25 NOVEMBER 1966, Page 11

the pectator

November 24, 1866 Massachusetts has elected two "negroes," that is, fair men, with a drop of dark blood in them, to the State Legislature. They should have elected pure blacks, and so struck prejudice at the root; but even this is a great advance. The Catholic Counci;, too, sitting in Baltimore have decreed under orders from Rome that hence- forth no distinction shall be made in the religious education of blacks and whites. The immense strength of the prejudice may be, perhaps, best estimated from the fact that it has hitherto com- pelled Rome to relax one of the fundamental articles of her policy. It will now be possible for a negro to become a priest in South Carolina.