DAILY MEAL SOCIETY.

The main object of this society is denoted by its name.  It supplies a daily meal to those who are otherwise unprovided for.  A commodious house had just been completed in the suburbs of the town, capable of lodging a considerable number of beneficiaries.  It is designed to shelter those who are diseased, and cannot walk to and fro for their meals.  The number now fed at this house is from eighty to a hundred.  The diseased, who live at the dispensary, are mostly those who are afflicted with the elephantiasis, by which they are rendered entirely helpless.  Medical aid is supplied free of expense.  It is worthy of remark, that there is no public poor-house in Antigua,—­a proof of the industry and prosperity of the emancipated people.

DISTRESSED FEMALES’ FRIEND SOCIETY.

This is a society in St. John’s:  there is also a similar one, called the Female Refuge Society, at English Harbor.  Both these societies were established and are conducted by colored ladies.  They are designed to promote two objects:  the support of destitute aged females of color, and the rescue of poor young colored females from vice.  The necessity for special efforts for the first object, arose out of the fact, that the colored people were allowed no parochial aid whatever, though they were required to pay their parochial taxes; hence, the support of their own poor devolved upon themselves.  The demand for vigorous action in behalf of the young, grew out of the prevailing licentiousness of slave-holding times.  The society in St. John’s has been in existence since 1815.  It has a large and commodious asylum, and an annual income, by subscriptions, of L350, currency.  This society, and the Female Refuge Society established at English Harbor, have been instrumental in effecting a great reform in the morals of females, and particularly in exciting reprobation against that horrid traffic—­the sale of girls by their mothers for purposes of lust.  We were told of a number of cases in which the society in St. John’s had rescued young females from impending ruin.  Many members of the society itself, look to it as the guardian of their orphanage.  Among other cases related to us, was that of a lovely girl of fifteen, who was bartered away to a planter by her mother, a dissolute woman.  The planter was to give her a quantity of cloth to the value of L80 currency, and two young slaves; he was also to give the grandmother, for her interest in the girl, one gallon of rum!  The night was appointed, and a gig in waiting to take away the victim, when a female friend was made acquainted with the plot, just in time to save the girl by removing her to her own house.  The mother was infuriated, and endeavored to get her back, but the girl had occasionally attended a Sabbath school, where she imbibed principles which forbade her to yield even to her mother for such an unhallowed purpose.  She was taken before a magistrate, and indentured herself to a milliner