At the same time there was a meeting of the parish committee on roads, at which there was the same intermixture of colors, the same freedom and kindness of demeanor, and the same unanimity of action.  Thus it is with all the political and civil bodies in the island, from the House of Assembly, to committees on jails and houses of correction.  Into all of them, the colored people are gradually making their way, and participating in public debates and public measures, and dividing with the whites legislative and judicial power, and in many cases they exhibit a superiority, and in all cases a respectability, of talents and attainments, and a courtesy and general propriety of conduct, which gain for them the respect of the intelligent and candid among their white associates.

We visited the house of correction for the parish of St. Andrews.  The superintendent received us with the iron-hearted courtesy of a Newgate turnkey.  Our company was evidently unwelcome, but as the friend who accompanied us was a man in authority, he was constrained to admit us.  The first sound that greeted us was a piercing outcry from the treadmill.  On going to it, we saw a youth of about eighteen hanging in the air by a strap bound to his wrist, and dangling against the wheel in such a manner that every revolution of it scraped the body from the breast to the ankles.  He had fallen off from weakness and fatigue, and was struggling and crying in the greatest distress, while the strap, which extended to a pole above and stretched his arm high above his head, held him fast.  The superintendent, in a harsh voice, ordered him to be lifted up, and his feet again placed on the wheel.  But before he had taken five steps, he again fell off, and was suspended as before.  At the same instant, a woman also fell off, and without a sigh or the motion of a muscle, for she was too much exhausted for either, but with a shocking wildness of the eye, hung by her half-dislocated arms against the wheel.  As the allotted time (fifteen minutes) had expired, the persons on the wheel were released, and permitted to rest.  The boy could hardly stand on the ground.  He had a large ulcer on one of his feet, which was much swollen and inflamed, and his legs and body were greatly bruised and peeled by the revolving of the wheel.  The gentleman who was with us reproved the superintendent severely for his conduct, and told him to remove the boy from the treadmill gang, and see that proper care was taken of him.  The poor woman who fell off, seemed completely exhausted; she tottered to the wall near by, and took up a little babe which we had not observed before.  It appeared to be not more than two or three months old, and the little thing stretched out its arms and welcomed its mother.  On inquiry, we ascertained that this woman’s offence was absence from the field an hour after the required time (six o’clock) in the morning.  Besides the infant with her, she had two or three other children.  Whether the care of them was any excuse for her, we leave American mothers to judge.  There were two other women on the treadmill—­one was sentenced there for stealing cane from her master’s field, and the other, we believe, for running away.