AFRICAN POPULATION.
We have another disturbing element in the negro population, a large portion of which is unfitted for a republican government by ignorance and social debasement, but fortunately free from the violence and turbulence of the lower class of immigrants. This degradation is fast being removed by education and the ambition inspired by freedom. The latter is shown by the formation of the Afro-American League for the protection of the blacks, especially in the Southern States, and the advancement of their interests and influence. This idea originated with Mr. Fortune, the editor of the New York Freeman.
Few are aware of the progress of negro education. We have already 16,000 colored teachers. In the Southern States alone there are said to be 1,000,000 of pupils,—in the male and female high schools, 15,000. There are sixty normal schools, fifty colleges and universities, twenty-five theological seminaries, and in the churches 3,000,000 worshippers. The colored population pays taxes on from 150 to 200 millions of dollars.
The black race will be free from slavery at the close of this century. The Brazilian Parliament passed a law for gradual emancipation in 1871, when there were about 2,000,000 slaves. In 1885, the number was reduced to 1,200,000, and measures have been introduced to hasten the completion of emancipation.
In Cuba, slavery seems to be at an end. The queen regent of Spain has signed a decree freeing the Cuban slaves, some 300,000, from the remainder of their term of servitude. The work, thus consummated, began in 1869, which provided for the conditional emancipation of certain classes of slaves in Cuba, and for the payment of recompense to the owners of the men and women liberated. From the first, slave-owners have been paid for their slaves.