E. M. Van Cleve,
Hillsborough, Highland County, Ohio.
Harper's Young People is a splendid paper. I would advise every one to take it.
I would like to exchange birds' eggs with some correspondent. To any one sending me ten eggs I will send ten in return.
J. F. Wells,
Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada.
A Constant Reader.—During early colonial times both Indians and negroes were held as slaves in Massachusetts, and advertisements of negroes for sale were common in the Boston News Letter and other publications of the day. Ship-loads of fresh importations of negroes were constantly arriving from the African coast. Meanwhile the feeling against slavery was steadily gaining ground, and much public discussion on the subject took place. The exact date of the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts is a disputed point, but it is generally conceded to have legally taken place at the time of the adoption of the State Constitution in 1780, although advertisements of slave property for sale appear in the newspapers of a later date. In 1788 the Legislature of Massachusetts passed an act to prevent the slave-trade, inflicting a heavy fine upon any citizen of the commonwealth who should import, transport, buy, or sell any of the inhabitants of Africa as slaves, or fit out vessels to be employed in the traffic.
Public feeling was for a long time hostile to the negro race, and during the early part of the present century "blacks" were repeatedly warned to depart out of the commonwealth, the pretext being to avoid the increase of a pauper population, "which threatened to become both injurious and burdensome."
C. S. M.—About what animal do you desire to know the habits? You left your sentence unfinished.