Viewing page 120 of 208

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

234   COLORED POPULATION

7. 5th Query.-"How many churches of each denomination?" In the whole city, there are six Methodist churches, two Presbyterian, three Baptist, one Episcopal, one Lutheran, and two public halls.
8. 6th Query.-"How many actually, and how many comparatively wit the white population, are paupers, and supported on public charity?" From a paper, very carefully drawn up, and presented to the legislature in 1832, we collect the following facts. In the year 1830, it appears that out of 549 out-door poor, relieved during the year, only 22 were persons of color. The colored paupers admitted into the alms-house for the same period, did not exceed four per cent.of the whole number. The amount of taxes paid by them could not be fairly ascertained; but from imperfect returns, it appears that they pay not less than 2,500 dollars annually; while the sum expended for the relief of their poor, out of the public funds, has rarely, if ever, exceeded 2,000 dollars a year. The amount of rents paid by them is found to exceed 100,000 dollars annually.
9.7th Query.-"How many actually, and how many comparatively, are in criminal institutions?" We have not been able to obtain official information on this point; but we learn, generally, that for crimes of magnitude, their proportion is very small; while in cases of petit larceny, they fall a

IN PHILADELPHIA.     235

little below the whites in the scale of moral virtue. One fact, however, in their favor, is worthy of consideration, viz.., many of the colored "criminals" are among the youth, who are shut out of the House of Refuge, to which the whites have access. Very few of the former are admitted, on account of the prejudice against their color.
10. 8th Query.-"How many religious, charitable, and literary institutions are supported by the colored people?" The religious establishments supported by them are enumerated in the answer to the fifth query. They have more than sixty beneficent societies, some of which are incorporated, for mutual aid in timeof sickness and distress. The members of these societies are bound by rules and regulations, which tend to promote industry and morality among them. Each one pays into the treasury, weekly or monthly, a sltipulated sum.
11. They expend annually, for the relief of their sick and distressed, more than 9,000 dollars out of funds raised by themselves for mutual aid. Some of these associations number from fifty to one hundred members each, not one of whom has ever been convicted of crime, in any of the courts. Besides the institutions above mentioned, they have two tract societies, two Bible societies, two temperance societies, two female literary institutions, one moral reform society, and one library