This is the characteristic fact of the life of the well-to-do Negro in New York. He is not permitted to go through the city streets in easy comfort of body or mind. Some personal rebuff, some harsh word in newspaper or magazine, quickens his pulse and rouses him from the lethargy that often overtakes his comfortable white neighbor. Looking into the past of slavery, watching the coming generation, the most careless of heart is forced into serious questioning. A comfortable income and the intelligence to enjoy the culture of a great city do not bring to the Negro any smug self-satisfaction; only a greater responsibility toward the problem that moves through the world with his dark face. Before turning to our last topic, the Negro and the Municipality, we ought to note two further characteristics of the Negro in New York. There are certain statistics quoted by every writer upon the Negro, statistics of mortality and crime. We have noted these for the child, but not as yet for the Negroes as a whole. They have been left until this point in our study that we may view them in relation to what we have learned of the Negro's economic condition and his environment. Looking for criminal statistics first, we find them difficult to obtain in New York. The courts' reports do not classify by color, but we can learn something from the census enumeration of 1904 of the prisoners in the New York County Penitentiary and the New York County Workhouse. These are short term offenders sent up from the city of New York. The enumeration is as follows: NEW YORK COUNTY PENITENTIARY (BLACKWELL'S ISLAND) ======================================================== | Total | Males | Females | Per cent | Per cent | | | | Total | Females --------+--------+-------+---------+----------+--------- White | 582 | 533 | 49 | 91.8 | 8.4 Colored | 52 | 33 | 19 | 8.2 | 36.5 ======================================================== NEW YORK COUNTY WORKHOUSE ======================================================== White | 1126 | 870 | 256 | 96.5 | 22.7 Colored | 41 | 12 | 29 | 3.5 | 70.7 ======================================================== In view of the proportion of Negroes to whites in Manhattan, two per cent, we find the percentage of colored prisoners high, but no higher than we expect when we remember that the Negro occupies the lowest plane in the industrial community, "the plane which everywhere supplies the jail, the penitentiary, the gallows."[1] But the very large percentage of crime among colored women calls for grave consideration. In the workhouse, imprisoned for fighting, for drunkenness, for prostitution, the colored women more than double in number the colored men. Here is a condition that we noted in the Children's Court records: an unduly large percentage of disorderly and depraved colored female offenders.