Mr. Roundell, lateSecretary the Jamaica Ceremission, read - a very thoughtful
paper before the Social Science Congress yesterday week on the beat mode of treating subject races like the negroes of Janzaica,so .to avert the danger a such outbreaks as that of last year. His two practical conclusiona,,that Jamaica .needs above all things good and cheap justice and niare capital ;' and a system of assigning the abandoned lands to negroes at a fixed rent and a tolerably heavy taxation, with the chance of .obtaining the fee simple after a term of years, are not new, but. are, we believe, true and adequate for their purpose. But the first thing to be done is, undoubtedly, to undo the wretched legislation of the last twenty-five years in Jamaica. Any one -who wants to see the seeds of the whirlwind which we have just. ;been reaping, should read Mr. J.:M. Ludlow's masterly summary -of the legislation of Jamaica during the last quarter of a century. Here is a specimen. By 28 Victoria, c.1-9, two justices—probably planters,—may apprentice out forfive years any boy or girl under -sixteen convicted before them of sucking a piece of sugar-sane torn from an open cane-field, if the culprit be proved' to their :satisfaction "to be leading an idle and yegrahlt life, not at- tending .school, ox beirs.aufficiently under the control of his or her parents." That is virtually power to enslaye Jor five ,y,e4r§ any child ,tv.hote „the magistrates are pleased to think id1P.
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