Page:On the motion of Sir George Strickland; for the abolition of the negro apprenticeship.djvu/35

27 natural course was to place them in a tabular form; and I shall now give the most important of the results, particular by particular, point by point. He has done otherwise: as he has read individual statements respecting free children who are tended by their parents alone, so I could read an account from a magistrate who states that they are neglected by their mothers, but supported by the planters; but I shall look for general results. He boasts that he has thrice read the documents: what avails it, when his repeated perusals have only enabled him to read partial extracts which coincide with his views, and to make that general allegation respecting the effect of their evidence as a whole, which I will utterly overthrow by the process I have stated.

With hardly an exception, they testify to the good disposition of the negroes.

As respects the reciprocal feeling of employers and employed, nine only of the fifty-five report it to be otherwise than good. I deeply regret that there are nine such reports: but let us not forget the forty-six.

As respects the nine and eight hour systems, the House should know that this has been one of the great causes of bickering: I will not detain you by explaining the phrases further than to say, that they denote different distributions of the time legally exigible, of which the first is taken to be more convenient to the negro than the other. Now of the fifty-five, twenty-nine only make a special report on