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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



upward of 3,000 applicants ; but, as only about 

 400 can be dispatched annually, we may believe 

 that there has been much careful selection, 

 whereby the purport of the phrase just quoted 

 may be justified. Notwithstanding this, Liberia 

 cannot be called a success. Its promoters, no 

 doubt, take an enthusiastic view of its affairs, but 

 there seems to be internal evidence in the official 

 publications of the colony to warrant a dispas- 

 sionate by-stander in sharing the opposite opin- 

 ion, which is much the more widely prevalent. 

 Thus the governor, in 1872, says: "The present 

 condition of our national affairs is most unsat- 

 isfactory and perplexing ; " and he speaks of 

 " shameful peculations and misapplications." 

 These strong words seem justified by a recent 

 transaction that shows the corrupt political life 

 of Liberia. In 1871 a shameful loan was nego- 

 tiated in England in the time of the then gov- 

 ernor, Mr. Roye. The sum nominally borrowed 

 was £100,000, at 7 per cent, interest, but issued 

 at 30 per cent, below par, and with an additional 

 deduction of three years' interest (or £21). That 

 is to say, he and a few others who acted with him 

 agreed to give £7,000 annually for a sum of only 

 £49,000 ; in other words, they borrowed at up- 

 ward of 14 per cent., but, owing to their own 

 malversations, they do not seem to have netted 

 much more than half of even that reduced sum. 

 Governor Eoye was arrested, tried, and found 

 guilty. He, however, escaped out of prison, 

 found his way to the sea-shore, and, seeing a boat 

 at anchor, plunged into the water and swam to it, 

 to get safe away out of the country. There was 

 no one on board ; he ineffectually endeavored to 

 climb into it, and, after swimming round it more 

 than once, was drowned, being hampered in his 

 efforts by the weight of a bag of money he had 

 tied round his waist. This episode in the politi- 

 cal life of the state is all the more disgraceful, as 

 the emigrants pose themselves in virtuous atti- 

 tudes. Thus upward of a third of the adult emi- 

 grants are described as " professors of religion." 



The experience of Liberia appears strongly 

 to show that the negro is little capable of forming 

 a state similarly organized to those of civilized 

 nations. If a band of selected negroes fail, what 

 can be expected from a miscellaneous multitude 

 of them ? 



There exists a belief among us that the su- 

 periority of Western ideas and civilization is so 

 unquestionable and absolute that we have only to 

 educate the negro in our ways, and he will adopt 

 them gladly. We have such confidence in our 

 own social ideas that we are apt to think that a 



few hundreds of intelligent Britons are sufficient 

 to set an example capable of spreading among 

 millions in Africa ; that by these means a widely- 

 spread industry will prevail, and lines of peaceful 

 commerce will open, and a negro Arcadia will 

 easily be made to flourish in that benighted con- 

 tinent. Past experience does not warrant the 

 conclusion that the immediate influence of the 

 white man can so prevail upon the black. What it 

 does show cannot be more clearly and justly stated 

 than it has been in a remarkable article written in 

 Eraser's Magazine, November, 1875, by a negro 

 of pure African extraction, Mr. Blyden, who was 

 then the principal of the Presbyterian High-School 

 in Liberia, and is at this moment the minister of 

 Liberia in England. It is entitled " Mohammedan- 

 ism and the Negro Race," and shows forcibly, on 

 the one hand, the civilizing influence of the Arab 

 upon the negro, and, on the other, the harmful 

 influence of the white man, even as a philanthro- 

 pist. Mr. Blyden says : 



" West Africa has been in contact with Christi- 

 anity for three hundred years, and not one single 

 tribe, as a tribe, has become Christian. Nor has 

 any influential chief yet adopted the religion 

 brought by the European missionary. From Gam- 

 bia to Gaboon, the native rulers, in constant inter- 

 course with Christians and in the vicinity of Chris- 

 tian settlements, still conduct their government 

 according to the customs of their fathers, where 

 those customs have not been altered or modified 

 by Mohammedan influence. The Alkali of Port 

 Loko, and the chief of Bullom, under the shadow 

 of Sierra Leone, are quasi Mohammedan. The 

 native chiefs of Cape Coast and Lagos are pagans. 

 So in the territory ruled by Liberia the native 

 chiefs in the four counties — Mesurado, Bassa, 

 Sinou, and Cape Palmas — are pagans. There is 

 not a single spot along the whole coast, except, 

 perhaps, the little island of Corisco, where Chris- 

 tianity has taken any hold among large numbers 

 of the indigenous tribes." 



Christianity, often of a very emotional and of 

 a debased kind, has had great hold on the black 

 population of the Southern States of America ; 

 but it has not increased their manliness and self- 

 respect, either there or elsewhere. On the con- 

 trary, as Mr. Blyden shows, it was conveyed to 

 them by whites who socially and otherwise made 

 it at the same time very clear to them that they 

 were a hopelessly inferior and subordinate race. 

 They therefore accepted Christianity as a religion 

 suitable to men living in a servile condition, since 

 it did not prompt them to assert themselves, but 

 told them to acquiesce in their yoke, and to bear 

 their present abject state with meekness, and in 



