Our able correspondent in New York has more than once
corrected us with some severity for believing that slavery is not practically abolished, and that President Johnson is not doing his duty in insisting on something more than abstract emancipation. We suppose he will scarcely contend that Mississippi is going on all right. The Committee appointed by the constitutional assembly to draft an Act in regard to the freedom of negroes have brought in a Bill, ordering the police to report every case of vagrancy on their beat under a penalty of 100 dole. (201.). Recognizances are to be furnished by the vagrants so reported,—whether white or black,—and if any vagrant fails to give satisfactory recogni- zances, why then "the said court may cause such vagrant to, for the first offence, be suspended by the thumbs not more than three times, nor less than one, for two hours at a time, according to the rule and manner in such cases of the army and navy of the United States ; or may order such vagrant to receive not more than fifty lashes on his or her bare back, for three days in succession, well laid on ;" and in addition, or as an alternative, send such vagrant to the poor-house of the county " for the balance of that year and the ensuing year " [a year and a half's imprison- ment, with hard labour, we presume], and for a second offence, double the same punishment may be given ; for a third, treble ; and so on, lashes or thumb-suspension increasing in arithmetical pro- gression with the number of vagrancy offences. Clearly the friends of the negro may trust hint safely to Mississippi mercy)•., What renders the matter more formidable is that it is not appa-'1 moldy aimed at him. In practice of course the police will wink
at white vagrancy, and make the negroes feel that a vagrant law means slavery, while the planters will bail the whites.
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