| The Richmond Whig says that the statistics, collected by a Northern contemporary, show that the mortality among the freedmen of the South ranges from thirty to fifty per cent, varying in different localities and according to the circumstances in which they are placed, and this with all the aid extended by the Freedmen's Bureau. At this rate, it will not require many years to put them all under the sod. there is, we believe, but one thing that can arresy this fearful mortality, and that is the protection and guardianship of the Southern whites. It is manifest to the whole country that they must occupy the relations of the wards. If they remain here they must be wards of the whites. "God moves in a mysterious way," and it may be that their sufferings in the past few months were inflicted to convince them and our Northern countrymen that the negroes must have guardians, and to reconcile them both to the guardianship and protection of those among whom their lot is cast, since other guardianship is, confessedly, impossible. |