One of the most striking characteristics of this colored peasantry is their desire to obtain education for themselves and their children. After a hard day's work, women would often walk miles, with babies in their arms, to learn the alphabet. With the first money they can spare they build school-houses and chapels and hire teachers. They also form charitable societies and contribute money to help the aged and sick among them. In the days of Slavery they herded together like animals; but now it is considered disreputable and wrong to live together without being married. In the days of Slavery they wore ragged and filthy garments, but freedom has made them desirous of making a neat appearance. Their working-clothes are generally well mended and clean, and they keep a pretty suit to attend meeting and other festival occasions. They are very careful of their best clothes. When they go to dances, or social gatherings, they carry them in a basket, nicely folded and covered up, and put them on when they arrive; and when they are about to return home they again pack them up carefully. When they have far to walk to meeting, over rough and dusty roads, they carry their shoes and stockings till they come in sight of the church. This is not at all like what the old planters prophesied, when they said that if the negroes were freed they would skulk in the woods and steal yams to keep them from starving. But all that silly talk has passed away. Everybody in the British West Indies acknowledges that emancipation has proved a blessing both to the white and the black population. There is not a planter to be found there who would restore Slavery again, if his own wish could do it. FOOTNOTE: [7] The northern part of Great Britain is called Scotland, the southern part England. The entire people are called British. THE LAST NIGHT OF SLAVERY. BY JAMES MONTGOMERY. Let the floods clap their hands! Let the mountains rejoice! Let all the glad lands Breathe a jubilant voice! The sun, that now sets on the waves of the sea, Shall gild with his rising the land of the free! Let the islands be glad! For their King in his might, Who his glory hath clad With a garment of light, In the waters the beams of his chambers hath laid, And in the green waters his pathway hath made. Dispel the blue haze, Golden Fountain of Morn! With meridian blaze The wide ocean adorn! The sunlight has touched the glad waves of the sea, And day now illumines the land of the FREE! MADISON WASHINGTON. BY L. MARIA CHILD.