A writer in The Pall Mall Gazette, who signs himself
"W. R. G.," has contrived, we think, to reach the ne plum ultra of philosophical wickedness. In a thoughtful and temperate letter, marred as a composition only by half a dozen unproved assertions, he suggests that as the war has killed slavery the moral duty of the Americans is to re-enslave the negroes. They will not, he says, work, and the Americans will not amalgamate with them, and they will therefore drive them out bite the Indians. The choice is in fact between com- pulsory labour and extermination, "and what true friend of the negro and humanity would hesitate between them?" Not one, we . trust, but the alternative to be chosen is not the first. All men must die, and the extinction of one race is infinitely better than the permanent degradation of two. As a matter of fact, however, the alternative is as imaginary as the choice is bad. The negro will work, if not efficiently then inefficiently, but still work, and as for amalgamation, did "W. R. G." never hear of two castes living side by side in amity without amalgamation ? The Brahmin and Sudra do not amalgamate even illicitly, but they are absolutely on a together admirably well. There
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