slaves. A slave was accounted guilty of heavy crimes on the very
lightest sort of evidence, and the penalties imposed seem to us out of
all proportion to the acts. Arson, for instance, was a particularly
heinous offence--when committed by a negro. The negro riots, which
form such an exceedingly black chapter in New York's history, and
which horrify our more humane modern standards with ghastly pictures
of hangings and burnings at the stake, were often caused by nothing
more criminal than incendiarism. One very bad period of this sort of
disorder started with a trifling fire in Sir. Peter Warren's
house,--the source of which was not discovered,--and later grew to
ungovernable proportions through other acts of the same sort.

As late as 1819, a young negro girl named Rose Butler was hanged in
our Square before an immense crowd, including many women and young
children. Kindly read what the New York _Evening Post_ said about it
in its issue of July 9th:

"Rose, a black girl who had been sentenced to be hung for
setting fire to a dwelling house, and who was respited for a
few days, in the hope that she would disclose some
accomplice in her wickedness, was executed yesterday at two
o'clock near the Potter's Field."

And in Charles H. Haswell's delightful "Reminiscences," there is one
passage which has, for modern ears, rather too Spartan a ring:

"A leading daily paper referred to her (he speaks of Rose)
execution in a paragraph of five lines, without noticing any
of the unnecessary and absurd details that are given in the
present day in like cases; neither was her dying speech