From the Richmond Dispatch, 9/30/1859, p. 1, c. 6

Capitol Square. – The city has an ordinance which prohibits negroes from walking in the Capitol Square, or in the grounds adjacent to the City Spring or City Hall, or being within the enclosure of any of the places known as city grounds, unless to attend a white person, being an infant, or sick, or infirm, or to serve their owner or employer; but as the city exercises very little police control over the square the ordinance is little better than a dead letter. Negroes do visit the square, at their pleasure, two of them oftentimes attending one infant, and when the Superintendent is absent, behave badly. If the ordinance had gone farther and prohibited disreputable and abandoned characters from visiting the square, it would then have become a more general resort for ladies.

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