The _Dallas_ (Texas) _Times_ relates an unparalleled instance which occurred at the last term of the Ellis Co. District Court. A negro was tried and found guilty of conspiracy to murder. His defence had been strong but unavailing. The judge overruled a motion for a new trial, as no error of law could be alleged and the evidence seemed strong. When asked what he had to say, the prisoner answered that he could say nothing which would change the sentence the court was about to pronounce upon him, but he would like to speak a few words to his own people in the court-room. Leave being given, he began in a slow, quiet way to review the case. He dissected the evidence in a most masterly way, showing its inconsistencies and contradictions; and gradually warmed up until he burst forth into a strain of impassioned eloquence which carried audience and court with him. When he finished, the judge said, “Sam, I thought you guilty; I don’t believe so now, and will set aside the judgment overruling your motion for a new trial, and give you another chance.” The attorney for the prosecution then dismissed the case. He was an uneducated, common field hand; and yet there are some who think the negro incapable of doing anything higher than hoeing cotton under a white man’s supervision. When Gen. Howard was in Andover, Mass., the other week, visiting his son in Phillips Academy, he was introduced to a colored man, who asked him if he remembered an answer given by a colored boy at the Storr’s School, in Atlanta, some years since, to his question, “What shall I tell the people of the North?” “O, yes,” said the General. “A little boy in a white jacket said, ‘Tell them we are rising.’” “Well,”said the young man, “that boy has kept his promise. He has risen and is doing noble, manly work for his people.” He has become editor of the _Journal of Progress_, one of the fifty-four papers now edited by colored men in this country. * * * * * _Then and Now._—Nineteen years ago, John G. Fee was waited upon by sixty-two citizens of Bracken Co., Ky., with a peremptory demand that he should leave the county. One of these, an influential and wealthy man, has recently called on him and requested him to give an address on education for the benefit of an institution which the citizens of that county have built. This building is used as an academy. The school is flourishing, having a large number of pupils and three teachers. The door is opening wider and wider, while the number of adversaries grows smaller: many of them deserting, and becoming co-laborers with us in this work. * * * * *