William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 2

[139] difference as to whether Negroes and Mulattoes. are better lodged and fed in freedom than they were in servitude. Exceptions may occur, but as a rule the coloured people live in worse houses and eat less healthy food. A man sucks more canes, and chews more quids; yet eats less wholesome food, and occupies less wholesome rooms. Child murder, the vice of every savage tribe, has come to be a common crime.

Negroes are averse to rearing offspring. Children give much trouble, cost much money, and involve much care. In servitude the Negress was compelled to nurse her offspring, for her children were property. In freedom, she is left to instinct; and the instinct of a Negress, like that of a Mongol and a Fijian, sometimes tempts her to this form of murder. Papals and Bulloms slay their issue in Africa; and American teaching has not rooted out this African custom in America. In a state of freedom the original genius of a race is likely to return. In South Carolina, a Negro, living under freedom, has to feed and clothe his child, and every dollar spent on his baby's food and clothes, is so much loss to him in quids and drams. Child murder, I