The special magistrate said that he was then engaged in classifying the apprentices of the different estates in his district.

The object of this classification was, to ascertain all those who were non-praedials, that they might be recorded as the subjects of emancipation in 1838.

To his astonishment he found numbers of this class who expressed a wish to remain apprentices until 1840.

On one estate, six out of eight took this course, on another, twelve out of fourteen, and in some instances, _all_ the non-praedials determined to suffer it out with the rest of their brethren, refusing to accept freedom until with the whole body they could rise up and shout the jubilee of universal disinthrallment.

Here is a nobility worthy to compare with the patience of the praedials.