-laRrrisn SLAVERY AND ITS ABOLITION;--- -By W. L. Mathieson, LL.D.
(Longman. 16s.)—Figures may be dull things, but theyappeal to the informed imagination, and here are some which bear on the slave trade. A conservative estimate puts the loss in negro inhabitants to Africa at 100,000,000 souls, of whom, what with mortality on board ship and the seasoning process on landing, only 50 per cent. lived to be effective labourers on the plantations. Between 1690 and 1820, 800,000 negroes were landed in Jamaica, yet in the latter year only 340,000 were alive on the island ; grinding labour, white cruelty; and venereal disease had accounted for the remainder. It is odd that, as Dr. Mathieson observes, the story of British slavery in the West Indies has not been told before, but it is now, rather soberly perhaps, considering, the lurid character of the subject, yet very adequately provided. It is no matter for national gratulation that, while the Spanish system made it its " main object to promote the moral and social welfare of the slave," and long after a costermongcr in Great Britain was forbidden to ill-treat his donkey, the slave-owner of the British dominions was permitted by public opinion, if not by law, to pound the life out of his slave.
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