In this country, negro men are well fed, clothed, and lodged, and are gradually advancing toward freedom. Population therefore increases, although more slowly than would be the case were they enabled more to combine their efforts for the improvement of their condition. In the West Indies, Portugal, and Turkey, being neither well fed, clothed, nor lodged, their condition declines; and as they can neither be bought nor sold, they are allowed to die off, and population diminishes as the tendency toward the subjugation of the labourer becomes more and more complete. Which of these conditions tends most to favour advance in civilization the reader may decide. CHAPTER XII. HOW SLAVERY GROWS IN INDIA. In no part of the world has there existed the same tendency to voluntary association, the distinguishing mark of freedom, as in India. In none have the smaller communities been to the same extent permitted the exercise of self-government. Each Hindoo village had its distinct organization, and under its simple and "almost patriarchal arrangements," says Mr. Greig,[62]-- "The natives of Hindoostan seem to have lived from the earliest, down, comparatively speaking, to late times--if not free from the troubles and annoyances to which men in all conditions of society are more or less subject, still in the full enjoyment, each individual, of his property, and of a very considerable share of personal liberty. * * * Leave him in possession of the farm which his forefathers owned, and preserve entire the institutions to which he had from infancy been accustomed, and the simple Hindoo would give himself no concern whatever as to the intrigues and cabals which took place at the capital. Dynasties might displace one another; revolutions might recur; and the persons of his sovereigns might change every day; but so long as his own little society remained undisturbed, all other contingencies were to him subjects scarcely of speculation. To this, indeed, more than to any other cause, is to be ascribed the facility with which one conqueror after another has overrun different parts of India; which submitted, not so much because its inhabitants were wanting in courage, as because to the great majority among them it signified nothing by whom the reins of the supreme government were held. A third consequence of the village system has been one which men will naturally regard as advantageous or the reverse, according to the opinions which they hold, touching certain abstract points into which it is not necessary to enter here. Perhaps there are not to be found on the face of the earth, a race of human beings whose attachment to their native place will bear a comparison with that of the Hindoos. There are no privations which the Hindoo will hesitate to bear, rather than voluntarily abandon the spot where he was born; and if continued oppression drive him forth, he will return to it again after long years of exile with fresh fondness."