The New York _Independent_, always on the alert for information concerning the colored people, and fearless in its championship of those people’s rights, has published under the above caption seven most interesting articles. A circular was sent to two hundred representative intelligent colored men and women in the several Southern States, “to ascertain the prevailing opinions and feelings of the colored people themselves about the relation of the races and the outlook of the colored race.” The seventh article, which is a summary of the answers received, we take great pleasure in publishing: “_Material Prosperity and Ambition of the Negro._––There is a practically unanimous opinion (the dissenting opinions coming from a few communities which have abnormal hindrances) that the colored people are becoming home owners with great rapidity. The proportion of families who own their own homes is variously estimated, and no estimate is trustworthy for statistical uses. But all the correspondents report an ambition to accumulate property, and the accumulation of more and more every year. The great mass of the blacks are not real estate owners. The great mass of black families are yet tenants; but the progress making in the acquisition of land seems to be satisfactory. In most Southern communities, land is yet very cheap, and the mere ownership of land does not argue material prosperity to any great extent; but the ownership of homes does argue a social advancement that is exceedingly significant. There is reported from some communities a lingering opposition by the whites to the disposition of land to Negroes. But this has had the natural effect to make the Negroes the more ambitious to become land-owners. In most communities this opposition seems to have disappeared, or at least to have taken the modified shape of opposition to the Negroes’ acquisition of the most desirable land for residences. The race is indisputably laying the foundation for all healthful progress.