colored people of Canada were doing better than the free negroes in the United States; the settlers at New Canaan were reported to be making extraordinary progress, considering the length of time they had lived there; and out of a colored population of seventy-eight at Gosfield all of the heads of families, with two or three exceptions, were freeholders.[670] Dr. Howe, who visited the houses of the colored people in the outskirts of Chatham and other large places, described them as being for the most part small and tidy two-story houses with garden lots about them, neatly furnished, the tables decently spread and plentifully supplied. He was convinced that the fugitive slaves lived better than foreign immigrants in the same region, and clothed their children better.[671] [668] Howe, _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, p. 63. [669] Still, _Underground Railroad Records_, p. xvii. [670] _A North-Side View of Slavery_, pp. 94, 119, 147, 234, 321, 344, 348, 376, 378. [671] _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, pp. 63, 64. See also Mitchell's _Underground Railroad_, pp. 130, 131, 133, 135, 137-139, 142-144, 146, 148 _et seq._ The relation of the slave to his wife and children was a precarious one in the South, especially in the border region from which most of the Canadian exiles came. Slave-breeding for the Southern market was extensively carried on in Virginia, Kentucky and other border states; slave-traders made frequent trips through this section; and their coming brought consternation, distress and separation to many a slave-family. These and other violations of the domestic ties might be expected to react on the home life of the slave-family, tending to discourage regard for the forms of family life, and to take away incentive to constancy. In view of such degradation it is surprising to note the care taken by many refugees for the formal legitimation of the alliances made by them in slavery. Once secure in their freedom and in their domestic relations, they began to substitute for the marriage after "slave fashion" the legal form of marriage, which they saw observed about them in Canada. Dr. Howe noticed that the fugitives settled themselves in families, respected the sanctity of marriage, and showed a general improvement in morals.[672] [672] _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, pp. 95, 101, Appendix, pp. 109, 110. In her book, _A Woman's Life Work_, p. 193, Mrs. Laura S. Haviland reports some interesting cases of this sort. This recognition of a new standard of social virtue signifies a great gain on the part of the refugees. As the withholding of any real instruction from the slaves in the South helped to brutalize them, so their moral elevation in Canada went hand in hand with their enlightenment through schools and religious teaching. What advantages were afforded them in the way of education in their new abiding-place, and what measure of benefit did they derive from these opportunities?