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434 Philadelphia (though it is doubtless much too low for a city which has the largest colored population of any city in the United States, except New Orleans and Washington), if it be accepted for Philadelphia, where 4 per cent of the population is colored, we shall find that the Negro domestics "run ahead of their ticket" here also in this matter of household service.

The probable reason for this disproportion is not far to seek when we remember the unpopularity of domestic service which keeps whites out, and reflect that the colored prejudice, which is known to operate against the Negro in nearly all departments of labor excepting drudgery, actually works in his favor in the matter of domestic service, where the competence of Negro waiters and the superior skill of Negro cooks is generally admitted. Hence, Negro labor, following the line of least resistance, flows in enlarged streams into the channel of domestic service.