It is a very unhealthy state of things, to say the least; but as the sheriff considers it his own, perhaps we have no right to meddle with it.
All this clamor about the bad influence of “colored seamen” is kept up by a set of mendicant officials who harvest upon the fees, and falls to naught, when, at certain hours of the day during their imprisonment, they are allowed to associate with “bad niggers,” committed for criminal offences and sale. If their presence is “dangerous,” it certainly would be more dangerous in its connection with criminals of the feared class.
Take away the fees—the mercantile community will not murmur, and the official gentry will neither abuse nor trouble themselves about enforcing the law to imprison freemen.