Old Virginia and her neighbours

316 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.dignity than the corresponding class in Virginia, itbecame just so much the easier for the " meanwhites " to rise far enough to become a part of it.North Carolina, therefore, was not simply an Alsatiafor debtors and criminals, but it afforded a homefor the better portion of Virginia's poor people.We can thus see how there would come about anatural segregation of Virginia's white freedmeninto four classes : 1. The most enterprising andthrifty would succeed in maintaining a respectableexistence in Virginia ; 2. A much larger class, lessthrifty and enterprising, would find it easier tomake a place for themselves in the ruder societyof North Carolina; 3. A lower stratumanddfs- WOuld COUsist of pCrSOUS witllOUt enter-Virginiansprise or thrift who remained in Virginiato recruit the ranks of " "white trash ;4. The lowest stratum would comprise the outlawswho fled into North Carolina to escape the hangman.Of the third class the eighteenth centuryseems to have witnessed a gradual exodus fromVirginia, so that in 1773 it was possible for thetraveller, John Ferdinand Smyth, to declare thatthere were fewer cases ofpoverty in proportion tothe population than anywhere else " in the universe."The statement of Bishop Meade in 1857,which was quoted in the preceding chapter,^ showsthat the class of " mean whites " had not even thenbecome extinct in Virginia ; but it is clear that theslow but steady exodus had been such as greatly todiminish its numbers and its importance as a socialfeature. Some of these freedmen went northward1 See above, p. 188 of the present volume.