Page:Letters on the condition of the African race in the United States.djvu/27

Rh he heard his own child had been necessitated to beg from door to door. I never, in my whole life, heard of a slave begging alms. But I find that, in the fullness of my heart, I have already transcended the bounds of a letter, and therefore must defer the description of the lowest classes of colored people in Philadelphia. The facts I have accumulated, I shall feel it my imperative duty to disseminate among the members of Congress; and as I possess the printed pamphlets themselves, that were written, not by the enemies of the free negroes, but by gentlemen of observation, philanthropy, and ability, who were evidently aiming to show off the better class of colored people, as in a state of enviable prosperity in Philadelphia, I hope to gain serious and candid consideration for these startling facts. Truth is mighty, and must prevail; and so it happened that two letters, descriptive of the destitution of the degraded class of negroes in Philadelphia, found their way into the same statistical pamphlets that were designed to give the most flattering accounts of the progress of civilization among the black freemen of the North.

, Nov. 20, 1851.

, in my last letter, to reveal to you the condition of the degraded fugitive slaves, and the degraded colored people generally, who infest the Northern cities, but particularly New York and Philadelphia.

Our fugitives from labor, you know, are almost always those who will not work; who are lazy, obstinate, and brutal in their passions, and, indeed, perfect desperadoes; who gain a livelihood by stealing, and other extempore means. You remember that one of these runaway negroes of Mr. Moultrie shot and killed his own fellow-servant not long since. I was very curious, therefore, to find out if such murderous, lazy villains, could be enticed from South Carolina, and, under the revolutionizing patronage of the abolitionists, become respectable, dignified, and wealthy ladies and gentlemen; but now, my brother, listen to me, when I assure you that the moral, industrious, enterprising negro freeman, in Philadelphia, accumulates the same comforts for his wife and children,