may be forbidden or declared null between persons of different race, and the tendency so to do is increasing very decidedly in the South, and is certainly not decreasing in the North.  Indeed, constitutional amendments are being adopted and proposed having this in view, “the purity of the race.”  Recent plays and magazine articles, with which most of our readers will be familiar, sufficiently bear out this point.

In property rights, however, I can find no legislation which discriminates against the negro, and there is some in his favor.  With the exception of the labor or peonage laws, discussed separately, I have found no legislation which limits his property or contract rights.  On the other hand, there is, in the several States, legislation requiring that he shall be given life or health insurance policies on the same terms and conditions as are applied to whites, despite the alleged fact that his expectation of life is less and not so easy to determine, owing to the lack of information as to the health and longevity of his forebears.  Sketching first thus our general conclusions it remains for us only to give a few concrete examples drawn from the legislation of the last twenty years: 

In 1890, soon after the civil-rights cases were decided, we find some State legislation to protect the negro in his civil rights; but the first “Jim Crow” laws, providing for separation in public conveyances, etc., began in 1865 and 1866 in Florida, Mississippi, and Texas, and are continued in other States in this year.  In 1892 there are laws for separate refreshment rooms and bath-houses, and providing that negroes and whites shall not be chained together in jails.  In 1893 there is legislation for separate barber shops, and the first law requiring equal treatment by life-insurance companies is passed in Massachusetts.  In 1895 there is legislation against the mixture of races in schools.  In 1898 the laws and constitutional provisions for practical negro disfranchisement begin in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana.  On the other hand, in 1900, New York passes a statute that there shall be no separate negro schools, and in 1901 Illinois adopts civil-rights laws, followed in 1905 by five other States.  In 1907 South Carolina makes it a misdemeanor to serve meals at station eating-houses to whites and blacks in the same room.  In 1908 Maryland and Oklahoma provide for separate cars and separate rooms.  In 1894 we find nine States prohibiting miscegenation.  In 1902 Florida makes miscegenation a felony, and in 1908 Louisiana declares concubinage between a Caucasian and a negro to be also a felony, while Oklahoma adopts the miscegenation law.

These examples of legislation are not intended to be exhaustive, but will serve to give the reader a general Idea of the trend of popular law-making in this important matter.