause which he has warmly
espoused, to see sensible man like Mr.. Cobb
grayely urging as proof Of the natural interorty
and incapacty of the negroes that in the Colony OF
Liberia, with its eight thousand inhabitants, not
one child born in the colony, now thirty-hve years
old, is reported as having had "a liberal or clasS-
cal education" while the classical school y
established BY the Presbyteria numbered in
1852, orly eight out of the entire population !!
The population of Liberia is as great st the end
of thirty -four or six years as that OF Virginia was
after the expiration of similar period, and though
the one was settled by liberated negro slaves, aud
the other boasted some of the best blood of Eng
land We are inclined to suspect that OF the chill
dren born in the two colonies respectively great
many more of the Liberlans can read and write
than was the case with the young nstive-born
Virginians. Indeed, there are plenty of counties
at this moment in Mr.. Cobb own State of Georgia,
with larger white population than the total popu-
laton OF Liberia and negroes more or less to boot,
that in number of pupils and the education of their
children if the returns of the census can be trusted,
are far behind Liberia.
Upon the question of the capacity Of the negroes
for freedom and the possibility of their enjoying
side by side with the whites, Dir. Cobb passes by
the case of Brazil very gngersy. 1t appears, from
his own statement, that there are more free ne
groes in that rising empire than in the British
West Indies, Hayti and the United States, put TO-
Rether. Yet he has nothing to produce about any
tendency to return to barbarism on their part, or
any impossbility of their living On peaceful and
equal terms with the whites. On the other hand,
in the single paragraph which he deyotes to that
country, the total OF whose black population Is
equal to ours he informs us that at court in the
army, in haunts of business, everywhere may be
found freely mingling together persons Of every
hue" Nay more, the free negroes come ap even to
the Georgia standard of manhood and superiority.
They are frequently the owners Of numbers OF