where the ordinary people sit, and all listen quietly to the overture. Occasionally a gentleman leaps from his carriage and, going to the side of a couple of elegantly dressed ladies, holds an animated conversation with them. Indeed, this is the afternoon reception for the Romans. Everybody in society is here, and there are many exchanges of compliments and many solicitous inquiries about the health of each individual member of the various families. The music ceases, and the coachmen drive their horses forward, around the circle of Pincian Hill. The Water Clock tells the time of day above the heads of a flourishing brood of little ducks, and two graceful white swans glide in a dignified manner across the tiny pond. The German priests, robed in scarlet, move about under the trees, adding another touch of color to the gorgeous scene. Hark! the band begins again! This time it is the "Victor Emmanuel March." A high cart comes around the curve, and in a flash the King, driving with the sweet-faced Queen seated by his side, whirls by, received with respectful salutations from all the crowd. The last piece is being played and the carriages go swiftly down toward the Corso. The sun is getting low, and St. Peter's dome is resplendent in silver gleams of light. Monte Mario lies like a mass of emerald on the right. The birds are singing in the Villa Borghese, below the steep wall of the Pincio. One by one the people go away, and twilight falls over Rome, that pleasure-satiated, beautiful city, lying as a gem, encircled by a border of amethystine mountains. Compensation By CLARENCE H. URNER The dewdrop on the wilding bloom, Afar from earthly pomp withdrawn, Feels not the lonesome desert's gloom, For in its clasp it holds the Dawn. T HERE is much speculation as to the ultimate destiny of the Negro population in the United States. History furnishes no exact or approximate parallel. When widely dissimilar races are thrown in intimate contact, it is inevitable that either extermination, expulsion, amalgamation, or the continuance of separate racial types will be the outcome. So far as the present problem is concerned, extermination and expulsion have few serious advocates, while amalgamation has no courageous ones. The concensus of opinion seems to be that the two races will preserve their separate identity as co-inhabitants of the same territory. The main contention is as to the mode of adjustment, whether it shall be the co-ordination or subordination of the African. All profitable speculation upon sociological problems must be based upon definitely ascertained social tendencies. It is impossible to forecast coming events unless we stand within the pale of their shadow. The Weather Bureau at Washington, discerning the signs of air and cloud and sky, makes probable predictions of sunshine or storm. Such predictions are not for the purpose of enabling us to affect or modify approaching events, but to put ourselves and our affairs in harmony with them. Sociological events have the inevitableness of natural law, against which speculations and prophecies are as unavailing as against the coming of wind and tide. Prescient wisdom is serviceable only in so far as it enables us to put ourselves in harmony with foreknown conditions. Plans and policies for the solution of the race problem should be based upon as full a knowledge of the facts and factors of the situation as it is possible to gain, and should be in line with the trend of forces which it is impossible to subvert. Social tendencies, like natural laws, are not affected by quackery and patent nostrums. Certain of our sociological statesmen are assuming intimate knowledge of the eternal decrees, and are graciously volunteering their assistance to Providence. They are telling us, with the assurance of inspiration, of the destiny which lies in store for the black man. It is noticeable, however, that those who affect such familiarity with the plans and purposes of Providence are not usually men of deep knowledge or devout spirit. The prophets of evil seem to derive their inspiration from hate rather than love. In olden times when God communicated with man from burning bush and on mountain top, He selected men of lowly, loving, loyal souls as the chosen channel of revelation. To believe that those who breathe out slaughter and hatred against their fellow-men are now his chosen mouth-piece is to assume that Providence, in these latter days, has grown less particular than aforetime in the choice of spokes men. The most gifted of men possess very feeble clairvoyant power. We do not know the changes that even a generation may bring forth. To say that the Negro will never attain to this or that destiny, requires no superior knowledge or foresight except audacity of spirit and recklessness of utterance. History has so often changed the "never" of the orator into accomplished results, that the too frequent use of that term is of itself an indication of heedlessness and incaution. It is safe to follow the lead of Dr. Lyman Abbott, and limit the duration of the oratorical "never" to the present generation. When, therefore, we say that the Negro will never be expelled or amalgamated, or that he will forever maintain his peculiar type of race, the prediction, however emphatically put forth, does not outrun the time which we have the present means of foreseeing. The fortune of the Negro rises and falls in the scale of public regard with the fluctuation of mercury in the bulb of a thermometer ranging alternately from blood heat to freezing point. In 1860, he would have been considered a rash prophet who should have predicted that within the next fit teen years colored men would constitute a potent factor in state legislatures and in the national Congress. On the other hand, who, in 1875, would have hazarded his prophetic reputation by predicting that during the the following quarter of a century the last Negro representative would be driven from places of local and national authority, and that the opening of a new century would find the last two amendments to the Constitution effectually annulled? No more can we predict what change in public feeling and policy the remote or "We call our fathers fools, Our wiser sons, no doubt will The late Professor Freeman, in his "Impressions of the United States" suggests a unique solution. of the race problem: viz.-let each Irishman kill a Negro and get hanged for it. In this way America would be speedily rid of its race problems, both Ethiopic and Celtic. We read this suggestion and smile, as no doubt the author intended we should. And so we smile at the panaceas and nostrums that are being put forth with so much ardor of feeling. Many such theories might be laughed out of existence if one only possessed the power of comic portrayal. While we muse, the fire is burning. But alas, we lack the discernment to read aright the signs of the times. Physical population contains all the potential elements of society, and the careful student relies upon its movement and expansion as the controlling factor in social evolution. It is for this reason that the federal census is so eagerly awaited by those who seek careful knowledge upon the race problem in America. There are certain definitely ascertainable tendencies in the Negro population that seem clearly to indicate the immediate, if not the ultimate destiny of that race. Amid all the conflicting and contradictory showings of the several censuses since emancipation, there is one tendency that stands out clear and pronounced: viz. the viz. the mass center of the Negro population is moving steadily toward the Gulf of Mexico. Notwithstanding the proffer of more liberal political and civil inducements of the old abolition states of the North and West, the mass movement is in the Southerly direction. The industrial exclusion and social indifference of the old free states are not inviting to the African immigrant, nor is the severe climate congenial to his tropical nature. The Negro population in the higher latitudes is not a self-sustaining quantity. It would languish and gradually disappear unless constantly reinforced by fresh blood from the South. Although there has been a steady stream of immigration for the past forty years, yet 92 per cent of the race is found in the states which fostered the institution of slavery at the time of the Civil War. The thirty-one free states of the North and West do not contain as many Negroes as Alabama. There is no likelihood that the Negro population will scatter itself equally throughout the different sections of the country. We should not be misled by the considerable Northern movement of the last census decade. This period was marked by unusual unrest in the South, and many of the more vigorous or more adventurous Negroes sought refuge in the cities of the North. But evidently this tendency is subject to sharp selflimitation. In the lower tier of the Southern States, comprising Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas, there has been a steady relative gain in the Negro population, rising from 39 per cent of the entire race in 1850 to 53 per cent in 1900. On the other hand the upper tier including Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, showed a decline from 54 to 37 per cent during the same interval. The census shows an unmistakable movement from the upper South to the Coast and Gulf States. The Negro constitutes the majority of the population in South Carolina and Mississippi, and also in Louisiana, outside of the City of New Orleans. The colored race forms the more numerous element in the group of States comprising South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, a contiguous territory of 290,000 square miles. Within this region the two races seem to be growing at about the same pace. During the last decade the Negro rate of increase exceeded the white in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, but fell below in South Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana. But the State as the unit of area, gives us a very imperfect idea of the relative and general spread and tendency of the Negro element. The movement of this population is controlled almost wholly by economic and social motives, and is very faintly affected by State boundaries or political action. The Negro is segregating in the fertile regions and along the river courses where the race was most thickly planted by the institution of slavery. This shaded area extends from the head of the Chesapeake Bay through Eastern Virginia and North Caro- separate spaces. not 17 is the Southerner's vote cause given added weight by reason of the black man whose representative power he usurps. A closer study of the black belts reveals the fact that they include the more fertile porThe master tions of the South. settled his slaves upon the rich, productive lands, and banished the poor whites to the thin and barren regions. These belts are best adapted to the culture of cotton, tobacco, rice and sugar cane, the staple productions in which the South has advantage over other sections of the country. The Negro by virtue of his geographical distribution holds the key to the agricultural development of the South. A clearer idea of the distribution of the Negro population can be gotten by taking the county as the unit of area. The number of counties in which the Negroes out-number the whites has risen from 237 in 1860 to 279 in 1900. This would make a section as large as the North Atlantic division of States. The black belts and white belts in the South are so are With in these counties there are, on the one. There seems to be some concert of action on the part of the afflicted |