By the term Cotton, used to designate the class of Snobs peculiar to the South, do not understand us to mean a person who must of necessity hail from the cotton-growing States. By the expression we wish to embrace the entire class of agricultural snobs—so to speak—without reference to whether they raise cotton, or tobacco, or rice, or sugar, or wheat, or hemp, or Indian corn. We have already spoken of your store-keeping snobs, who are the same in the South that they are in the North; while nearly all classes of residents in the Southern cities, differ in no essential particulars from the same classes in other cities any where else in the Union. But the Cotton Snob does not hail from the city originally, though he may later in life go to the city to live, and when he does so becomes invariably the most disgusting cockney one can find any where in the four quarters of the globe. He is always of country breeding, and his manners more often than otherwise lack that quasi polish which the city snob sometimes possesses, despite his toadying mannerisms and want of native manliness of character.

Owing sometimes to the penuriousness and ignorance of his parents, and almost always to his own distaste for and neglect of mental application, the Cotton Snob rarely is well educated, possessing at best the merest smattering of learning, and is as ignorant of the rules of grammar, as of the rules of good breeding. Nevertheless he ever entertains a happy, not to say flattering conceit of himself, and imagines that he is capable of solving all knotty questions, whether in Law, Medicine, or Politics: but as for Religion, early in life, he prides himself on knowing nothing about that, boasting that he is a Free Thinker; and when he is a little too deep in his cups he is apt to allude to the “demned parsons,” as the greatest rogues in the world. More particularly is this true of those Cotton Snobs who have, for a wonder, come of pious parents of the middle class, and have even been members of the Church themselves at some former period of their lives. If the reader has ever been a little “fast” himself, and hails from New-England, we need not to inform him where one can every day meet the counterpart of these last-named Cotton Snobs. Of course, as we all know, there is no sort of deviltry or other sinfulness ever carried on in a New-England college—that is to say, publicly. But when fellahs get a good lot of fellahs in rooms of fellahs—why, they know how to kill time in an amazingly Orthodox fashion; especially those degenerate sons of the Puritans, who carry their mother's Bibles on one side of their hearts, and a good stout brandy-flask on the other. Ah! ye gentle dames of Massachusetts, “it gars me greet” to tell you how often, even while may be you have on your bended knees been petitioning the ever-blessed God in behalf of your dear, pious boys, these have been hobnobbing with b'hoys of another class entirely, and with drunken gravity have essayed to sing the “sweet songs of Zion” in the midst of ribald and most ungodly companie! But, alas! such is the unpalatable truth.

But the Cotton Snob rarely comes of parents who are pious or strictly temperate: in nine cases out of ten he is the son of the Southern Yankee. If sent to college it all, it is without the previous preparation requisite to enable him to take an honorable position; and having been accustomed at home to be flattered by his father's negroes, as well as by many poor wretches in the shape of white men, who have a most worshipful reverence for any person owning wealth; and finding now that the studious and refined of his new associates avoid his company as much as possible; even if he has remained temperate and virtuous hitherto, he very soon yields to the blandishments and cajoleries of those sharpers who hang about every college in the world—regular Deuceaces and Blewitts—and so proceeds immediately to dress extravagantly, to give wine-suppers, to get drunk, to play cards, and just as certainly to lose his father's money. But the more he loses, the higher are his bets and the deeper his potations. In a very little while be becomes a confirmed tippler—unless, as sometimes does happen, drink disagrees with him, producing only nausea and headache instead of the much-coveted “good feeling.” He thinks indeed it is very distinguéto get drunk. He reads how that the old Cavaliers were wont in ancient times never to rise from the dinner-table sober, and damme, Sir, he intends to live like the bloods did in the good old times. Egad, he would hang your temperance folks, Sir, and send all your cold-water fools to the devil! Particularly is the Cotton Snob valiant and chivalrous, when under the influence of two or three Brandy Straights and as many Cocktails. You should hear him talk on such occasions. “I'll tell you what, Boys, Pa makes lots o' cotton—bags on top o' bags”—or, “ lots o' tobacco, hogsheads and hogsheads, the world and all— but it's all for me. Blamenation, won't I make it fly? Wine and women, women and wine, fast nags, splendid trotters, New-York buggies—hurrah! You must all come to see a fellow, then—you shall live like princes of the blood.” Ah! the subtle, invisible spirit of wine, how does it loosen one's tongue, and let out even the closest secrets of the heart!

But though never so bold when closeted with his roystering fellows in their college dormitory, the Cotton Snob is at great pains to conceal his drunken debaucheries from the Old Man, (as he affectionately calls his father,) well knowing that the Southern Yankee would never tolerate the miserable waste of time and money such riotous proceedings occasion. So our Cotton Snob resorts to all manner of lies and brobdignagian stories to melt the heart of his stern “parient,” so that the latter shall still afford him the means to purchase his flash apparel—to sport his heavy rings, watch-chains and seals, and other showy jewelry—to give his wine-suppers—to play his little games of Euchre and Seven-up—and to supply the cormorant demands of that terrible leech which drains of their freshest blood the youths of all lands, the Strange Woman. Sometimes he professes to have had a long spell of sickness, and in addition to the heavy doctor's bill, etc., etc., he spins out a pitiable story about having been robbed of his clothes and money, by the servants, during his illness. At other times he falls among thieves, and so has his pocket picked on board the steamboat, or the cars, or at the theatre, or even while attending church. Or not unfrequently he professes to have loaned a hundred or so to a fellow-student who seemed to be “hard up” but honest, yet who did run away with the same, not so much as leaving with his creditor an I. O. U. By such cunning fables the Old Man is deluded, despite his lynx-eyed wariness in regard to whatever affects his purse. And when our Cotton Snob does at last return to the paternal roof, he dissimulates so well, pretends to love money so devoutly, gets drunk so slyly, and flatters the Southern Yankee so unceasingly, the latter is totally blinded, at least for a time. But if by any chance he should linger on this mortal stage a little too long, the impatient heir wearies of playing the part of supernumerary, and by some ill-advised utterance, or downright open defiance of authority, shows to his astonished sire that he is impatient to enact the part of principal himself, and chafes that the only opposing obstacle to his wishes is so long a time being knocked by the friendly hand of Death out of the way: upon which unfortunate discovery there is some swearing in Flanders you may be assured, but all to no purpose. In the end, and in the course of nature, the gray head sinks into its unhonored grave, and the eager heir steps with hot haste into his father's shoes, and proceeds to hobornob with his boon companions over their brandy and cigars, almost before the paternal dust is cold.

And now, if our young Snob be unmarried, what a life of drinking, gambling, horse-racing, fox-hunting, and vulgar display of one kind and another, he immediately rushes into! Vivimus dum vivamus is his motto, and what he calls enjoying life is comprehended in the above excesses; for he knows of no rational pleasure, but passes from one beastly gratification to another, thinking all the while, poor imbecile! that he is one of the favored children Fortune. If he does not go to Cuba, or Europe, or attend the sessions of Congress, or visit some of the Southern cities, he spends his winters on his plantation, in company with an equally moral and gentlemanly set of bachelor companions, whose nightly carousals end only with the morning, and whose jolly fox-hunts and other out-door sports are conducted with such a reckless disregard of the rights and feelings of the neighbors, as at once to point out the difference between the Cotton Snob and the Southern Gentleman. For when the latter desires to hunt off his own broad acres, he invariably asks permission of the owners of adjacent estates before proceeding to trespass on their lands with his retinue of horses, dogs, and darkeys—and, in particular, in the Cotton States, wherein the planters dislike exceedingly for the fox-hunters to overrun their unpicked fields with their devastating train; but the Cotton Snob imagines it would not be distinguéenough to ask permission to do any thing, and so dashes right on, regardless of whose property he may be injuring, pulling down fences ad libitum, and destroying any quantity of the imperial staple—yelling and shouting meanwhile to his comrades and his dogs at almost every turn, and riding more like a madman just out of a strait-jacket than a sane or sober human being.

In the summer months the Cotton Snob travels— visits all the famous watering-places—flirts with senseless girls, who, like the tortoise, carry their fortunes on their backs, but, unlike the same, ever hold what little of hearts they possess in their hands, ready to exchange the hollow baubles at any moment for an establishment, no matter if it be encumbered with either a toothless old simpleton or a simpering and bloated young rake. Hence the Cotton Snob is frequently to be seen in the Free States, and when seen is pretty sure to make himself a “shining mark,” for he assumes to be the very tip-top of the first families, and as such considers his individual corporosity a thing too sacred to be touched even by the hands of Northern canaille, “greasy mechanics,” or whatnot. He also seeks every opportunity to talk about “my niggers,” (observe, a Southern Gentleman rarely if ever says nigger;) endeavors to look very haughty and overbearing; sneers at whatever he considers low, and “their name is legion;” carries a cane not infrequently; affects a military step and manner, and tries to look daggers, bowie-knives, revolvers, blood and thunder, whenever or wherever he meets an abolitionist or a nigger. By such and other similar displays of vulgarity and ill-breeding, the Cotton Snob pretty soon renders himself both ridiculous and contemptible; and, what is more and worse, brings a reproach upon the true Gentlemen of the South, which goes far to increase that bitterness of feeling at present rankling in the breasts of many loyal citizens of each section of our great Republic, against their fellow-citizens of the other. While we know, from a pretty intimate acquaintance with all classes of our fellow-countrymen of the Free States, that they all —with the exception of a few radicals here and there— entertain a very high regard for the genuine Southern Gentleman such as they imagine him to be, and such as he is in reality, still, we grieve to say, they are too credulous in believing the professions of every little stammering upstart who lays claim to be a gentleman from the South. Hence, when they come in contact with a dirty fellow, who swears roundly, drinks deeply, boasts incessantly of his patrician blood, and is always in a snarl with every body and every thing, instead of setting such an individual down for what he really is, they prefer to believe that he is what he represents himself to be; consequently they lay to the charge of the lion all the dirty mean tricks and senseless braying of the ass that is simply robed in the lion's skin.

So much for the unmarried Cotton Snob.

When he gets him a wife, and afterwards, he takes a little more respectable position in society, leaves off many of his ungentlemanly practices also, but runs into many new extremes of absurdity and bad taste. Like all snobs and parvenues the world over, he seems bent on nothing higher than a foolish display of his wealth, and erroneously imagines his chief honor to lie, not in what he is, but in what the beau monde takes him to be; but he differs somewhat from the snobs of the North in his manner of playing the fool.

The Potiphar families seek usually to display their wealth in costly houses, splendid furniture, rich plate, magnificent dresses, dazzling jewelry, and an occasional “perfect jam” of a party when parties are in season, as well as they affect French customs, French morals, and French manners, and consider a little successful intrigue as the very perfection of good breeding. The Southern Snob delights in all these luxuries too, but not to the same extent as the “new rich” of our Free States—remember, we are speaking now of the agricultural Snobs of the South, not of those who figure in New-Orleans, or Charleston, or Washington City. The peculiar “wanity” of the Cotton Snob is a weakness for fine horses, fine carriages, and obsequious footmen and outriders. We do not remember ever to have seen a “coach and four” with outriders in any Northern State, but such institutions are much delighted in by all Southern upstarts whose purse-strings are long enough to enable them to support so much state and ceremony. Fifty years ago, indeed, it was customary for most Southern Gentlemen to go in state in their lumbering, old-fashioned coaches, which two horses would hardly have been able to drag along; but, autres temps, autres moeurs. While in those old-fashioned times there was nothing at all objectionable to good taste, in the sight of a hearty old Virginian Gentleman bowling leisurely along over the heavy dirt-roads in his great family coach, having of necessity from four to six horses attached, and with outriders and lackeys in any number he might desire; still, in these days of steam-engines, railroads, turnpikes, and telegraphs, there is no longer any fitness in such old-time customs. This the Southern Gentleman has seen and acknowledged for many years, and so confines himself to a modern-built carriage of the best style for country use, and keeps but a single pair of carriage-horses, and never more than a single outrider, whose business is to open gates, etc. etc. Not so, however, the Cotton Snob, who much affects a “coach and four,” even on the best turnpike roads, and loves to see the liveried blacks galloping after him, looking as consequential and full of their own importance as though they followed the triumphal chariot of an Emperor. Ah! who does not feel tempted to exclaim, when he sees such a Southerner hobornobbing at Northern watering-places with the Potiphar families of New-York and the Ramrods from Boston, as well as numerous other Free State families of renown—who, we say, does not feel tempted to exclaim, not once but all the time, par nobile fratrum—O noble band of brothers!

Alas! how unfortunate is it that true gentility is so little understood or appreciated in this great country. Here we are, not yet a century old, and while in the full enjoyment of all those blessings which are the rich heritage won for us by the struggles of our ancestors, affecting to despise the plain domestic virtues in which those same ancestors excelled, and blindly and madly imitating the lax morals, the effete civilization, the luxuries and the vices of that rotten Old World, with whose rulers and whose traditions we ought to entertain not a single feeling in common. Is there any manliness in this? any virtue? any worthiness? Do you delight in feasting on toads, gentle reader? or are you ambitious to ungirdle the native independence which should encircle every freeman's loins, to wear in its stead the effeminate cest that binds with silken folds the poor slave of courts and princely ceremony? And yet, good faith, what else are we doing when we discard the plain but honest virtues of our sires, to embrace every hollow flam or shallow pretense newly imported from Paris or London? 'Tis time indeed Americans should learn to cease from following after strange gods, and to put more trust than they have done of late in straightforward integrity of purpose and a pure genuine morality, and less in corrupting riches and a shallow outward polish, which, like the sleek crust over the smouldering volcano, conceals ever beneath its shining exterior only stifling ashes and treacherous fires.

But let us proceed once more with our subject.

If the Cotton Snob père appears so ridiculous in the eyes of common-sense and common manliness, the Cotton Snob, fils, appears even more so—for you must know, our readers, our Southern snobs have already reached the second generation. The Cotton Snob, fils, lives an idle, worthless life, too lazy even to fox-hunt; and bestows all his time and attention upon his immaculate kids and patent-leathers, upon the culture of his incipient mustachio, and in experimenting with the different kinds of pomatum for his precious locks of hair. He reminds one of that Mendycides of Sybaris, spoken of by Seneca, who was so fatigued at “seeing” a man dig, that he ordered such work never more to be done in his presence; or more aptly still, of those pretty little coxcombs to be seen in all our large cities —those degenerate sons of some old Bullion, who would feel insulted if you were to accuse them of ever doing any useful labor, or even of possessing the manly strength, the brawn and bone necessary to the successful accomplishment of such labor. Hence, however unfortunate the father may be in his attempts to revive the practices and customs of fifty or a hundred years ago, the son is still more unfortunate when he goes back yet another century, and endeavors to revive the Tournaments of the Middle Ages. For these in the old days of chivalry, were chiefly participated in by war-worn heroes, clad in steel from head to foot, armed with a genuine lance of truest temper, and mounted on spirited steeds, whose fiery natures had never felt the debasing touch of el castrador. Placed vis à vis to such a Knight of the Past, behold the dwarfish dimensions of our modern Cotton Knight, who ambles daintily forward on the back of a docile gelding, holding a sharpened stick under his arm, and gallantly and gloriously endeavoring to thrust the same through an iron ring, which is suspended by a rope of twine from an horizontal beam! Note well with what a cavalier-like grace the thing is done. How stiffly stands his shirt-collar, how spotless are his patent-leathers, how mildly flaps his lengthened coat tail in the wind, how charmingly glistens his carroty-colored hair underneath his shining beaver! Plaudite, Romanes, Plaudite, Omnes! Here is bravery for you, and chivalry and gallant deeds in arms. Tremble, O Cuba, and quake with much fear, O States of Nicarauga and Costa Rica, for the old lions have refreshed themselves, and the young lions are preparing against the day of battle! Stand in awe, O Nations, and hide your little heads, ye Isles of the Sea, for verily Cotton is King, and the New Order of Chivalry is the Cotton Snob!

But alas! our countrymen, we blush even while we smile.

Like his father before him, the Cotton Snob worships money, but in a different sense. The Southern Yankee loves money for its own sake—the Cotton Snob loves it because it supplies him with cigars, and brandy, and fine clothes, and fine horses, and fine houses, yea, and fine women too, my dears, as Mr. Titmarsh would say, as well as a quasi-public esteem. In truth, he fancies that money is more potent than the lever of Archimedes—that its glittering dust will blind the eyes of Justice (though proverbially blind any how) as well as hermetically seal up the mouth of Mrs. Grundy; while, on the other hand, he looks upon poverty as a sort of crime, and thinks every poor man is just about good enough to be hanged and nothing more. Hence he shuns the society of the poor man as he would the plague, but clasps every brother Croesus to his bosom with the most unfeigned delight, asking no questions; as, by what means the latter has come by his riches, or to what base uses his life may be habitually devoted. Wherefore, should you speak to the Cotton Snob admiringly of the charms of some female acquaintance, his very first inquiry would be, Is she rich? Or if you tell him of the unsullied honor and manly uprightness of some gentleman friend, his stereotyped interrogatory is, What's he worth? And until his vulgar mind has been assured respecting this all-important matter, he never will consent to see any thing estimable or praiseworthy in any individual. Nor does he know of any more satirical or witty remark, than to say of a person praised for his intelligence and his virtues: “Ah! yes, very clever, I dare say, but poor as Job's turkey!”

As is well known, the Southern Gentleman rarely prides himself upon his dress—indeed he is only too negligent in regard thereto; but the Cotton Snob is fully as sensitive on that subject as his Northern brother, and in every thing which concerns Fashion is equally as thin-skinned and foolish as the latter. Nothing so mortifies the genuine Southern Snob as to be considered out of the fashion; and he would at any time rather lose one of his most valuable niggers than to be seen in public with an old coat, or wearing an unfashionable hat, or with hands ungloved and boots unblacked. So too would he never be able to survive the mortification caused by any notorious breach of etiquette or conventional ceremony. We remember to have witnessed once a most amusing instance of this fear of making some such breach of etiquette, in the person of a Cotton Snob who hailed from Charleston, South-Carolina. He was a be-oiled and highly be-scented coxcomb, having a stronger resemblance to the New York Fifth-Avenoodle than to the Cotton Snob proper, save that his complexion was sombre, and his hair long à la cavalier. The scene was enacted in the Exchange Hotel, Richmond. The Charlestonian, it appears, was just setting out on his summer travels, but had stopped in Richmond for a few days, and was desirous in the mean time of giving a dinner party to a select company of friends. He was discoursing on this topic to the landlord, at the registry-desk, when the writer chanced to overhear what in substance is given below. He spoke in a thick, half-choking, drawling sort of tone, and with a slight imitation of the dialect of Samivel, (an unusual thing with most Cotton Snobs, by the way, for they much oftener imitate the dialect of Sambo;) and as he spoke, he turned his head languidly from side to side, evidently persuaded in his own mind that he was “cutting a swell.”

But you have no Yeomen in the South, my dear Sir? Beg your pardon, our dear Sir, but we have—hosts of them. I thought you had only poor White Trash? Yes, we dare say as much—and that the moon is made of green cheese! You have fully as much right or reason to think the one thing as the other. Do tell, now; want to know? Is that so, our good friend? do you really desire to learn the truth about this matter? If so, to the extent of our poor ability, we shall endeavor to enlighten you upon a subject, which not one Yankee in ten thousand in the least understands.

Know, then, that the Poor Whites of the South constitute a separate class to themselves; the Southern Yeomen are as distinct from them as the Southern Gentleman is from the Cotton Snob. Certainly the Southern Yeomen are nearly always poor, at least so for as this world's goods are to be taken into the account. As a general thing they own no slaves; and even in case they do, the wealthiest of them rarely possess more than from ten to fifteen. But even when they are slaveholders, they seem to exercise but few of the rights of ownership over their human chattels, making so little distinction between master and man, that their negroes invariably become spoiled, like so many rude children who have been unwisely spared the rod by their foolish guardians. Such negroes are lazy as the day is long, saucy and impertinent, and besides are nearly as useless members of society as the free blacks of the North, or Jamaica, or the Central American States. Indulged from their infancy, never receiving a stripe unless some one of their young masters is stout enough to give them a lamming in a regular fisticuffs fight, and in all things treated more like equals than slaves, it is certainly no cause of wonder that they impudently call their masters by their proper names, and, when permitted, address all other white persons in the same ill-bred and familiar manner. Indeed, Senator Seward himself could not demand any greater show of equality, than what is often exhibited by the Yeomen of the South in the treatment of their negroes; and we think it would cure even him of his rabid mania on the subject of the ultimate extinction of the peculiar institution, could he be brought into personal contact with some of the free and easy specimens of poor down-trodden Africans we have had the luck to fall in with now and then in the Slave States. If he did not carry with him to his grave a very unflattering remembrance of his loutish, lazy, lousy, and foul-scented black “brothers,” then he is not the dainty gentleman we have been accustomed to consider him. For, after all their demonstrations in behalf of the Negro, the people of the Free States are possessed of olfactories like the rest of mankind, and individually entertain a very wholesome dread of coming personally in contact with their down-trodden and much-abused protegé, however lustily they may bawl about his being both “a man and a brother.” We know, in some parts of the North, negroes are admitted to the society of a certain class of fanatical free-lovers and socialists—dine with them sleep with them, school with them, and even sometimes intermarry with them—while it does occasionally happen, that a big buck African will familiarly slap a white man on the back, with a “How ar' yer, Tom? gib a feller a treat,” or, “Harry, my boy, how goes de wedder?” In a majority of cases, however, as we have already declared, decent people in all the Northern States entertain a very wholesome and sensible prejudice against affiliating on terms of equality with persons of color. In this regard, indeed, they are far more scrupulous and sensitive than any class of whites in the South.

Now it is chiefly owing, as we conceive, to this universal prejudice against color in the North, that the citizens of the Free States will insist free labor is degraded by the existence of African slavery, and that the Poor Whites of the South because thereof prefer to starve rather than to labor side by side with slaves. Because they themselves will not consent to work on a level with the free negroes in their own midst, of course (such is their reasoning) any poor Southerner would feel degraded to labor in company with enslaved persons possessing the same objectionable color. Capital logicians! Now, Sirs, what are the facts? Would you believe the declaration, that honest Southern Yeomen (these are the industrious poor whites of the South) always work side by side with their own human chattels in the fields, in the forests, and every where else? Nothing, we assure you, is more common. No man can travel a day through any thickly-settled portion of the South, but he will come up with some sturdy yeoman and his sons working in company of their negroes; sometimes their own property, at other times hirelings whom they have employed by the month or year. In portions of Western Virginia, particularly in the districts settled by the Pennsylvania Dutch, such spectacles are to be witnessed on almost every other farm. Passing by their fields of rich clover, nearly waist-high, and blushing as red in a rich profusion of purple blooms as the cheeks of the plump country maiden who sits singing and knitting under the big apple-tree in front of the neat farmhouse, you can not fail of being amused to observe the lazy deliberation with which the broad-shouldered farm-boys, and their equally broad-shouldered sooty companions, lay down their hoes or scythes to gaze at a stranger—gazing long and steadfastly, with hanging lip and open mouth, until you are hidden from their sight by a turn in the green lane, when they all simultaneously burst out a laughing, (at what, Heaven knows!) but in so hearty and boisterous a manner as to wake up the dozing cattle, whose sleek fat sides are scarcely visible about in spots among the clover-leaves, refulgent and glistening in the shimmering rays of the glorious summer sun. So, too, if you leave Virginia and pass down into the Old North State—the State so famous for its tar, pitch, and turpentine—you will hear the axe of master and man falling with alternate strokes in the depth of the whispering forests of dark evergreens, as with redoubled blows they attack the lofty pines, felling them to the ground for lumber, or simply barking them for their resinous sap. Here you will frequently see black and white, slave and freeman, camping out together, living sometimes in the same tent or temporary pine-pole cabin; drinking, the darkeys always after mas'r, out of the same tin dipper or long-handled gourd their home-distilled apple-brandy; dining on the same homely but substantial fare, and sharing one bed in common, videlicet, the cabin floor.

Again, should you go among the hardy yeomanry of Tennessee, Kentucky, or Missouri, whenever or wherever they own slaves (which in these States is not often the case) you will invariably see the negroes and their masters ploughing side by side in the fields; or bared to the waist, and with old-fashioned scythe vieing with one another who can cut down the broadest swath of yellow wheat, or of the waving timothy; or bearing the tall stalks of maize and packing them into the stout-built barn, with ear and fodder on, ready for the winter's husking. And when the long winter evenings have come, you will see blacks and whites sing, and shout, and husk in company, to the music of Ole Virginny reels played on a greasy fiddle by some aged Uncle Edward, whose frosty pow proclaims that he is no longer fit for any more active duty, and whose long skinny fingers are only useful now to put life and mettle into the fingers of the younger huskers, by the help of de fiddle and de bow.

And yet, notwithstanding the Southern Yeoman allows his slaves so much freedom of speech and action, is not offended when they call him familiarly by his Christian name, and hardly makes them work enough to earn their salt, still he is very proud of being a slaveholder; and when he is not such, his greatest ambition is to make money enough to buy a negro. We recall a very amusing anecdote illustrative of this ambition of the Southern Yeoman.

A man named Horne, who was a bachelor, had entered some land at government price, or at all events at a very small sum. In a few years his land increased so in value that he sold out at an enormous profit, taking as part payment one negro man, whom we will call Jeff. The next morning after the bargain had been closed, the negro was awakened quite early by hearing his new master bawling at the top of his voice:

“Jeff! you, Jeff! Come here, you big black nigger, you!”

“Bres God, Mas'r, what's de marter?” said Jeff, rushing sans culotte into his master's room, and nearly out of breath with alarm.

“O nuthin,” replied Horne dryly, “I only wanted to see how 'twould sound jist—that's all!”

In his origin, aside from the German settlers in Western Virginia, the Southern Yeoman is almost purely English. He nearly always bears some good old Anglo-Saxon name, and will tell you, if interrogated about his ancestors, that “grandfather so and so came over from the Old Country”—by which familiar and endearing phrase he always designates Great Britain. He is thorough English in fact, in both physical heartiness and dogged perseverance. Very seldom is he troubled with dyspepsia, or melancholy, or discontent with his humble lot—evils which in most cases have their origin in a disordered stomach. Just so rarely, too, will you ever meet a Southern Yeoman who has learned to fear mortal man, or who would under any circumstances humiliate himself to curry favor with the rich or those in authority. He always possesses a manly independence of character, and though not so impetuous as the gentry of the South usually are, still, in the midst of the dangers and carnage of the battlefield, and in the thickest of the fray, his eye never quails; but with steady tramp and unflinching nerve he marches right on to where duty and honor call, and with unblanched check meets death face to face. His wounds, like the scars of the old Roman, themselves bespeak his praise, for they are ever received from the front and never from behind.

The usual weapon of the Southern Yeoman is the deadly rifle—even in his sports—and this he handles with such skill as few possess, even in America. He likes the quick sharp report which announces in a clear tongue when the leaden messenger is sent home; and affects to despise the rattling fowling piece, the peculiar sporting gun of the Southern Gentleman. With his rifle the Yeoman shoots squirrels, ducks, turkeys, deer, bear, buffalo, and whatever else he pleases. The best riflemen are found in Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky—the best, perhaps, in the last-named brave and chivalrous Commonwealth. Herein turkey-shooting is practised by all classes, but chiefly by the yeomen. A live turkey is securely fastened to a stake at the distance of one hundred paces, and you pay five or ten cents for the privilege of each shot; if you hit the fowl in the head the carcass is yours, but any other hit is considered foul, and so passes for nothing. This is the kind of school in which were trained the hunting-shirt heroes of King's Mountain, and those unerring riflemen who, at the memorable battle of New-Orleans, made such havoc in the ranks of Packenham's veterans. So also were trained those brave defenders of Texan independence—Crockett, Travis, and their compeers, who buried themselves beneath the countless heaps of Mexicans slain at the heroic defense of the Alamo. And it was because of a similar schooling that Col. Jeff. Davis was enabled to say to the retreating Indianians at the battle of Buena Vista, pointing proudly to the gallant yeomanry of Mississippi: “Stay, and re-form behind that wall!” For well the brave Colonel knew the rifles in the hands of his favorite regiment would soon with their iron hail beat down the advancing foe, and cause them to rush back in disorderly rout to their tents and entrenchments. Indeed, take them all in all, and we doubt if the world can produce a more reliable citizen soldiery than the yeomanry of our Southern States. They only require the right sort of leaders—officers under whom they are willing to fight, and in whose mettle and abilities they have perfect confidence. General Taylor was such a man, and in this regard no American General of late years has been his peer. Southern born himself, and Southern bred, plain and unostentatious in his manners, and at all times cool and determined in the hour of danger; his soldiers loved the man, while they respected and trusted the general. Noble old Soldier! no true heart can fail to regret, that the exigencies of politics forced you to lay aside the sword for our republican sceptre, and thus with the weighty cares and perplexities of a station which you never were fitted to adorn, too soon consigned you to the grave and deprived the Union of one of her most able and patriotic defenders. Green be the turf above you, honest Roman, and may your successors in office learn to emulate your virtues!

The Southern Yeoman much resembles in his speech, religious opinions, household arrangements, indoor sports, and family traditions, the middle class farmers of the Northern States. He is fully as intelligent as the latter, and is on the whole much better versed in the lore of politics and the provisions of our Federal and State Constitutions. This is chiefly owing to the public barbecues, court-house-day gatherings, and other holiday occasions, which are more numerous in the South than in the North, and in the former are nearly always devoted in part to political discussions of one kind or another. Heard from the lips of their neighbors and friends, and having the matter impressed upon their minds by the presentation of both sides of every disputed question at the same time, it is not strange that poor men in the South should possess a more comprehensive knowledge of the fundamental principles of our artificial and complex system of government, or should retain a clearer perception of the respective merits of every leading political issue, than if they derived their information solely from books or newspapers; which always furnish but one view of the matter in dispute, and which they must painfully peruse after a long day of toil, being more exercised meanwhile (aside from the drawback of physical weariness) in laboring to interpret the meaning of the “dictionary words,” than in attempting to follow the facts or the argument of the writer, be he never so lucid and perspicuous.

We know a pretty general belief prevails throughout the entire North, and in Europe as well, (owing to the misrepresentations of our patriotic book-makers of the Free States,) that the great mass of the Southern people are more ignorant than the mass of Northern laborers; and, although this opinion is no sounder than the baseless fabric of a vision, there is yet a plausible excuse at least to be urged on behalf of those citizens of the North who entertain it. For the North, taken as a whole, is an inventive and manufacturing community, and her citizens, in consequence, love to agglomerate in towns, villages, etc. etc. Hence, they entertain a very foolish prejudice against the country, and every thing almost that pertains to country life; while such a personage as a country gentleman proper, is unknown from Maine to Oregon, and to speak of “our country cousins” as very annoying and troublesome, is a standing witticism in every Free State. But the South is almost exclusively agricultural, and, of course, the great mass of her citizens fall under the bann of the cockney prejudices of the trades-people of the North, equally with their own country cousins from Down East, or the sun-embrowned Hoosiers from the West. Now, we do not pretend to claim that the yeomen of the South are as intelligent or well-instructed about a great many things, as the mechanics, artisans, small shopkeepers, and others, who in a great measure constitute the population of the Northern towns; but we do insist, from a pretty extensive acquaintance with the peculiarities and characteristics of both, that the Southern Yeoman is the peer in every respect of the small farmers in the Free States, as well as their superior in a great many. For, as has already been shown, he is certainly better informed than the latter about the political history of the country; is more accustomed to the use of fire-arms, particularly the rifle; and (which is no small recommendation) he has a better appreciation of good liquors, for, instead of swallowing the vile stuff sent forth from Cincinnati and other places in the shape of mean whisky, the Southern yeoman usually confines himself to home-brewed ale, or native applejack, or home-distilled peach brandy, all of which drinks are said to be both wholesome and harmless, if taken in moderation.

From the yeomanry usually springs the overseer class—a very useful and important class of persons in the South; very much-abused and slandered though they always have been, owing to the drunken habits, libertinism, coarse brutalities, and general bad conduct of many of their number. But there are to be found among them men of sterling worth and incorruptible integrity—good citizens, intelligent managers, kind disciplinarians, and even sometimes they evince gentlemanly instincts, though but little polished in speech or manners.

We think the reading public, Southern as well as Northern, in forming its judgment of overseers, has never sufficiently considered the responsibilities and temptations of their peculiar position. They constitute the Southern police, or patrol, just as every Northern city has its squads of police to protect the property and lives of its citizens from the hands of thieves, burglars, incendiaries, garroters, midnight assassins, and street bullies. The “beat” of each Southern overseer, is the plantation on which be resides; and the collective body of overseers in every neighborhood, constitutes a regularly organized patrol—called by the negroes “Paterollers,” and upon set times these “paterollers” form a troop and gallop from plantation to plantation during the whole night, arresting and punishing all slaves found off their proper premises without a permit from their master or mistress. But on the whole, the Southern overseer has a much more laborious duty to perform than his brother policeman of any Northern city. The latter has only to look after freemen—in most cases intelligent white men who entertain some respect for the officers of the law; whereas the Southern overseer has confided to his care the kinky-headed descendants of those pagans who, only a century ago, made no bones of eating one another, and whose kindred yet remaining in Africa still look upon a white missionary stewed with onions and cayenne pepper, or even better perhaps eaten raw and without salt, as the greatest “delicacy of the season.”

Did you never consider this fact, dear philanthropic Madam, who are so grateful to the policeman who breaks the pate of the drunken Irish bully, as kicks up “sich a divil of a row,” right under your parlor window; but go into hysterics at the bare mention of a Southern overseer's knocking down a refractory Hottentot? And, besides, if you are so valiant in defense of the wholesale slaughter of Ghoorkas, Sepoys, and other colored Hindoos, by your beloved brethren, the English abolitionists, why, in the name of common-sense, do you scowl so because some bloody Southerner finds it necessary occasionally to give a rebellious slave a flogging? Is a tough New-England cowskin diligently applied to the back of a lazy, lying Congo, a more heineous offense in the sight of Heaven, than the breaking of a drunken loafer's skull by means of honest Charley's club, or the blowing of Sepoys from the mouths of British cannon, simply because, like our worthy revolutionary sires, they have dared to rebel against an usurped authority and a confessedly most inhuman tyranny? But bear in mind, our stout John Bull, we are casting no stones—save at the heads of those hypocrites, who sustain your virtuous queen in her recent bloody enactments in India, (all necessary, perhaps,) but at the same time rend the very heavens with their shrieks, because, in endeavoring to keep in subjection our India, we must needs resort to much milder and less sanguinary measures, though sometimes quite revolting to our humaner feelings. For he must be a very bold man who will deny that the overseers on many Southern plantations, are cruel and unmercifuly severe, when permitted to be so by the carelessness or connivance of their employers. Despite all which, however, we are yet prepared to contend, that, compared with the police of all other places, the world over, and taken en masse, there is not any where a more respectable and well-behaved patrol than the Southern overseers.

But that is not saying much after all! we hear you exclaim, thou worthy reader of books and not of men. To which we reply: Until you and we have been tempted as such men are always tempted, every where and at all times, and have proven ourselves to be better and holier than they, we have no right to condemn or pass judgment. God, who is Judge of both the quick and the dead, alone is competent to determine who is deserving of condemnation, and who of praise. At all events, let us not denounce the innocent with the guilty, as in all our short-sighted human judgments we are ever prone to do. Some men, for example, when they have read in the daily press the fulsome details of a scan. mag.—the minute particulars of how some second Judas has betrayed his master's cause, not with a kiss, but for the kisses and wickeder endearments of a straying lamb of his flock—are apt to congratulate themselves that they still remain bachelors, and that they have never been so foolish as to entertain any religious sentiments at all. Such men will solemnly and seriously vow and swear (and for one we believe they are honest in their declarations: who is not that measures the rest of mankind by himself?) that they doubt the existence of female virtue, and conscientiously believe there never was a clerical neck-tie yet which did not encircle the throat of a hypocrite and rogue. These very virtuous-minded individuals simply confound the innocent with the guilty, and are so affected by the prominence given to some glaring example of clerical hypocrisy, or breach of matrimonial and conjugal fidelity; they fail to note how many thousands of happy households all around them are patterns of virtue and good morals, or how many hundreds of ministers of the Gospel do not only point the road to Heaven, but also “lead the way.” And just in the same spirit has it been the custom of certain Northern busy-bodies, (whose mental equilibrium is not well-poised,) because of the prominence given to the cruelties practised now and then by some Southern Overseers, to speak of the whole class as totally vile and sin-hardened, fit subjects for the wrath of Heaven, and destined ere long to people the dismal abodes of Hades—a place formerly regarded as the final resting-bed of all sinners, but latterly devoted to the exclusive accommodation of slaveholders, and those engaged in the Slave Trade—barring the legitimate traffickers in Coolie flesh, who (on account of favors manifold) are to be landed after death in the Seventh Heaven. But, we would beg to remind all such astute reasoners, of what they seem to be ignorant, namely, that sometimes diamonds are picked up from the dirtiest dung-hills, while the most beautiful of pearls are taken often from the bodies of the ugliest of testacean bivalves.

So far as hospitality goes, the Yeomen of the South are not a whit behind the Southern Gentleman, or any other class of gentlemen the world over. And we make this declaration boldly, despite the assertions to the contrary of a certain literary Peripatetic of New-York, who has been in the habit of taking a jaunt through some portions of the South every few years, and afterwards publishing in book-form an account of what he saw and heard. Affecting the utmost candor and impartiality, as well as the very essence and spirit of Truth, this peripatetical maker of books scarcely succeeds in spreading his poppies broad and thick enough, to conceal even from simple eyes the malice which underlies his plausible style; and which, as the venomous reptile concealed underneath the stone in the pathway takes every furtive opportunity to thrust its poisonous fangs into the flesh of the unwary pedestrian, so is ever showing its serpent head when occasion serves, hissing with spite and bitterness. This writer has spoken of the Southern Yeomen (not by name, 'tis true) as mean and stingy, selfish and rude, and as being besides devoid of even a semblance of hospitality. Now, making all due allowance for the temptation to misrepresent which such a writer would very naturally yield to, (since upon such a misrepresentation chiefly depends the sale of his book, while upon the said sale he himself depends for his daily bread;) we would yet mildly suggest, that, if ever again he should desire to share the humble crust of poverty, the proper way to attain his object is not to strive to be condescendingly kind and excruciatingly affable, as if one would say: “My poor country clown, I pity you; for I am dressed in broadcloth and patent-leathers, and am much more intelligent than you, my poor country clown!” No, worthy Sir! that is not the way to get at a poor man's heart, or his humble fireside either, as a welcome and honored guest. What is the right and proper way, let the following personal incident inform you, our over-dainty gentleman.

Perhaps you have not forgotten the Panic yet, fellow-citizens of the Free States? In the midst of your mad and headlong chase after sudden wealth; in the midst of your wild and reckless speculations in stocks, bonds, railroads, lands, and every thing else, whereby money is to be made without any honest toil; in the midst of your self-gratulations at the much faster method you had of getting riches, than your more conservative and plodding brethren to the South of you; lo! there suddenly appeared a hand-writing on the wall, and in one short hour all your visions of boundless prosperity came to naught. We need not remind you of the scenes which ensued. They will not soon be effaced from the memory of the present generation. We need not remind you with what inward satisfaction you turned your doleful visages towards the hitherto despised South, and in view of her still undiminished abundance, took heart again for the future of our common Republic. You felt a pride, doubtless for the first time, while beholding all the once firm-seated thrones of Commerce and Finance toppling and tumbling down in irretrievable overthrow around you, that one American Sovereign at least remained with head erect—that, as ever before, COTTON STILL WAS KING. Many of you, indeed, leaving your families in the Free States, turned your steps Southward in search of employment. Never was there such an Exodus from the Northern to the Southern States before. We happened likewise to hibernate in the Slave States during that memorable era, and in passing from place to place chanced to fall in with many of those unfortunates, whom lack of employment and the Hard Times had driven from their homes to seek shelter from the storm in the sunny South. One of these was a Connecticut man, a machinist by trade, and possessed of strong anti-slavery prejudices, but prudent of speech and very intelligent for a person of his calling and condition. We met aboard a steamboat on one of the loveliest rivers in the South; and although it was mid-winter, still, sitting on the steamer's hurricane-deck, as it is called, and inhaling the soft and balmy air which already seemed laden with the odors of spring; he recounted to us the several adventures with which he had met in his various ups and downs, since he left the land of wooden nutmegs and steady habits.

We were much entertained. He told us with what hopes he had left his family in their New-England home, where he found it impossible longer to get employment at his trade, and how he had hastened Southwards with a joyful heart, confident of making enough to feed both himself and his little household during the winter months. But he was too late. Hundreds had rushed in before him, and every railroad shop was filled, (his business was to build engines,) as well as every other shop wherein he could hope to make himself useful. His money, what little he had, was soon exhausted; and then, to add to his misfortunes, at a lonesome village in Tennessee, he was taken sick of typhus fever, which kept him closely confined for some three weeks, and from which he recovered with difficulty, having not a beggarly dernier left; and so, weak and suffering, and without money or friends, he set out on his travels a-foot, being as yet barely able to walk. But he managed to walk thirty miles the first day for all that, and found himself late in the afternoon in the town of Columbia. Seeing two taverns in the place, he resolved not to impose upon the proprietors of either, but determined in the honesty of his heart that he would state the sad condition of his exchequer first to one, and, on refusal, then to the other, and afterwards throw himself on their charity for supper and a night's lodging. He was still well-dressed, which would make against him, he knew, but he flattered himself that his honest face would persuade even the most suspecting to believe his story. So he put a bold face on the matter, walked into the nearest of the two public houses, and going straight up to the landlord told him plainly how he was situated. For his pains and his honesty he was told to take himself off instanter. He then essayed to reason the matter with “mine host;” but the more the Yankee argued the more “mine host” swore and raved, until the former was glad to escape with a whole skin from the presence of the enraged Boniface, who must have been a genuine specimen of the native Southern Yankee, about whom we have already discoursed. But our Connecticut adventurer felt famished almost, having eaten nothing all day, and was determined not to die of starvation in the midst of plenty, so he forthwith sought out the other tavern. An old man was the proprietor of this—an old white-headed man, with a calm patriarchal demeanor. When he of Connecticut first looked on him, he thought to himself that if such a venerable old gentleman had no milk of human kindness in his composition, then surely charity must be a thing unknown in the State of Tennessee. Being taught by his recent experience, however, he was now a little more circumspect than in the first instance, and entering the public reception-room, proceeded to wash his face and then to comb his hair, which having finished, he walked deliberately up to the broad old-fashioned fireplace, in which blazed and crackled a rousing wood-fire, and leisurely took a seat in the midst of the numerous gentlemen who sat in a semi-circle about it. There chanced (it being Court week) to be many lawyers, judges, and country gentlemen lodging with “mine host” at the time; and these, as they collected around the blazing hearth in the dusk of the gathering twilight, passed the time in story-telling, each spinning his yarn in turn, and vieing with all in the shouts of applause which were sure to follow any “decided hit.” When every one had finished his story, seeing a stranger present, they courteously called on him to furnish them with his story, too. Our Connecticut friend was nothing loth, but proceeded immediately to do his best. His effort proved quite successful, and he was eagerly besought to tell another.

“I will tell you another in the morning ” said the honest fellow. “I am too faint and hungry now. I am from Connecticut, gentlemen; I hope I am an honest man, too, but although you see me dressed so well, I have not a penny to save me from the gallows. I have walked thirty miles to-day, (turning to the landlord,) and have eaten nothing since yesterday. I would like to lodge with you to-night. I can pay you nothing now—I only ask of you to trust me, however; for so sure as my name is —, and I am an honest Yankee, you shall yet get every farthing.”

“And you haven't eat any dinner this blessed day?” was the only reply of the gray-headed old gentleman, whose benign countenance from the first had so favorably impressed him of Connecticut.

“Not a mouthful!”

“Ned, come here. Show this gentleman to the dining-room, and see that he eats all he wants,” said next the Good Samaritan, addressing his colored man; and then turning to his guest: “Of course, Sir, you can stay with us as long as you find it necessary.”

“Yes,” here interrupted the District Judge “put him in my room, landlord, if the house is crowded; for I am invited to a friend's to-night, and shall not occupy it.”

Well, here was a generous hospitality unlooked-for, and our Yankee's heart, as he expressed it, all of a sudden jumped up into his throat like a big bullfrog, and stuck there, and so impeded his utterance he had not a word to say by way of thanks, but simply bowed, and retreating to the dining-room proceeded to do ample justice to the generosity of his benevolent host.

But he could not afford to beg, and so sold his overcoat for twelve dollars, and started out once more a-foot with a little money: this, however, he soon spent, when, clad in only a thin, close-bodied coat, with ordinary pantaloons and vest, and a small bundle on his back, containing a clean shirt or two, he plodded wearily along, begging, like poor Oliver Goldsmith, as he went. And now came his experience of the hospitality of the Southern Yeomanry; for he purposely shunned the villages and the dwellings of the rich, and every night rested his tired limbs underneath humble roofs only. He was perfectly enthusiastic in his praises of the kind reception he every where met. We will tell you, our readers, just as he told us, how he was received in one house at which he stopped over night, and this will serve as an example of all the rest.

At this house there was a frolic of some kind or other, and the dancing and singing were kept up until a late hour. The guests assembled, like the host and hostess, were all of the Yeoman class, plain, hard-working people, owning no slaves, and possessing a scanty knowledge of either books or men; hence their songs were, as can be easily imagined, of the commonest and most homely description. When, therefore, they called upon the Yankee for his song, and he gave them the pathetic ballad of Ben Bolt, sung feelingly and well, all hearts were instantly captivated. Immediately they passed him the bottle of old rye, pressing him to wet his whistle and try again, and so kept him singing and telling of the great world of which they knew so little, until near upon the peep of day. And the next morning, when he left, they would have him take along a bottle of “sperrits” for his stomach's sake, as well as a huge package of provisions, called in Southern parlance a “snack.” This certainly was enough of kindness for one poor toiling family, and so our Yankee thought; but when he was about a mile off, behold one of the fair damsels of the house came clattering after him, (riding her steed bare-backed, though with all delicate and lady-like grace,) for the sole purpose of telling him that there was a creek a little further on, which, owing to the late rains, he could not cross without a horse and a guide; and so, being as how all the men were gone to work, mother had sent her to see the gentleman safe over. And she did (O blushing daughter of fashion!) absolutely take up before her on the bare-backed workhorse this strolling and unknown fellow, and having safely set him down on the other side of the swollen stream, returned to her humble cot, never once dreaming that she had done a noble and generous action.

Ah! wandering Peripatetic of New-York, you never met with such hospitality, for you did not deserve it. Your cockney bearing and general stiffness of demeanor did not appeal to the humble tastes and simple habits of the yeomanry, and that is why you have declared them mean and selfish. What a wonderfully sapient fellow thou art, truly! Now, your brother Northerner, whose experience of the hospitality of the same class of people, we have already given, though he stopped for many nights in succession at their humble homes, bears witness that he was always entertained in the same hospitable spirit, and never but once was refused a night's lodging. On this occasion he had another Yank (as he called him) in company, a foot-passenger like himself, with whom he had been journeying for several days. When they called at the house alluded to, the mistress came to the door and told them that her good man was away; else, she would gladly take them in, but since he was absent she could not think of it. He of Connecticut thanked her, like a gentleman who could appreciate the delicacy of feeling which prompted the good wife to pursue the course she did: but his fellow Yank turned to him and whispered, “Let us go in, any how.” “Sir,” said noble Old Connecticut, (we called him Old Connecticut on board the steamer,) “you can do so if you like, but I shall not. But whether you go in or remain outside, I will have you to know that henceforth we travel separate roads. I shall no longer remain in company of a person who is a disgrace to his native land, and who in the country of strangers does not know how to conduct himself like a gentleman.” Honest words these, worthy son of New-England! What a pity it is more of your countrymen do not feel as he must of necessity feel, who can honestly give them utterance. For, in that case, there would not be so many lying, sneaking, cowardly knaves, foot-padding it all through the Southern States, endeavoring by every devilish machination to kindle the fires of a servile insurrection, and writing calumnious letters to Northern newspapers, oftentimes defaming the characters of the unsuspecting patrons, at whose hospitable board their miserable carcasses are each day filled with abundance of every species of good cheer.

But to return once more to the subject of this chapter. Besides being given to hospitality, although in a very primitive way, as has been shown, the Yeomen of the South are also quite social and gregarious in their instincts, and delight much in having all kinds of frolics and family gatherings during the long winter evenings. On all such occasions, nearly, something serviceable is the ostensible cause of their assembling, though the time is devoted almost wholly to social pleasures: sometimes, 'tis true, there is a wedding, or a birth-day party, or a candy-pulling; but much more frequently it is a corn-husking, or the everlasting quilting —this last being the most frequent and most in favor of all the merrymakings which call the young people together. There is, indeed, nothing to compare to a country quilting for the simple and unaffected happiness which it affords all parties. The old women and old men sit demurely beside the blazing kitchen fire, and frighten one another with long-winded ghost stories; thus leaving the young folks all to themselves in the “big room,” wherein is also the quilt-frame, which is either suspended at the corners by ropes attached to the ceiling, or else rests on the tops of four chairs. Around this assemble the young men and the young maidens, robust with honest toil and honestly ruby-cheeked with genuine good health. The former know nothing of your dolce far niente or dyspepsia, and the latter are not troubled with crinoline or consumption, but all are merry as larks and happy as it is possible for men and women to be in this lower world. No debts, nor duns, nor panics, nor poverty, nor wealth disturbs their thoughts or mars the joyousness of the hour. Serene as a summer's day, and cloudless as the skies in June, the moments hurry by, as they ply their nimble needles and sing their simple songs, or whisper their tales of love, heedless of the great world and all the thoughtless worldlings who live only to win the smiles of “our best society.” Meanwhile the children play hide and seek, in-doors and out, whooping, laughing, and chattering like so many magpies; and, in the snug chimney-corner, Old Bose, the faithful watch-dog, stretches himself out to his full length and doses comfortably in the genial warmth of the fire, in his dreams chasing after imaginary hares, or baying the moon; while, as the poet sings:

In their religious convictions and practices, the Southern Yeomen very much resemble the Middle Classes; are prone to shout at camp-meetings, and to see visions and dream dreams. Although generally moral in their conduct and punctilious in all religious observances, they do yet often entertain many very absurd ideas in regard to Christianity, ideas wholly at variance with any rational interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures; and hence they are led not infrequently, to mistake animal excitement for holy ecstasy, and seem to think, indeed, with the old-time priests of Baal, that God is not to be entreated save with loud prayers, and much beating of the breasts, and clapping of the hands, accompanied with audible groans and sighs. For all which, however, their officiating clergy are more to blame than themselves; for they are often ignorant men of the Whang Doodle description, illiterate and dogmatic, and blessed with a nasal twang which would do no discredit to New-England. They very seldom know any thing about their Bibles, but, like the star political priests of the North, seem to exert themselves to ignore all the facts and precepts of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Sacred Scriptures, preferring to teach “for doctrines the commandments of men;” just as did the Levites and Pharisees with their talmudistic theologies in the days of our Saviour. And truly, it has always been to us a singular circumstance why religious people are so easily gulled. Although palpable to all the world else, they seem not to know—

Of course the groggery-keeper's profits are enormous, provided he gets much custom. It requires very little figuring to prove this. Thus, B buys a barrel of A No. 1 whisky, takes out one half—which he converts, by an ingenious process known only to the initiated, into the most delightful old Cognac, genuine eau de vie —and supplies its place from the nearest well or spring adding a modicum of pepper, dog-leg tobacco, strychnine, or what not, all of which, however, cost very little. He sells his brandy at so much the gallon or bottle, and his adulterated whisky for just double what it cost him. So you see he can afford to drink one half his liquors himself; if he can only dispose of the remaining half, he will still make money hand over fist, as he delights to express himself. The trouble is, there is no lack of competition in such a profitable business, and so our groggery-keeper has to keep a sharp look-out for customers. Luckily for him, he is surrounded by thieving blacks, who are always glad of an opportunity to exchange their master's meal, their mistress' poultry, or the neighbors' pigs, for a bottle of New-England rum, or a jug of Ohio whisky. Certainly the slave-owners object to such high-handed proceedings, flog the slaves whenever they detect them in any of their rogueries, or even when they find the poor fellows have gotten lawfully drunk on their honest savings, and crop the hair of the sinning liquor-sellers, feeding and housing them beside at the expense of the State, and robing them in the livery of convicted crime. But liquor is no respecter of persons or color, and the blackamoor who has once been under the dire influence of the Worm of the Still, like his infatuated white brother who is similarly situated, runs greedily into the very jaws of the reptile on every opportunity, and remaineth unsatisfied till he findeth himself swallowed entire, both body and breeches. Hence the Southern slaves always contrive, either by hook or by crook, to carry on their nefarious but secret traffic, often exchanging a whole porker, worth from five to ten dollars, for a single bottle of rum, worth intrinsically perhaps not more than fifty cents. But, if you consider how that the porker costs the darkey only the trouble of killing and cleaning it, and that the midnight purchaser runs the risk of the penitentiary every time he closes such a bargain, you will agree with us that, if any thing, the black man gets the best end of the trade. The good New-England rum will warm up the poor fellow's inner man and help to cheer him on his “journey frou' de wilderness,” much more effectually than all that wordy sympathy so lavishly expended in his behalf by New-England orators in their heated harangues against his oppressors; while, if the worst comes to the worst, he will only have to undergo a flagellation at the hands of the overseer, by order of his master, or at the hands of the constable, by order of a Justice of the Peace—and there an end.

The extent to which this species of traffic is carried on would stagger credulity, even in the minds of the Southern people themselves. It is usually conducted in so secret a manner, that only occasionally are the miscreants detected in a way to furnish legal evidence of their guilt. Negro testimony is no where admissible against a white man in the South, and even if it were, the negroes would suffer almost any species of torture before they would “peach;” for those of them who engage in the traffic are generally the greatest devils on the neighboring plantations, the greatest liars, the biggest rogues, as well as the most quarrelsome with their fellow-slaves, and are so wedded to the love of liquor, that it becomes to them a kind of necessity, a second nature so to speak. Such fellows have the shrewdness to know, if they were to inform on one groggery-keeper, they could never more obtain the confidence of another, and thus would have their grog cut off for all time—a consummation by no means wished for, and to which they would almost prefer death itself. Besides, whenever two criminals have the same terrible secret to keep, there is sure to spring up a sympathy betwixt them; hence, there is a real sympathy between the slaves and the groggery-keepers, and this is why the latter are sometimes abolitionists. These reason that, let the negroes only be emancipated, and their idleness will soon force them more and more to the dram-shop, while their facilities for robbing hen-roosts and pig-sties would not be in the least diminished; and hence, like as Dennis, the public hangman, in Barnaby Rudge, aided in the Lord Gordon riots simply because his own horrible trade would thereby come into more request, so the Southern groggery-keeper, that his own business might thrive, would willingly aid in the overthrow of the prosperity of the whole South, and would rejoice to see her present teeming fields become one desolate wilderness.

And here will we pause a single moment, to address a few words of friendly advice to the ultra abolitionists of the North. Why, gentle Sirs, do you not more frequently take the Southern groggery-keepers into your councils? Why do you not initiate them into your secret plots for fostering negro insurrections, for poisoning, maiming, and murdering the white families of the South, burning down their dwellings and laying waste their estates, in order that, as one of your leaders has declared, “you may laugh when their fear cometh?” It is known to a few, and suspected by a great number of American citizens, that you have your secret emissaries all through the Southern States, bound by secret obligations to carry out your nefarious and Catilinian conspiracies; and we ask you in all seriousness, why do you not enlist the Southern groggery-keepers under your black banner? They will prove the most efficient allies you can possibly hit upon. They know how to intrigue with the slaves, and to worm out family secrets, far better than those lank-jawed, thin-lipped, sharp-nosed, and bespectacled governesses whom you now use for that purpose; and they can tell you who are the most reckless, daring, villainous, and discontented of the negro men, with much greater precision than can those ostensible clock-menders, book-peddlers, and other Yankee foot-passengers generally, who are at the present time sneaking about from house to house in the Southern States, sharing the hospitality of the planters by day, and plotting with the slaves at night as to the best means by which a righteous and Christian insurrection may be inaugurated. Moreover, whisky is the most potent charm you could make use of to influence the negroes themselves; for we verily believe one good rousing dram would put more life and daring in their hearts than all the homilies ever preached by the political divines of the North, or all the bloody tracts ever published by the Secret Committee of the Massachusetts B. M. F. Society.

So much for the groggery-keepers and their groggeries —in which latter the Southern Bully so delights to lounge and drink, drink and lounge, and lounge and drink again, until he is fitly prepared for bets, brawls, oaths, blasphemies, quarrels, bruises, stabbings, shootings, manslaughters, murders; for in all these things he is more or less an adept. But the village groggery is not the only place loved and patronized by the Southern Bully. He haunts the village tavern equally as much—that is to say, when it is provided with a bar.

The village tavern is proverbially a dreary, dull, and ennui-begetting place, in all parts of the world, and is none the less so in the South, except on occasions. On occasions it becomes a sort of pandemonium, as the reader will presently learn. Most usually, when off the public highway and removed far from the routes of frequent travel, the establishment used as a tavern in all small Southern villages is nothing better than an old tumble-down shanty, the proprietor of which is a miserable old guzzler himself, coarse, ignorant, and vulgar, and quite indigent in circumstances—what little he makes being derived more from the sale of liquors at the bar than from any patronage of the travelling public. Indeed, a “solitary horseman” even, or other wayfaring man, hardly makes his appearance once in six months. Hence, the village Boniface makes no preparation for the entertainment of strangers, and in consequence keeps the vilest of vermin-habited beds, the mustiest of feathers, and the dirtiest of bed-linen; while the floors of all the rooms are bare, the walls are bare, the chairs are rickety, the window-shutters are ragged in the extreme, and rattle and bang unceasingly at the sport of the wind; and the whole is looked after by a single slovenly wanton of a negro-wench, who is both chambermaid, cook, and scullion generally, and is besides a most brazen-faced, impudent hussy, (rendered so by the too frequent interchange of favors with the village bucks, and the overseers of adjoining plantations,) who will wink a modest man out of countenance any day.

The most profitable customer who ever patronizes the village Boniface of the South is the Horse or Hog Drover, wending his way from Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, or North-Carolina, with his herds of wheezing swine, or droves of blooded horses and sleek mane-cropped, tail-cropped mules, to the more southerly latitudes, where such animals are always in demand at high prices. Since, however, the introduction of railways into most of the Southern States, hog-drovers do not so often patronize the village taverns as formerly, preferring to transport their herds to market by rail. Both the hog-drovers, and the horse-drovers belong usually to the class of Yeomen, and are industrious but plain, plodding people—we mean when they raise their own animals, and merely drive them to the extreme South for a better market. For those of them who are not producers, but merely traders, afford some of the most illustrious examples of the native Southern Yankee to be found in the entire South. This is especially true of the horse-drovers; and it is on the occasion of a visit from these that the village tavern is for a while the scene of much bustle and activity, and becomes, as we expressed a few paragraphs back, a very pandemonium for noise and strife.

And here we may as well confess, we have no sympathy with horse-jockeys the world over. We have had our share of dealings with them, in both the North and the South, and we flatter ourself that we always succeeded in coming out of every such encounter, a “sadder but a wiser man.” They are such a voluble, smooth-tongued, plausible race of miscreants, we do believe they could persuade an unsophisticated purchaser that black is white, or that any old broken-down, wind-galled, spavined, colicky, and otherwise generally used-up piece of horse-flesh, is a perfect paragon of equine cleverness—nimble as a cricket, gentle as a lamb, fleet as a reindeer, and possessing all the blood of all the best Arabians; and yet sold for never a fault in the world, and always at a sacrifice!

The Southern horse-jockey varies somewhat from the usual type, but chiefly in his outward man only; for inwardly he is ever the same sly, cunning fox, and thinks it a monstrous noble action to get the better of a credulous purchaser in a sale, and the very apotheosis of wit and shrewdness to swindle a poor countryman in a swap. He is usually unlettered, and in consequence despises your book-learning and all that such learning bestows upon its possessor; is rough in manners, and rude in speech, being much given to the use of slang expressions; never makes a wry face at a glass of any kind of grog; smokes an old rusty pipe incessantly; chews Virginia tobacco of the blackest and strongest brands; spits at random on every person and every thing that comes within his reach; wears Kentucky “jeans;” swears roundly and all the time; tells all manner of tough “yarns;” domineers over those of his own class in worldly position; looks with a sort of awe coupled with envy upon the Southern Gentleman, but fairly bows his bead to the ground in the presence of the Cotton Snob. Do you demand why the fellow does this last? Ask rather, why corrupt ward politicians are in such favor with our incorruptible Statesmen; or why the tradespeople on Broadway are so full of genuflections at the appearance of gouty old Bullion, the great millionaire; or why New-York saloon-keepers are so loud in their praises of those youthful Fifth-Avenoodles, who are wasting their patrimony in such hot haste by means of their fast horses, fast women, and riotous living, as well as every other species of folly that a plethoric purse and an empty noddle conjoined can devise—and you will have your answer: SELF-INTEREST. It is the Cotton Snob who usually pays his five hundred or his thousand dollars for his two-forty nag. It is the Cotton Snob who suffers himself to be flattered and cajoled by the cunning dealer in horse-flesh, until he feels himself grown so large in his own conceit as to imagine that his personal dignity, and the dignity of his social position, both imperatively demand that he should possess a splendid rig—none of your ordinary concerns suited only to gratify the taste and the financial credit of a Muggins. And do you suppose, generous operator on Wall-street, that the Southern horse-jockey, though clothed all in russet and wearing his pantaloons inside his boot-legs, is yet any less shrewd than yourself to “watch the corners”—to look after number One? Note how eagerly the fellow pricks up his ears so as to catch every word the Cotton Snob may utter, ready always to make a flattering rejoinder, the obsequious slave! Note how he affects to be amiably and confidingly drunk, plying all the while with the strongest of strong waters the poor pigeon he intends to pluck, until to save his soul the silly fool can not tell whether he carries his own shallow head on his shoulders or some body else's; and how affectionately he locks arms with the drunken booby, and, as they two totter and stagger down the village street, endeavors to out-sing his thick-voiced companion, who only expresses himself distinctly at each return of the chorus. Yet there is all the time in the scheming horse-jockey's eye a cold, clear, snake-like gleam of cunning calculation, which proclaims to even the dullest observer how great is the sham he is perpetrating. So true—so true:

In view of the unusual flow of custom which his bar receives on such occasions, no wonder the village Boniface is all aglow with delight, (as well as mean whisky,) when the horse-drover makes his appearance, and demands entertainment for man and beast. Besides being enabled to get rid of his many times diluted and adulterated liquors, selling the same to the horse-jockeys, snobs, bullies, and the regular village topers and loungers, whom the occasion leads to assemble about the village bar-room; he also succeeds in disposing of his musty corn and worthless fodder, to feed the animals which the drovers have for sale. Wherefore, in high spirits, our village Boniface blusters noisily about, now here, now there, swearing all the time like a trooper, looking withal very magisterial and self-important, and ready to turn up a glass with every new comer; until he pretty soon feels “o'er a' the ills o' life victorious,” and is then about as jolly an old dog of a landlord as ever wagged tongue against a “chaw” of plug tobacco.

But, even in the midst of so much lying, drinking, fighting, and cheating, there is much to be witnessed that is both entertaining and diverting. It is nearly always in the winter season that the horse-drovers take their animals South; when the evenings are long, and even a village bar-room fire, built up of glowing hickory logs, despite the rough company and the big-bellied black bottles frowning darkly in the shadowy background, sends a cheerful thrill through the frame, and disposes even the most unsocial to merry-making and fun. Hence, when the evening shades begin to appear, having first supped and then attended to their horses, the drovers consider that the day's labors are finished, and feel prepared to devote the evening wholly to social pleasures. So “mine host” has a roaring big fire built up in the broad fire-place of the bar-room, and ensconcing himself snugly in the chimney corner, with a well-filled pipe in his mouth, waits anxiously for the story-telling to begin—for yarn-spinning is usually the chief feature of the evening's entertainment. Pretty soon assemble the village groggery-keepers, and all the loose young bucks about town, two or three of the drovers, a Cotton Snob or so about 'alf and 'alf, and may be, some rattling, hare-brained son of a neighboring gentleman, whose untamed spirit is not sufficiently under parental control, and whose mother is ignorant of the fact that her darling “is out.” These all arrange themselves on cane-seated chairs about the blazing fire, after the most democratic fashion, some with heels over their heads, and others reclining in the laps of their friends; while the body-servants of the wealthy youngsters present, together with the traipsing tavern wench before alluded to, stand grinning and giggling in the door-way, (they rarely close doors during winter in the far South,) occasionally emitting a loud guffaw, accompanied by a slap of the palm on the thigh, and a swaying back of the entire body, just as some exquisitely laughable yarn has been reeled off by any one of the story-telling revellers within. Nor is it long before all ideas of caste are forgotten; and as the fire blazes brighter and brighter, and the bottle begins to circle more freely, and the jests and laughter become more and more uproarious, whites and blacks guffawing and huzzaing in chorus, no wonder the hours glide unperceived away; and often it is long after midnight before the merry wassailers retire to bed.

Such, then, are the usual resorts in which the Southern Bully delights to squander away the precious hours of life: namely, the village groggery and the village tavern. And now, reader, having introduced you to his haunts, we shall next proceed to show you what sort of person the Southern Bully is himself And, imprimis, he is not necessarily always poor. Sometimes he boasts of extensive estates, though not often, and then chiefly when he is young; for as he grows old, his wealth seems to take wings and fly away, so rapidly is it squandered. But as a general thing he is poor; and we shall therefore proceed first to speak of the seedy Southern Bully, and in conclusion will have a word to say about his wealthy confrère and fellow roysterer.

The poor Southern Bully, in nine cases out of ten, is a loafering ex-overseer, whose drunken dissolute habits have lost him his situation, as well as the character that would enable him to procure another. When not an ex-overseer, he is either a disgraced dry-goods clerk, a bankrupt groggery-keeper who has poured all his liquors down his own throat, or else the quondam rich Bully in the era of his decline. The poor Bully's dress is usually loose-fitting, dirty, tobacco-stained, liquor-stained, and grease-stained. His hat is woolen, with a limp flapping brim, battered crown, dirty and fuzzy, and on the whole might be called a shocking bad hat. His hair is habitually matted and unkempt, being in most instances of the Saxon peculiarity, that is, either red, or flaxen, or carroty-colored, or sandy. His beard is coarse and unkempt like his hair, and grows in great luxuriance all over his face, or else in ragged patches here and there, intended to represent imperials, mustaches, “literary dabs,” and the like precious ornaments of the civilized man. His breath is foul with all diabolical scents—rum, filth, tobacco— just such a breath as you can inhale any day in any police-court the world over, and which once inhaled, you will ever more pray that it shall not come betwixt you and the wind again. But his speech is fouler than his breath. He can out-swear a special policeman; can out-lie a Toombs lawyer; can use more obscene language than the vilest pimp who ever laid snares to entrap lecherous countrymen; and can utter more blasphemy in a single hour than could the whole mess of Rutland Reformers in a week, assisted by all the black spirits and white, blue spirits and gray, who annually assemble in some one of the Free States, for the purpose of putting down the Bible and our Federal Constitution. It is wonderful, indeed, what a gift of gab the fellow possesses; what a multitude of strange and agglomerated oaths he can interlard his discourse with, and how he manages to survive the constant damnings he is ever heaping upon every hair upon his head, and every bone in his body; verily, it surpasses belief! Oh! to see him at a chicken-fight—when there are gamecocks in the pit, and the bets range from one to five dollars! We tell you, Sir, it is sublime—the swearing and profanity he can give utterance to—perfectly sublime, so wholly is it beyond the conception of less depraved and more scrupulous minds! But if to see him at a cock-fight is glorious, to see him looking on at a dog-fight—bull-dogs, with cropped ears, stump tails, bow legs, and most villainous chops—is more glorious still, while most glorious of all, grandest of all, most inspiring of all, is, to witness the conduct of the Southern Bully, as he stands outside the imaginary ring in which is being waged a bloody man-fight! O thou soul-stirring spectacle! Hip, hip, hurrah! See, with what a gentlemanly grace Jones bungs up Smith's peepers! See, with what a sweet smile Smith plucks away half of Jones' yellow beard! How comfortable must have been that “left” which Jones let fly into Smith's bread-basket! How refreshing to the sight the claret fountain so unceremoniously started from Jones' mug by the noble Smith! Hurrah for Jones! Hurrah for Smith! Go in, boys! Let 'er rip! Never say die! Hit 'im agin! Dam—! Y-a-a-a-a-ou! Ugh-h-h! O-o-o-o-oh!

And the glorious work is done!

And yet you still advocate human bondage? Pray, thou good motherly soul, what has human bondage to do with such scenes? You miserable old woman, why do you always discover an African in the fence, let one turn whithersoever he may? Only go, worthy madam, into your own tenant houses, poor-houses, work-houses, groggeries, brothels, and the like nurseries of vice and infamy, and you will soon discover that the real cause of such human debasement, is not the kind of bondage to which you allude, but is that wickeder bondage of the soul which leads man a willing captive, bound and manacled, into the very camps and courts of the devil. To say nothing of other Northern cities, how many murders were committed in New-York alone during the year of grace 1858? Sixty-six; or at least we find that set down as the number in the public journals. But we hang the murderers in the Free North. You do? How many were hanged during the year of grace 1858, in the above-mentioned city of New-York? ONE; and he, poor fellow, for a little more would have been pardoned by the kind, and amiable, and soft-hearted Governor. Query, are not all such Governors a little soft in the head as well as in the heart?

We tell you, thou venerable grandam, it's all bosh. The South is no more a heathen country than the North. You, O mother of Israel, have bullies all around you, thieves all around you, murderers all around you, et id, etc. etc.; and when you lift up your hands in such holy horror at the shortcomings of your neighbors, you only make yourself an object of pity in the sight of the truly wise, and in the sight of God a hypocrite and Pharisee. Indeed, we think we may safely assert, that the South, in some particulars, even has an advantage over the North; for, however coarse, vulgar, brutal, and besotted the Southern Bully may be, still he is rarely ever a downright thief, and seldom murders in cold blood, and never attempts to make a dishonest livelihood by swindling the innocent and helpless—widows, and fatherless girls, and the like. But, according to the statistics and estimates of the New-York Tribune, in the one city of New-York alone, about fourteen thousand persons make annually nearly sixteen millions of dollars in the various walks of crime and vice, for which our leading metropolis is so infamous. Moreover, although we do not pretend to gainsay that the Southern Bully is a miserable nuisance in every sense, as well as a disgrace to civilization, and all that, we yet stoutly maintain that he is a greater enemy to himself than to any other person, and for wickedness does not begin to compare with those swindlers in high places—the Schuylers, Huntingtons, and other gentlemen of the like kidney, presidents of banks, coal companies, railroad corporations, et cetera, et cetera; who are every day growing rich on the hard earnings of the poor, pilfering from the day laborers, and absolutely stealing the little savings intrusted to them by toiling servant-girls; and yet who continue to be smiled upon by “our best society,” and are allowed the ineffable privilege of snoring in our most Orthodox and fashionable churches. Neither is the poor Southern Bully to be compared for meanness to the rich Southern Bully, of whom we come now to say a few words; for the poor Southern Bully can plead in extenuation of his shortcomings the temptations of poverty and ignorance, as well as the lack of any refining associations or surroundings; which is not the case with his rich fellow-drunkard, fellow-gambler, fellow-blackguard, fellow-libertine, and fellow-brawler, since the latter could be a gentleman if he would.

This style of Southern Bully is found more often in the Cotton States, than elsewhere; which is owing to the fact, that fortunes are more frequently made in those States than in any others, by ignorant men— overseers, negro traders, and others of a similar class. For it is the son of the vilest of the Southern Yankees, who usually, no matter how great his wealth may be, does not even approach the comparative respectability of a Cotton Snob, but is nothing more nor less than a bully—an ignorant, purse-proud, self-conceited, guzzling, fox-hunting, blaspheming, slave-whipping, uproarious, vulgar fellow! who is at all times as willing and ready to pink a fellow-being as to wing a pheasant, or to shoot a hare. Even if sent to college, (which sometimes does happen, since his father, however ignorant, is yet anxious that his son shall know more than himself,) he seldom learns any thing from books, and cares for nothing but his daily drams, his cocktails, and brandy-straights, his pistols and his cards, his dogs and his sooty mistress, and, greatest knave of all, himself! While at college, however, he lives extravagantly, though but meanly supplied with funds by his miserly parent; and, as a matter of course, is always over head and ears in debt. But wo to the poor tradesman who menaces him with a bill! The Honorable Algernon Percy Deuceace, worthy scion of the noble house of Crabbs, knew not better how to brain a dunning tailor or starving cobbler, than does the warm-hearted noble-souled Southern Bully, of good family and respectable standing. And as for presenting one of the son's bills to his miserly father, were we an honest storekeeper, we should much prefer to bear in patience with the wrath of the hot-headed juvenile, than to run the risk of encountering the supercilious frowns of his honorable sire.

When the rich Southern Bully comes into the possession of his estates, his first care is to fill his cellars (in case he has any, otherwise his store-room) with barrels of Old Rye, as well as brandy, gin, rum, and other kinds of strong waters, but rarely with any thing in the shape of wine. Wine may do for babes, but not for such a puissant gentleman as he fancies himself to be. Having laid in his stock of liquors, he proceeds immediately to gather about him a set of boon companions like himself—idle loafers, drunken overseers, and may be one or two other fellows of like kidney; and now he devotes his nights to gaming, drinking, and coarse libertinism, and his days to fox-hunting, horse-racing, and the like. Ah! thou blot on the fair escutcheon of the South, what a rabble is it indeed dangles ever at your heels! How they yell, and whoop, and halloo, louder than the deep-baying hounds, while they pursue the manly old English sport! One would almost fancy the whole of Bedlam had broke loose, so great is the confusion they create. And as they ride crashing and dashing through the thick underbush in the wide-reaching stretches of Southern woodlands, or through the tangled mosses which hang in festoons from the cypresses of the swamps, you will observe not infrequently two bottles of different kinds of liquors, dangling, one on either side, from the pommel of the Southern Bully's saddle— from each of which he drinks by turns, between every swallow shouting furiously, tally ho! tantivy! to his hounds, and waves to his liegemen to follow on, so that they may all be “in at the death.”

Like the Cotton Snob, the rich Southern Bully is great on horse-flesh. His conversation runs chiefly on dogs and horses, horse-trappings and the like; and he himself much affects jockey caps, and other sporting articles of costume, and fills his house with wood-cuts of all the celebrated racers, as well as with whips, saddles, bridles, spurs, etc. etc. Besides, from associating so constantly with jockeys and grooms, he soon learns all the slang phrases peculiar to jockeydom, and rattles them off most volubly on all occasions; for his groveling conception of what constitutes a well-bred gentleman, never allows of his looking to any thing beyond a shrewd dealer in horse-flesh. Hence, he will tell you that he wants no scallywags about him—no short stock, as he delights to characterize all horses of unrecognized or uncertain pedigree. He must have the full blood or none; and in consequence his stables are filled with racers, trotters, natural pacers, and saddle and harness horses without number, all of undoubted descent from some imported stallion, and any one of which he will back against the world for almost any stake you shall name. Hence, he is all the time running his crack nags against the crack nags of the sponging worthies who dangle always at his heels; nor does he allow any of the public races near him to come off without his being in attendance, together with his horses, grooms, and motley crowd of retainers. Of course he loses money in the end; as who does not that follows the turf any length of time? But, in addition to his losses from bets, he loses also from the negligent carelessness with which his plantation and negroes are looked after; for how can these be expected to thrive, when he keeps his overseer all the time with himself, and more than half the time drunk? Moreover, to cap the whole, he is ever losing money at cards: for, if he plays in his own old tumble-down dwelling, he loses there; and if he plays in the little back-room to the village groggery, he loses there; and if he plays in the tap-room of the village tavern, with the horse-jockeys and other equally honest, hearty blades, he loses there too, since, poor ignorant simpleton! he is always fuddled with rum or brandy, and falls therefore an easy prey to every sharper who crosses his path. When, however, he has played out his last card; when he suddenly wakes up out of his sottish stupor, to find himself a thriftless beggar; when he sees the auctioneer crying off his paternal acres and the lazy blacks, (for whom he never entertained one half as much sympathy as he still cherishes for his blooded horses, that are also now snatched from him by the officers of the law,) his wits seem to return to him in a measure, and pretty soon he becomes a peripatetical blackleg, gambling for a livelihood. He travels on the river steamboats mostly, and lives by plucking all such poor pigeons as remind him of his former self; else, acts as a decoy to entice such verdants to play, so that keener sharpers may do the plucking, dividing with him the spoil. Any man who has travelled much on the Mississippi, or the Alabama, or the Red, or the Arkansas, or any other of our Southern rivers, can not fail to have noted the rich Southern Bully in this particular stage of his decline and fall. He must not be confounded, however, with the keenest and most adroit of such peripatetic chevaliers d'industrie; for these are nearly always foreigners, or else have served their apprenticeship to crime in some one of our large cities. The Southern Bully is not so polished or self-possessed as all such precious scamps usually are; and is besides so constantly addicted to ardent spirits, that his face is full of blotches, and has not that genteel pallor and thoughtfulness of expression so characteristic of the regularly-bred gambler.

But in a very few years we miss the Southern Bully on the river steamers, and must either search for him in an untimely grave, or else far out on the Southwestern frontier. Here he chases after buffaloes and Indians, and shoots wild cats and Comanches with equal nonchalance; and astonishes with the boastful narratives of his former exploits, the simple-minded backwoodsmen—those rude American vi-kings who wear leather breeches and buckskin shirts, and live by following the chase; but who are honest and rudely chivalrous, though unschooled in the arts of civilized life, all of which they as heartily contemn and despise, as did those ancient barbaric heroes of the Niebelungen Lied. Wearying after a while, however, of this nomadic life, the Southern Bully makes yet another change, and as a last resort turns fillibuster. Like Cortez in Mexico, or Pizarro in Peru, or the English in India, or the French in Algeria; he seeks by plundering and pillaging a helpless people, to make up for his past losses, as well as to bury in the excitement of adventure and the changeful fortunes of the tented field, all remembrances of a past life, misspent, squandered, and most wickedly wasted in riot and dissipation.

And here let us remark, in conclusion, for all such emprises the Southern Bully is eminently the right man in the right place; and it is much to be regretted that so many far better men and truer gentlemen, have been misled to consort with him in his hazardous and unlawful enterprises. For, although we feel persuaded the United States will, purely in self-defense, be compelled at no distant day to seize on Cuba, Mexico, and all Central America, we yet think when that time does arrive, it will then be plenty soon to rid the Republic of these pestilent, quarrelsome fellows, who now infest both the North and the South, and whose room is much more desirable than their company. Ah! when the hour for action comes, how admirably will it serve us to pit such dawdling, lazy drones, against the still more worthless raggamuffins who possess, only to abuse, those fertile and highly-productive lands lying along our Southern boundary. What a poetical justice will that be—the allowing the miserable riff-raff and rabble of both communities to kill one another off, and thereby make room for the honest workers.

Let us not disguise the fact, however, that it is painful to every virtuous or Christian mind to reflect, that such happy results are only to be consummated by such unhappy adventures. So, also, it is painful exceedingly to look upon a gallows; or to gaze into the iron-barred windows of a Sing Sing or a Newgate? Yet these all have their necessary uses; and so too have those. For, in man's present transitory and changeful state, wars, pestilences, and famines, though usually regarded as scourges, are in reality only blessings in disguise.

Now, does the reader fancy there is any thing in the nature of our soil and climate which would soon transmogrify such untutored, uncultivated, and servile creatures into freemen and gentlemen? Does he imagine that the glorious Declaration of Independence would alone suffice to put bread and meat into the mouths of paupers, or clothes upon their ragged backs? Is he so foolish as to believe that the overthrow of the Law of Primogeniture, the bestowal of the elective franchise, and the other levelling doctrines of Mr. Jefferson, would of themselves elevate to a position of thrift and intelligence, necessary to success in an honest competition with their more self-reliant fellows, those outcasts and paupers, picked up in the back slums and cellars of London, and transported at the public charge to Virginia, and there sold in the market-house to the highest bidder? If yea; then we must say, O candid reader, that you are a greater ninny than we supposed you were, be you sir or madam, miss or master.

For observe, if you please, the actual result has been far different. Just as the abolishment of the old feudal base tenures has been as yet productive of no perceptible advantages to the Old World peasants, so likewise the removal of the English paupers to the New World, to the enjoyment of all the immunities of freemen, and to a land of such cornucopian abundance that it may be said almost to flow with milk and honey, has as yet been productive of no material improvement in their condition as a class. An individual here and there may have become imbued with a more manly feeling than what he otherwise would have attained unto; but as a class, as a Community, they remain in statu quo. Every where they are just alike, possess pretty much the same characteristics, the same vernacular, the same boorishness, and the same habits; although in different localities, they are known by different names. Thus, in the extreme South and South-west, they are usually called Squatters; in the Carolinas and Georgia Crackers or Sandhillers; in the Old Dominion, Rag Tag and Bob-tail; in Tennessee and some other States, People in the Barrens—but every where, Poor White Trash, a name said to have originated with the slaves, who look upon themselves as much better off than all “po' white folks” whatever.

To form any proper conception of the condition of the Poor White Trash, one should see them as they are. We do not remember ever to have seen in the New-England States a similar class; though, if what a citizen of Maine has told us be true, in portions of that State the Poor Whites are to be found in large numbers. In the State of New-York, however, in the rural districts, we will venture to assert that more of this class of paupers are to be met with than you will find in any single Southern State. For in examining the statistics of pauperism, as prepared by the Secretary of State for New-York, we learn that the number of her public paupers, permanent and temporary, is set down as 468,302—to support whom requires an annual outlay of one million and a half of dollars, which has to be raised by tax for the purpose. They are also found in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and all the States of the North-west, though in most of these last they came originally from the South. But every where, North and South, in Maine or Texas, in Virginia or New-York, they are one and the same; and have undoubtedly had one and the same origin, namely, the poor-houses and prison-cells of Great Britain. Hence we again affirm, what we asserted only a moment ago, that there is a great deal more in blood than people in the United States are generally inclined to believe.

Now, the Poor White Trash are about the only paupers in our Southern States, and they are very rarely supported by either the State or parish in which they reside; nor have we ever known or heard of a single instance in the South, in which a pauper was farmed out by the year to the lowest or highest bidder, (whichever it be,) as is the custom in the enlightened States of New-England. Moreover, the Poor White Trash are wholly rural; hence, the South will ever remain secure against any species of agrarianism, since such mob violence always originates in towns and cities, wherein are herded together an unthinking rabble, whom Dryden fitly describes as,

The Poor Whites of the South live altogether in the country, in hilly and mountainous regions generally, in communities by themselves, and far removed, from the wealthy and refined settlements. Why it is they always select the hilly, and consequently unproductive districts for their homes, we know not. It can not be, however, as urged by the abolitionists, because the slaveholders have seized on all the fertile lands; for it is well known, that some of the most inexhaustible soils in the South have never yet felt the touch of the ploughshare in their virgin bosoms, and are still to be had at government prices. Neither can it be pleaded in behalf of the Poor White Trash, that they object to labor by the side of slaves; for, as we have already shown, the Southern Yeomanry, who, as a class, are poor, work habitually in company with negroes, and usually prefer to own a homestead in the neighborhood of wealthy planters. We apprehend, therefore, that it is a natural feeling with Messrs. Rag Tag and Bobtail—an idiocyncrasy for which they themselves can assign no good reason—why they delight to build their pine-pole cabins among the sterile sand hills, or in the very heart of the dismal solitude of the burr-oak or pine barrens. We remember to have heard an overseer who had spent some time among the Sandhillers, relate something like the following anecdote of a youthful Bobtail whom he persuaded to accompany him out of the hill-country into the nearest alluvial bottoms, where there was any number of extensive plantations in a high state of cultivation, which will aptly illustrate this peculiarity of the class. So soon as the juvenile Bobtail reached the open country, his eyes began to dilate, and his whole manner and expression indicated bewilderment and uneasiness. “Bedadseized!” exclaimed he at last, “ ef this yere ked'ntry haint got nary sign ov er tree! How in thunder duz folks live down yere? By G-o-r-j! this beats all that Uncle Snipes tells about Carlina. Tell yer what, I'm goin' ter make tracks fur dad's—yer heer my horn toot!” And he did make tracks for dad's, sure enough.

These are the words of H. W. Beecher, who called John Brown a “servant of Christ,” and declared from his pulpit, that it only wanted a cord and gibbet to make of that old felon's life a complete success! Consistency, thou art a jewel!

This is what the abolitionists in the North have done for the negro: let us see now what their English cousins have done for him. Many facts of importance in regard to the Underground Railroad have been brought to light by the fiasco of Old Brown and his companions at Harper's Ferry, but none of greater importance than the disclosures in regard to the actual condition of the negroes of Canada. By the proceedings of the Court of Assizes of Essex county, (Canada,) it appears that the grand-jury have made a presentment to the court, based upon a representation emanating from the authorities of the township of Anderdon, in regard to the negro population of the county. The grand-jury submit the document that was presented to them to the court, and urge that some action be taken in the matter. The Anderdon authorities say: “We are aware that nine tenths of the crimes committed in the county of Essex, according to population, are committed by the colored people.” And they further urge, that ‘some measures may be taken by the government to protect us and our property, or persons of capital will be driven from the country.” The court, in alluding to this presentment, remarked that “he was not surprised at finding a prejudice existing against them (the negroes) among the respectable portion of the people, for they were indolent, shiftless, and dishonest, and unworthy of the sympathy that some mistaken parties extended to them; they would not work when opportunity was presented, but preferred subsisting by thieving from respectable farmers, and begging from those benevolently inclined.”

We may now return to our subject. And it may be that some reader will object, How do you know, had the negroes been left unmolested in their native land, they would not of themselves have attained to even greater civilization than they have achieved in this country? This objection is easily answered by considering the present status of Cuffee in his native Africa: and let us pause a moment to regard him, as described by the latest and most reliable travellers.

Richardson and Barth have furnished us with the most reliable information in regard to the negroes of North-Africa. Although both these travellers were sent out by the British Government, and were themselves strongly anti-slavery in sentiment, they yet bear testimony to the utter degradation of the natives of Negroland, and prove conclusively that these are to-day just where they were one hundred—yes, five hundred years ago, and that now as always slavery is their normal condition. Dr. Barth even is of opinion, (in opposition to the popular sentiment,) that the foreign slave-trade has very little to do comparatively with the horrors of slave-hunting and the like inhumanities; but that the domestic slave-trade of Africa alone is the chief support of such barbarous acts. Hear him:

“Now, it should always be borne in mind that there is a broad distinction between the slave-trade and domestic slavery. The foreign slave-trade may, comparatively speaking, be easily abolished, though the difficulties of watching over contraband attempts have been shown sufficiently by many years' experience. With the abolition of the slave-trade all along the northern and south-western coast of Africa, slaves will cease to be brought down to the coast; and in this way a great deal of mischief and misery necessarily resulting from this inhuman traffic will be cut off. But this, unfortunately, forms only a small part of the evil. There can be no doubt that the most horrible topic connected with slavery is slave-hunting; and this is carried on not only for the purpose of supplying the foreign market, but, in a far more extensive degree, for supplying the wants of domestic slavery.”

In this assertion, Dr. Barth is sustained by the facts, and by the unanimous testimony of all explorers worthy of the name. It has not been six months, in fact, since the death of Guezo I., King of Dahomey, has been announced; and his son and heir caused eight hundred slaves to be slain on his grave, in order that these might accompany their dead sovereign into the land of spirits: while of the two hundred thousand population of this kingdom, one hundred and eighty thousand are slaves.

Passing down into South-Central and South-Africa, on the testimony of Dr. David Livingstone, a devout missionary, a practical Christian, a learned Englishman, the most wonderful of modern travellers and explorers, and withal both by constitutional and national prejudices anti-slavery in sentiment; we learn what is the present condition of those native Negro tribes, from whom our own Southern slaves have doubtless in the main derived their origin. Dr. Livingstone has evidently done his best to present us the most pleasing aspect of the condition of those tribes: being therefore a witness for the prosecution, his testimony must of necessity be regarded as at least impartial when used by a pro-slavery advocate. Now, Dr. Livingstone describes nearly all the black tribes with whom he came in contact as more or less enslaved, except the Bechuanas and Makalolos. But what is the character of these black freemen of Africa, according to the testimony of Livingstone himself? We shall see.

First, as to the Bechuanas.

The different tribes comprehended under this general name, live in Southern Africa, near the English possessions of Cape Colony, and have been under missionary influence for about fifty years. Dr. Livingstone lived among these people a long time as a missionary himself, and married the daughter of Mr. Moffat, who has labored in the same field forty years or more, and who has also translated the Bible into the Bechuana language. In his zeal for establishing that the Bechuanas are free, the worthy missionary even goes so far as to contend that their very name means free men. Now, to show what is considered freedom in benighted Africa, read the following account of the conversion of Sechele, the chief of one of the Bechuana tribes. We quote the author's own words:

“Seeing me anxious that his people should believe the words of Christ, he once said: ‘Do you imagine these people will ever believe by your merely talking to them? I can make them do nothing except by thrashing them; and if you like, I shall call my headmen, and with our litupa (whips of rhinoceros hide) we will soon make them all believe together. ’ ”

This may look like freedom to an Englishman, especially when in Africa, where the chiefs of most tribes are wont to run a muck, (when they have nothing more serious to occupy their thoughts,) killing every person they meet; but we presume most Americans will be puzzled to perceive wherein is any difference between such a free use of litupa by the headmen of Sechele and the same use of cowskins by the overseers on our Southern plantations.

But again, speaking of these same Bechuanas:

“No one refuses to acquiesce in the decision of the chief, as he has the power of life and death in his hands, and can enforce the law to that extent if he chooses. . . . This system was found as well developed among the Makalolos as among the Bakwains, or even better, and is no foreign importation.”

The Bakwains here spoken of are a tribe of Bechuanas —the same of whom Sechele was chief.

As for the intellectual advancement of the Bechuanas, despite fifty years' intercourse with the English, Livingstone gives the following not very flattering report:

“The acme of respectability among the Bechuanas is the possession of cattle and a wagon. It is remarkable that, though these latter require frequent repairs, none of the Bechuanas have ever learned to mend them. Forges and tools have been at their service, and teachers willing to aid them, but, beyond putting together a camp-stool, no effort has ever been made to acquire a knowledge of the trades. They observe most carefully a missionary at work until they understand whether a tire is well welded or not, and then pronounce upon its merits with great emphasis, but there their ambition rests satisfied.”

So much for the Bechuanas.

As we have before observed, the Makalolos were another tribe of freemen with whom Livingstone became acquainted. They reside to the north of the lake Ngami, in the heart of what has heretofore been considered a terra incognita, namely, Ethiopia. They never saw a white man before the coming of Livingstone; never had any intercourse with the Portuguese or other slave-traders, and pretended indeed to know nothing of the slave-trade whatever. According to their oral traditions, they came originally from further north, and conquered by their superior prowess all the tribes then inhabiting their present country; and these tribes they continue to hold in bondage, calling them Makalaka, their word for slaves. What the nature of this slavery is, as well as the character of the enslaved tribes, can be conjectured after perusing the following extracts:

“On land the Makalaka fear the Makalolo; on water the Makalolo fear them, and can not prevent them from racing with each other, dashing along at the top of their speed, and placing their masters' lives in danger. In the event of a capsize, many of the Makalolo would sink like stones. A case of this kind happened on the first day of our voyage up. The wind, blowing generally from the east, raises very large waves on the Leeambye. An old doctor of the Makalolo had his canoe filled by one of these waves, and, being unable to swim, was lost. The Makalaka who were in the canoe with him saved themselves by swimming, and were afraid of being punished with death in the evening, for not saving the doctor as well. Had he been a man of more influence, they certainly would have suffered death.”

Another example:

“An interesting-looking girl came to my wagon one day in a state of nudity, and almost a skeleton. She was a captive from another tribe, and had been neglected by the man who claimed her. Having supplied her wants, I made inquiries for him, and found that he had been unsuccessful in raising a crop of corn, and had no food to give her. I volunteered to take her, but he said he would allow me to feed her and make her fat, and then take her away. I protested against his heartlessness, and, as he said he could not part with her, I was precluded from attending to her wants. In a day or two she was lost sight of. She had gone out a little way from the town, and, being too weak to return, had been cruelly left to perish. Another day I saw a poor boy going to the water to drink, apparently in a starving condition. This case I brought before the chief in council, and found that his emaciation was ascribed to disease and want combined. The chief decided that the owner of this boy should give up his alleged right rather than destroy the child. When I took him he was so far gone as to be in the cold stage of starvation, but was soon brought round by a little milk given three or four times a day.”

The reader will now know why these Makalolo are not slaves—they are a precious lot of slaveholders! Besides, they are not negroes proper, but rather copper-colored, being evidently in part of Arab descent. The Makalaka, on the contrary, are darker-hued, and pretty fair specimens of the negroes of dry latitudes.

The Makalolo and their slaves usually dress alike, the fashion being to appear in puris naturalibus, or at best with a very shabby apology for Adam's fig-leaf. The slaves delve in the ground for food to feed their masters, while the latter are nearly always at war with some tribe or other, or engaged in the old Highland sport of lifting their neighbors' cattle, etc. etc. , When they attack a village, their custom is to slay without remorse or any distinction of age or sex, and to reduce all the captives, whose lives are spared, to bondage. And this is the sum of all that can be said of Dr. Livingstone's enlightened free tribe of blacks in the interior of Ethiopia, about whom some respectable journals, in both Great Britain and the United States, have circulated many exaggerated not to say apocryphal stories.

As for the other negro tribes with whom Livingstone was made acquainted in South Central Africa, he has himself been forced to make the following confession:

“The statement of Pereira that twenty negroes were slaughtered in a day, was not confirmed by any one else, though numbers may have been killed on some particular occasion during his visit; for we find throughout all the country north of 20°, WHICH I CONSIDER REAL NEGRO, the custom of slaughtering victims to accompany the departed soul of a chief; and human sacrifices are occasionally offered, and certain parts of the bodies are used as charms.”

You here behold, O negrophilist of the North, what the negro slaves on our Southern plantations would have been, had not their ancestors been providentially removed to a land of Christian enlightenment, and placed under the severe but necessary pupilage of life-bondage to white men. And this very necessity Livingstone has unwittingly confessed, while giving the reasons which led him to refuse a slave-girl presented to him by Shinte, a chief of the Balonda—a tribe remarkable for the toilet of its females, who literally have “nothing to wear.”

“If I could have taken her into my family for the purpose of instruction,” says the Doctor, “and then returned her as a free woman, according to a promise I should have made the parents, I should have done so; but to take her away, and probably never be able to secure her return, would have produced no good effect on the minds of the Balonda; they would not then have seen evidence of our hatred of slavery, and the kind attentions of my friends, as it almost always does in similar cases, would have turned the poor thing's head. The difference in position between them and us is as great as between the lowest and highest in England, and we know the effects of sudden elevation on wiser heads than hers, whose owners had not been born to it.”

Immediately following this confession is a very singular paragraph, which we must quote, if merely to show how a good and wise man can be blinded by either national, or sectarian, or constitutional, or whatever other kind of prejudice you may please to call it. For, directly after having refused the gift of a slave from conscientious scruples, this really Christian gentleman, in every sense of the word, proceeded to show the natives the pictures in the magic lantern—and the very first picture represented Father Abraham, a slaveholder! But let the Doctor tell it in his own words:

“The first picture exhibited was Abraham about to slaughter his son Isaac; it was shown as large as life, and the uplifted knife was in the act of striking the lad; the Balonda men remarked that the picture was much more like a god than the things of wood or clay they worshipped. I explained that this man was the first of a race to whom God had given the Bible we now hold, and that among his children our Saviour appeared. The ladies listened with silent awe; but when I moved the slide, the uplifted dagger moving towards them, they thought it was to be sheathed in their own bodies instead of Isaac's. ‘Mother! Mother!’ all shouted at once, and off they rushed helter-skelter, tumbling pell-mell over each other, and over the little idol huts and tobacco bushes.”

After the learned missionary had gotten through with the illustration of this subject, having previously delivered them a good orthodox anti-slavery sermon, we should have liked much to witness the effect on himself and his auditory of the public announcement that the same “friend of God,” even Abraham, was a slaveholder, and bought and sold human chattels at their market value! We apprehend there would have been seen then and there real pictures, which, for effect, would have greatly surpassed the cunningest devices of the camera-obscura.

And now, will the reader pardon yet another digression? For just here we wish briefly to allude to a very singular fallacy, which has begun to mislead the minds of men of late years—and that is a belief in the absolute non-superiority of races; in other words, the absolute equality of all men, of every creed and every color. A new sect of philosophers is springing up in this country and in Europe, who, shutting their eyes to the experience of thousands of years, and refusing to acknowledge the notorious superiority in all climates and all lands of the pure white races, have the impudence and temerity to declare that this superiority is only apparent, and does not indicate any inherent superiority of blood. We have often been amused to note what poor shifts these learned wiseacres are forced to resort to in defense of their cherished hobby. The weakest and most shallow of them all, is the latest which has come to our knowledge. It originated in this country, we believe, and is urged by the abolitionists in support of their designs for compassing the emancipation of our Southern slaves, or at least in the hope of putting the institution “in course of ultimate extinction.”

It is this very sapient proposition: The whites in these United States are superior to the negroes, because the latter are exotics in our latitude; but are inferior to the same blacks in Africa, because there the blacks are the indigenous race, while the whites are the exotics, and in consequence must succumb to the climate.

Now, can the reader tell wherein lies the wit of the above sage proposition? Why, in this: It is like the celebrated question of a certain learned philosopher, asking the reason why a pail full to the brim of water can yet be made to contain a fish weighing two pounds, without spilling a single drop of the fluid. Both propositions are false in fact. When you put the fish weighing two pounds into the pail, you find that the water does run over; and so, too, when you come to study the map of Africa, You find the white race, there as here, invariably superior to the black, and this from time immemorial. Bayard Taylor assures us, that, on the walls of the Egyptian monuments and palaces, the thick lips, woolly head, black skin, and other peculiarities of the negro, are often to be seen, but in every instance the blackamoor is represented as serving in the capacity of a slave.

Confining ourselves, however, to modern times, we find the Boers in South-Africa holding the blacks in a state of bondage, in spite of the English, the negroes, and the climate, all combined. So, too, on both the East and West Coast we find the Portugese doing the same thing. And as for Northern Africa, the testimony of Dr. Barth and almost every other traveller, proves beyond cavil that the mass of slaves used there for domestic purposes are brought from Negroland, and are sold to the Arabs, Berbers, etc. etc.; all of these latter being not in the least tainted with negro blood, if not pure white. At a late meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, however, Dr. Bodiehon, a resident of Algeria, presented a paper on the races of the north half of Africa, in which he contended that the Numidians or Berbers, and the Arabs, are white. The former live in the mountains, are small in stature, warlike, independent, democratic, and polygamous. They dwell in villages, and plant vineyards. They are fine soldiers, able to compete with Europeans. They are an indigenous race also; at least Bodiehon so declares. The Arabs live in the plains, are a tall race, of dark complexion, equestrian, nomadic, warlike, religious, poetical, and polygamous. Dr. Bodiehon also found in the interior a Germanic race, with blue eyes and light hair, and who are probably the descendants of the ancient Carthaginians. “These all,” concludes Bodiehon, “possess the characteristic superiority of white races—the enslaving of the neighboring blacks.”

Wherefore, our philanthropic friends, whenever again you feel inclined to swallow unquestioning, like so many young crows, whatever your gowned clergy and much-be flattered paragons of the Lyceum may choose to thrust down your gaping throats; we beseech you, in Truth's name, to keep your mouths shut until you have learned the nature at least of the nutriment you are invited in such honeyed phrase to receive into your capacious stomachs. What if you do possess all the wonderful digestive capabilities of the ostrich, is that any reason why you should stultify yourselves by evincing as little discretion as that silly bird, fowl, or whatever you may please to call it, which never can distinguish between a fat healthy worm and a tenpenny nail? Even if you have “a taste for being diddled,” have sufficient self-respect not to make yourselves the laughing-stock of the wise, by giving point to the keen satire of Hood:

But to return to our subject once again.

Having demonstrated to a certainty that the four millions of enslaved blacks in the United States are superior in every respect to the blacks remaining in Africa, whether free or slave; and having demonstrated, also, that the negroes every where are an inferior race; therefore, exclaims the reader, believing slavery to be the natural and normal condition of the negro, and that his removal from Congo or Mozambique is to benefit both him and his posterity, of course you advocate the revival of the slave-trade? Not of necessity, dear Sir! Not of necessity, permit us to assure you, thou venerable and respected grandam! Draw a little nearer, if you please, Madam, seeing that age has rendered your hearing a little defective. Well. Now, there is your paragon of grandsons, the hopeful Augustus—(he is twisting the cat's tail, we observe!) who is ever tearing his dear granny's dress, and plucking at the scanty beard which grows from a mole directly under your venerable chin: Augustus dearly loves sugar-plums, doesn't he? And a few of them, well melted in the mouth before being swallowed, rarely give him the colic or the gripes, eh? Oh! they only sweeten the dear child's temper, we hear you mumble, admiringly. But when he bolts down his sugar-plums whole without any previous lubrifaction, (which he always does, if allowed,) and crams and crams until, however much like poor Oliver he may cry for more, he finds it impossible to coax or force another plum into his distended stomach, what are the sad consequences? Ah! how often has your grandmotherly soul been grieved within you, while you watched by his sleepless pillow after every such feat of gormandizing, administering to the saintly infant tinctures and powders, from ten of the clock at night until the crowing of the old family rooster at day-break! Truly we will not harrow your warm old heart by dwelling on such painful reminiscences. Observe, however, that there may be a surfeit of slaves as well as of sugar-plums.

But these things are not left to man to decide. A Higher Power disposes—man is like the dog in the treadmill, he goes his little round, but can never get beyond the length of his tether. Under the guidance of the Divine Hand, at the proper time, a missionary exactly fitted for his mission has penetrated to the most secret recesses of Ethiopia, and, returning safely thence, has made known to the Christian world such facts as lead us to predict: That, fifty years from to-day, the slave-trade on the high seas will be entirely unknown. The only thing which encourages the traffic at present is the difference in value between a slave in Algona and the same chattel in Cuba, Brazil, or the United States. Whenever the day comes that a man's labor shall be worth as much in Central Africa as in Alabama or Louisiana, it will then no longer be profitable to engage in the slave-trade; and, we don't care how much the preachers pray, or the politicians twaddle, or the old women whimper, or the young misses snivel, or the British cruisers cruise, or the laws denounce the traffic; nothing under heavens will ever stop the slave-trade, but the certainty of no profits.

Now, as we have declared above, we believe the time will come when there will be no gains for those who would like to engage in the slave-trade, or the Coolie trade either, which is altogether the worse of the two. Were the writer a member of the English Cabinet, and did his voice possess sufficient weight, he flatters himself that he could put a stop to the slave-trade at least, in the short space of twenty years. Dr. Livingstone has shown that all Central Africa, once considered a waste of sand, is reticulated with many noble streams, of a size sufficient to carry large steamboats, and watering millions of acres of cultivable land, all lying idle at present, owing to the ignorance, laziness, and vice of the indigenous races. Nine tenths of these are already slaves, degraded below the level of the brute creation around them, and holding their lives at the absolute disposal of their masters, who are in all respects as sunken and degraded as themselves. These slaves could be purchased on the spot by Englishmen for one dollar a piece on an average; and the whole territory could likewise be bought up from the different black tribes for a mere song. By judicious leveeing the present fluvial wastes of the Leeambye region could all be reclaimed, and very soon cotton estates, sugar estates, coffee estates, and others could be opened and successfully cultivated, the masters living in the high and healthy districts, leaving the blacks to till the river lands under white tutorage and control. Ere long, wealth would spring up on every hand; towns, villages, gentlemen's parks and preserves, schools, churches, railroads, steamboats, and telegraphs would follow; and in another generation the negroes themselves would forget their paganism, and would be placed on a par with our own negro slaves, speaking the English language, freed from their former degradation, clothed in decent apparel, church-goers, Christians many of them, and, compared to what they now are, civilized all. Men might bawl out, slavery! despotism struck in! and all that; yet such is the only method by which Africa can ever be speedily civilized, or rendered of much commercial importance to the rest of the world.

And, honestly; would not such a system be eminently humane compared with the policy England has pursued in India, and which she will doubtless pursue in Central Africa also, when she once gets a foothold on any of the waters of the Leeambye? In India, although acting in the name of Freedom, the English have oppressed the natives much more despotically than our slaves are oppressed in the South. Perhaps our British cousins have been as lenient as possible under the circumstances; we are not prepared to deny it; but there is, as we all know, a material difference between a clean shirt to a laboring man's back and bacon and greens and johnny cake for his digestion, and a simple strip of calico about the loins with only rice to eat from the cradle to the grave. That the latter condition appertains to the shudras and all the lower castes in India, all must acknowledge. Besides, the Hindoos still remain wedded to their gross superstitions; they despise the religion of their English conquerors; and, as is well known, the recent terrible rebellion was caused solely on account of their abhorrence of cartridges greased with the fat of their sacred animal, the cow. Indeed it has been asserted (how truly we know not) that the English have not cared to Christianize the natives, preferring to make money out of their superstitions, selling them idols of wood and brass fabricated in England, and levying a government tax on the offerings placed in the temples of Brahma, Vishnu, and Juggernaut. Verily this may be called Freedom which produces such results, and that Slavery which in two or three generations converts a horde of lazy savages into useful and partly civilized beings; and because one is called Freedom and the other Slavery, men may be swift to applaud the former and denounce the latter; but, for all that, in the eyes of God, there is nothing in a name!

Now, we have stated above that Great Britain will probably pursue the same line of policy in Africa that she has pursued in India; but that she will continue to do so any length of time, we are inclined to doubt. There is a great difference between the two countries, particularly as regards population. In India there are millions upon millions of laborers, and the killing off of a few hundred thousand is a downright advantage to the survivors. But in Africa the population has always been kept thin and scanty, owing to the constant wars between the petty chiefs, and cannibalism, and human sacrifices, and the slave-trade; in consequence whereof John Bull will soon discover that, if he wishes to develop the resources of the latter country, he will have to put a stop to every practice which causes the destruction of human life. Hence, although the English in the outset may begin in Ethiopia as they began in Calcutta, we opine still that it will not take a great while to convince so practical a people that such a policy will never pay; particularly when unemployed Saxons, clamoring for “work or bread,” shall throng the streets of Liverpool and Manchester, London and Leeds; and when the price of slave-grown cotton shall have advanced to from twenty to thirty cents per pound.

But let their policy be what it may, we firmly believe that South Central Africa will in time come under English domination. We think this thing has been fore-ordained—predestinated from the foundation of the world. It is a subject of prophecy indeed, and ages ago the decree went forth, that the heathen should become the possession of the followers of the Cross before the second advent of Christ. “I shall give the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession; thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.” This may be done in the name of Freedom, as the English now rule the Indies, and in time are destined, consociate with the French, to rule Africa; or it may be done under the name of Slavery and superiority of race, as we of America will ever continue to rule our negroes, and those shiftless vagabonds—Indians, half-breeds, and no breeds at all—who wander about from place to place over our vast territorial domain, both present and prospective; or it may be done under the auspices of a supreme autocracy, like that of Russia, which will eventually absorb at least half of Asia, and nearly, if not the whole, of the empire of the Ottomans. But, however accomplished, the event is as certain as fate. No opposition on the part of one-ideaed philanthropists, nor incredulous sneers on the part of infidel philosophers, nor intrigues of selfish cabinets, nor the rant and cant of the tabernacles and Exeter Hall, will avail ought to prevent the fulfillment of the irrevocable fiat of Jehovah-God. In the heavens, sitting on his everlasting throne, the Ancient of Days will laugh at their abortive attempts to retard the progress of true knowledge, of pure religion, and of the only feasible enterprise whereby the millions of Adam's posterity, now so sunk in every beastly degradation, can ever, by any possibility, become regenerated.

Certainly, (and we make the confession with sorrow unfeigned,) before the glorious consummation can be achieved, there must of necessity be innumerable and bloody wars, as well as great oppression of the weak by the strong, and most pitiful crushings of the bruised human heart in all nations. But let us not forget the only, the sad alternative: without such wars, and the subduing of the savage nations by the civilized, there would still greater calamities befall the former through their own ceaseless fightings and discords, while their savage natures would remain world without end the same. Certainly, also, many a Warren Hastings, many a Koompanee Jehan, will grow hugely rich out of the spoil of the poor, while many a heartless Legree will continue to oppress the enslaved African; but even the wickedness and grasping cupidity of such spoilers will result in blessing many a laboring man's hearthstone and humble mechanic's fireside, cheapening the necessaries of life, which they would otherwise be unable to purchase, and enabling them to clothe their families in garments of such warmth and comfort as they otherwise could never provide.

We pray our readers not to misunderstand us, however. We do not seek to defend the outrages perpetrated by Messrs. Koompanee Jehan, Legree, and their compeers in crime and oppression; so neither do we admire the spots on the surface of the sun, but shall we be so foolish as to wish the light of Phoebus extinguished because of such blemishes? No: let Koompanee Jehan answer for himself—let all the rascals the world over answer for themselves; and do you, our readers, take care to stand upright on your own bottoms, and our word for it you will find but precious little time to discuss, or even rail at, the lack of perpendicularity on the part of your neighbors. Christ chose twelve Apostles, yet Judas was one of them. Do you, Reverend Sir, pretend to say that you would object to being an Apostle, because the Apostle's office can be and has been most shamefully abused? Do you believe that by standing in the shoes of Paul you would have to stand in the shoes of Iscariot as well? And yet you are teaching just such nonsense every day of your life. Every day you are teaching your spiritual flock to concern themselves more about the shortcomings of others than their own, until the doctrine taught by Christ, of individual responsibility and individual righteousness, is almost wholly unknown in the land.

O Paul, thou man of Tarsus, how would your eyes have been opened had you lived in this blessed nineteenth century! A little wine for thy stomach's sake, and thine often infirmities, says Paul. Nay, answers the Rev. Water Bunkum; touch not, taste not, handle not the unclean thing, for it is shamefully abused by many, and by using it at all you become a participant in their guilt and debasement. Marriage is honorable in all, says Paul, and the marriage-bed undefiled. Nay, respond the New Lights; marriage is often the source of numberless wrongs, therefore marry not at all, but let your loves and affinities enjoy the “largest liberty.” If you are called being a slave, seek not to be free, says Paul. Nay, answer the Priests of Higher Law; administer poison in your master's meat, or march with pikes and Sharpe's rifles into his mansion, bent on murder, and let your watchword be, God and Liberty! Be obedient to rulers, says Paul, and to all those who are in authority, knowing that all governors are appointed of God. Nay, bawl out the political parsons of these enlightened times; not so fast, Brother Saul! We find that it pays to mingle politics and religion, and we speak advisedly when we say that all governments are the work of the devil, and hence we advise men every where to pray for anarchy—for we believe in the largest liberty in all things, and are of those who would cry,

Alas! alas! where shall we find the humble, prayerful, and consistent disciple of the Christ who declared, “My kingdom is not of this world?” Æsop tells us, in one of his fables, that he took a candle with him on a certain day to help him in his search for a man; but in the present age of the world, something other than a candle would be needed to help the most diligent inquirer find a Christian. We are of opinion, however, that we are on the eve of a great change for the better; though we feel sure, notwithstanding from the predictions of Holy Writ, that the world will continue in a very deplorable condition even until the sounding of Gabriel's trumpet. Hence we are astonished at the simplicity of those soi-disant philosophers, who persuade themselves and their disciples that this or that form of oppression, this or that wickedness shall cease before the ushering in of the Millennium. A favorite idea with them is, that in a very few more years there will exist no where on the globe either a slave or slaveholder, king or subject, prince or vassal. Now, to convince such windy babblers of the impiety of their predictions, we would beg to remind them that St. John, foretelling the final destruction of the human race preparatory to the creation of a new heaven and a new earth, uses the following language:

“And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come, and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; that you may eat the flesh of KINGS, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, BOTH FREE AND BOND, BOTH SMALL AND GREAT.”

Thus it will be soon that kings, captains, free men and slaves, great men and small, will continue on the earth the same as now, up to its final destruction; or, as was declared by Christ himself, that great day will come as a thief in the night, just as the flood came in the days of Noah—finding men marrying, and trafficking, and lying, and swindling, and corrupting, and degrading, and oppressing their fellow-men as always before. Wherefore let us hope that those visionary gentlemen who are idly dreaming of the fraternization and equality of all races of men will soon lay aside their Utopian schemes, and learn to look upon man as he is, and labor to help him in the condition in which they find him. For assuredly, Messieurs, the mountain will never come to Mohammed, but Mohammed can go to the mountain if he will. With all your dreaming and theorizing, your cant and your tabernacle trash, you will change man's nature not a whit; but a little practical charity and godliness will effect much. It is just as difficult a matter to whitewash a white man as a blackamoor; and you may remember Thomas Hood's account of the great Philanthropical Society which undertook to wash the latter, and whose members, honest souls! are rubbing and scrubbing poor Cuffee yet:

And this brings us once more to the consideration of our main subject.

Although the negroes in our Southern States have been improved almost beyond computation, by the necessary pupilage of one hundred years of bondage, they are still totally unprepared for emancipation. This fact is demonstrated clearly by the result in Liberia, Algona, Jamaica, South and Central America, and every where else in fact that the blacks have been liberated in any numbers. They very soon relapse again into the heathenish practices of their ancestors, superadding to the same the vices of civilization. We once knew an intelligent German gentleman, a graduate of a leading German university, who had afterwards lived three years in London, in which city he was employed by English capitalists to visit Jamaica, for the purpose of superintending some important chemical experiments with sugar-cane. He remained in Jamaica five years. When he first went there, like nearly all the Germans, he was strongly anti-slavery in sentiment; but at the time we made his acquaintance, although then an assistant Professor in one of the leading colleges of New-England, he vowed that no negro was fit for any thing else than slavery. The London Times, indeed, after a review of the actual condition of the British West-Indian Islands, closes with the following emphatic paragraph against the policy of black emancipation:

“We wish to heaven that some people in England —neither government people nor persons, nor clergymen —but some just-minded, honest-hearted and clear-sighted men would go out to some of the Islands—say Jamaica, Dominica, or Antigua, not for a month, or three months, but for a year—would watch the precious protege of English philanthropy, the free negro, in his daily habits: would watch him as he lazily plants his little squatting: would see him as he proudly rejects agricultural or domestic service, or accepts it at wages ludicrously disproportionate to the value of his work. We wish too, they would watch him while, with a hide thicker than that of a hippopotamus, and a body to which fervid heat is a comfort rather than an annoyance, he droningly lounges over the prescribed task, on which the intrepid Englishman, unaccustomed and uninured to the burning sun, consumes his impatient energy, and too often sacrifices his life. We wish they would go out and view the negro in all the blazonry of his address, his pride, his ingratitude, contemptuously sneering at the industry of that race which made him free, and then come and teach the memorable lesson of their experience to the fanatics who have perverted him into what he is.”

Now, Freedom is a good thing in its place, but there is not in any language a word which is more often misapplied. Nothing is more common than to mistake license for liberty, nowadays. People seem to have forgotten that a man has to be educated to appreciate Freedom, as much if not more than to appreciate music, or literature, or to be a connoisseur in Art. Properly speaking, there is not a free man on the globe: we are all more or less restrained from doing what we like, and such restraint is in nearly every instance not only wholesome but absolutely essential to our well-being. Man needs indeed to stand in greater awe of himself, than of what a fellow-man can do to him. Wherefore, because a man desires the largest liberty, is no reason why he should have it: so, too, do we all desire wealth and the honors of the world, but do not these often render their possessors miserable, changing wise men into fools, and fools into knaves? Why, there is not a beggar in our streets but would like to be put on horseback, and yet he would no sooner find himself in the saddle than he would ride post-haste to the devil, as the old adage hath it. So neither is there a convict in any of our penitentiaries but damns in his heart the whole penal code; yet the well-being of himself as well as society, demands that he should be restrained of his liberty for all that. The same rule applies to minors also, persons non compos, idiots, and others. Wherefore shall it not be held equally applicable to negroes, Indians, Chinese, and all other inferior races, who are incapacitated to take care of themselves?

Confining ourselves to negroes for the present, we must say, that such works as Uncle Tom's Cabin have created an entirely erroneous sentiment, touching the present mental, moral, and social status of the Negro, to say nothing of their tendency to deceive the public as to the physical condition of the great mass of our negro slaves. Mrs. Stowe wished, doubtless, by writing her book, to reform abuses; but, like the young physician who advised the cutting off of a man's head to cure a tumor on its side, she made a great mistake touching the proper method of reform. Although she must feel flattered by the great success of her book among those who have nothing whatever to do with the abuses of slavery, she can hardly fail to blush when she remembers that no practical good has resulted from her labors; for slavery, according to the often-repeated assurances of her greatest friends and admirers, is daily growing in strength and power.

Now, to arrive at any proper conception of the actual average condition of the slaves on our Southern plantations, the reader must not lose sight of the fact that they are, about three fourths of them, only two or three generations removed from those naked gibbering savages and cannibals, who, fifty or a hundred years agone, offered up human sacrifices on the Continent of Africa. After living some twenty years in the midst of such pagans, Dr. Livingstone, the stout anti-slavery Englishman, is forced to write:

“The Israelitish slaves brought out of Egypt by Moses were not converted and elevated in one generation, though under the direct teaching of God himself. Notwithstanding the number of miracles he wrought, a generation had to be cut off because of unbelief. Our own elevation, also, has been the work of centuries, and, remembering this, we should not indulge in over wrought expectations as to the elevation which those who have inherited the degradation of ages may attain in our day.”

This is the whole argument in a nut-shell. With this thought in our minds, the great marvel is, that our negro slaves are not more degraded than we really find them. While it is possible that some of them may continue to this day to worship their fathers' gods, the Barimo, we have yet never met with or heard of any instance of the kind. The nearest approach to any species of paganism amongst the most degraded of them, of which we have any knowledge, is an absurd belief in charms, medicine-bags, witches, conjurers, and the like. Nearly all of the negroes, indeed, except those who have been reared up in direct contact with intelligent whites, and those who are practical believers in Christianity, are more or less wedded to superstition, and firmly believe in the potential agency of conjuration, and in the efficacious influence of “medicine.” What they mean by this expression, is perfectly synonymous with what the Balonda, the blackest and most woolly-headed of all the inhabitants of Negroland, mean by the same term, as interpreted by Dr. Livingstone: and we have noticed in the South, too, that the blackest of the blacks are in the main most generally addicted to this miserable superstition. What their “medicine” is composed of, we do not know. They usually tie it up in little dirty rags, and either suspend it from a bush over some path often frequented by the enemy they wish to “kunger,” or else try to get a small bit of the latter's beard which they tie up in the same rag with their other “charms,” and then “kunger” him at their leisure. Their bag of “medicine” they call a “waiter.” They believe it to possess wonderful powers, and that it will protect them against every species of misfortune. Whenever they have done any thing amiss, they immediately begin to manipulate their “waiter” in order to “kunger” off whippings, or any other mode of punishment: and if they can only procure a bit of their master's beard or of the overseer's, they are rendered perfectly invulnerable, in their own eyes, against hurt from either. Of course only the most degraded of them are such fools, but it is impossible to drive this gross superstition out of the thick skulls of those who are wedded to it.

We know a Southern gentleman who owns one of the most inveterate conjurers alive. He is one of your in-grain lazy devils, and in consequence finds himself in hot water very frequently; but so great is his faith in his medicine-bag, he is accustomed to tell his fellow-slaves, that he can always “kunger off” a whipping if apprized of its coming soon enough. His master, to cure him of his laziness and his superstition at the same time, used to tell him to prepare his “waiter” several days before he purposed to chastise him, in order that he might make a fair trial of his art of conjuration. The negro's name is Wesley—called Wes' for short— and though he has tried time and again to charm away the remorseless hickory, still, poor fellow! he has most signally failed in every instance. Notwithstanding, Wes' still clings to his medicine-bag as tenaciously as ever. Like our modern Spiritualists who fail sometimes to raise the spirits, Wes' considers that the fault is in himself and not in his “art.” Like our modern abolitionists whose hopes are yearly growing “smaller by degrees and beautifully less,” he feels assured of a better day a-coming. Like our disappointed politicians who long for the Presidential Chair, he thinks while there is life there is hope: at least Wes' is determined to stick to his “medicine” through thick and through thin.

Connected with this superstition of the medicine-bag and conjuration, is the diabolical practice of poisoning: for the negro poisoner is nearly always a great conjurer, or witch, in the estimation of the other blacks. No person who has not lived in the South, can form any adequate conception of the effects of African poison, or of the frequency of its use. Had the amiable Mrs. Stowe ever heard of the wicked practice, she could have introduced into her book one of the most original as well as useful of characters. How pleasantly, in truth, could she have killed off poor Legree with the slow African poison, and all for the sake of Humanity! How well she could have painted for our delectation his remorse, and the terrible visions seen during those paroxysms of pain and madness, which the same devilish poison so often produces! Believe us, our readers, it would have been better than a play. It would have proven dreadfully edifying and instructive. Besides, there can certainly be no more charming character to grace a blood-and-thunder novel, than the genuine African poisoner; for usually she is an old toothless hag, who either came direct from Africa herself, or is but one generation removed from those who did—is black as midnight, and, being superannuated, sits all day long in her cabin-door like a great black spider, the while with busy brain and a leer that would shame the devil himself, either laying new schemes for murder or gloating over the murders with which her skinny hands are already stained. The secret (for it is a secret) of her diabolical skill undoubtedly originated in the very heart of Negroland, and is even now known to the fewest number of blacks, and we presume to no living white person whatever.

Some of our readers may possibly remember that Fred. Douglass, the chief negro lecturer of the North, publicly prayed in the presence of several thousand of the élite of the city of Chicago, during the Fremont excitement, and on a solemn Sabbath day, too, (the better the day the better the deed, you know!) that the Southern slaves might dare to administer poison to their masters in the food cooked for their tables. Now, we would suggest to honest Fred, that any information as to the nature of the genuine African poison would prove of great service to his quondam fellow-slaves, provided it enabled science to discover an antidote; for, singularly enough, the negroes nearly always poison one another, and rarely even attempt the life of a white person. And it is utterly confounding for what trivial causes they will take the life of a fellow-slave. Sometimes it is simply a dispute about a game at cards or marbles; sometimes the being supplanted by a rival in the confidence of the master or overseer is the exciting cause; but much more frequently jealousy leads to the fatal deed, or a strong desire to get rid of a troublesome wife or husband, in order to solace themselves with some new “affinity.”

When a negro has determined to take the life of another negro, he or she, as the case may be, proceeds under cover of night to the cabin of the most famous witch or conjurer in the neighborhood, and in a roundabout, circumlocutory manner states his or her business. They do not use the word poison on such occasions; they call it “medicating.” They hint to the old hag of a sorceress, therefore, that they want so and so “medicated.” Having communicated their wants and paid the customary fee, the bloody-minded wretches skulk back to their own quarters, feeling a devilish satisfaction. It is but fair to say, however, that many of them have no more correct idea of how such “medication” is effected than our readers; and we are charitable enough to believe, that they sometimes become accessories to murder by poisoning, when their firm conviction is that the little dirty medicine-bag does all the mischief. Occasionally, 'tis true, the negroes attempt to destroy their victims without consulting a witch or conjurer; but in nearly all such instances their attempts prove abortive, for these tyros in villainy seldom advance beyond “jimson weed,” ground glass, snakes' heads, lizards stewed in oil, and such like simple poisons. The effects produced on the human system by these are not necessarily fatal, and are altogether different from what is produced by the genuine African poison; the direful effects of this are sui generis, and can not be mistaken. This is eminently a slow poison, and rarely kills under six months, and sometimes the victims linger for several years. If it be not in reality what the medical faculty have named African consumption, then it is so nearly allied thereto as to be altogether its cousin-german. We incline to the opinion that they are one and the same thing.

The effects produced by African poison are different in different individuals, but still possess a general similarity in all cases. We never saw its effects upon but one living victim, that we are aware of; but we have heard them described so often, we think our description will be true to the facts. And here we may remark, that the same cowardly mode of assassination prevails in Hayti also, which affords additional evidence that the secret is of African origin.

We know an aged gentleman who, when a young man, knew in lower Virginia a certain old Doctor Flournoy, an illiterate root or Indian doctor, as he was called, who was famous for curing cases of negro poisoning, and whom the gentleman in question once employed to attend two of his own negroes, who were dying of (supposed) African consumption—a case of which, the whole faculty assert, has never been cured. When Flournoy visited the negroes they were in the last stages, and he immediately pronounced them incurable, stating at the same time that they had been poisoned, (which the patients had all the while stoutly maintained,) and, also, that had he been called upon for advice before the pains ceased, he certainly could have effected a cure. For one thing remarkable in both African consumption (so called) and African poison, is the fact that the patient or victim suffers horrible pains at the outset, but gradually becomes perfectly free from all pain whatever, and then slowly dwindles away to a mere skeleton, and so dies. Very frequently too, in the first stages of the complaint, the victim is troubled with terrible dreams, both sleeping and waking. The visions which haunt him upon his couch at night are usually horrible and ghastly—visions of blood and murder, of grinning skeletons and shapeless monsters, which cause him to start up in his sleep and cry aloud for very fright; but the waking fancies of the wretched man are far more terrible. He imagines that his body is full of creeping things—snakes, lizards, and the like reptiles; and he solemnly assures the physician that he can feel them crawl and twist and wriggle under his flesh, along the thighs, up the spinal column, and over the whole body in fact; and will in a frenzy sometimes clap his hand over the particular spot indicated, and exclaim excitedly: “Ah! here he is—here he is!” At other times the wretched victims of this terrible poison will declare that invisible arrows have been shot clean through them, and will point to the spot where each entered, as well as to the spot whence it issued again from the body. And it sometimes happens that they fall down suddenly, declaring they are bewitched, precisely like the old Puritans used to do in the days of Cotton Mather. The venerable and sage Flournoy, indeed, who flourished some thirty or forty years ago, when such murders by poison were much more common than now, and who was besides both ignorant and superstitious, did stoutly maintain that witchcraft had about as much to do with such strange procedures as any thing else; and whenever the poor blacks began to tumble over around him, either because of fainting fits or fright, the old gentleman was accustomed to lift up his hands in superstitious awe, and exclaim: “Well, boys, what darts is flyin' in the a'r now!”

As we have said, however, the acute pains, the frenzy, the crawling motions under the skin, all soon pass away; the victim loses his appetite; his skin becomes dry; the secretions irregular; the pulse somewhat excited and feverish—until, in the final stages, a slight hacking cough ensues. But the great source of the whole physical derangement is in the bowels. These are filled with tuberculous ulcers, very similar to those to be found in the lungs in an ordinary case of consumption. We were once led by curiosity to witness the dissection of a young negro man, who had been for eighteen months dying inch by inch of this terrible malady. The physicians endeavored to persuade the poor fellow that he had African consumption, but he maintained to the last that he had been poisoned. So when he died, the learned doctors, to prove they were in the right and the negro in the wrong, determined to open his body to see if they could discover what had caused his death. In company of an elderly friend we were permitted to enter the room in which the dissection took place; nor shall we soon forget the scene then and there presented to our gaze. The room was dark and dirty, shrouded in gloom and silence, except directly under the light of a solitary window, beneath which lay the outstretched corpse on a table or something of the kind, while gathered about in little squads the learned disciples of Esculapius discussed in low tones the merits of the case. The wisest of the M.D.s, a pursy old gentleman of about sixty-five, sat coolly smoking a pipe of strong tobacco, to prevent his inhaling the noisome effluvia emitted from the dead body, while with steady hand he proceeded unconcernedly to lay open the stomach of the deceased, exposing to view a most revolting spectacle. The whole body of the intestines presented one mass of fetid tubercules, and the sole wonder was how any human being could have lived an hour, much less a whole year, with his bowels in such a condition.

After a very brief consultation, the doctors present sagely concluded, that the negro had not been poisoned as he ever contended, but must have died of the incurable African consumption—a name used to designate a disease about which, as a general thing, the Faculty know nothing positively, save that in some respects it is similar to the old orthodox consumption of the lungs. From the fact of its being seated in the bowels and seeming to attack negroes exclusively, they dubbed it in the outset African consumption, and have ever since shaken their profoundly sagacious wigs at all those who dare to dissent from their dictum. But for all that, we contend it is simply African poison and they would do well to study its nature more closely, for possibly an antidote can be found somewhere in the vegetable kingdom.

As we have already mentioned, the name of this dreadful life-destroying agency is a secret, (known only to a few old negro women and men,) which must have come originally from Africa; for cases of this kind of poisoning were much more frequent fifty years ago— when fully one half our slaves were natives of Negroland —than at present, when it is seldom you meet an aged “culled pusson” who was born a subject of the King of Dahomey, or of any other African prince. After reading Livingstone's work, we are led to entertain this conviction stronger than ever before. Indeed, one of his own sable attendants evidently died of the same complaint, in the very heart of the African continent. Here is his account of the matter:

“We were detained here so long that my tent became again quite rotten. One of my men, after long sickness, which I did not understand, died here. He was one of the Batoka, and when unable to walk I had some difficulty in making his companions carry him. They wished to leave him to die when his case became hopeless.”

When it is remembered that Livingstone is a regular M.D., the presumption is pretty strong that a disease which he confesses not to understand must have been very different from such diseases as are produced by natural causes.

So much for “medicine,” “waiters,” “medication,” and the like. Nearly all the other negro superstitions are of a harmless character, which, in the main, the poor creatures have learned from their white masters— the good Puritans, Baptists, Methodists, and other religious sects, who first obtained possession of their ancestors. Thus they believe in fortune-telling, in witches, ghosts, hobgoblins, etc. etc. ; and many of them still nail (or did a few years back) the all-powerful horse-shoe over their cabin-doors, in order to prevent the ingress of all incorporeal beings whatever. One of their most orthodox convictions is, that witches ride the horses at night, and they will very seriously point out to you the saddles in the mane of the colts, asseverating the same to have been used by the imps of the Foul Fiend. They likewise entertain a great horror of hearing a hen crow like the cock, for they assert it is an evil omen prognosticating a death in the family before a great while. So, too, would they fear to carry a hoe on the shoulder into the house, or to step over another person's leg, as well is to do many other things in themselves simple and harmless.

As for their mode of life on the plantations, their habits of work, conversation, religion, etc. etc., we think the following descriptive passages from a Northern writer in the main very just and truthful.

“On most plantations a certain amount only of work is daily required of each competent person, men, women, and children or youths; the ‘task’ prescribed being graduated in accordance with age and condition, from the ‘quarter-hand’ of the youngest to the ‘half hand’ and the ‘three-quarter hand’ of older years, up to the ‘full-hand’ of mature and healthful adult strength; thence retrograding, in like degrees, toward declining force and years. Industriously performed, these tasks are generally finished early in the afternoon, and often by two o'clock; when the laborer leaves his field and saunters homeward or whither he listeth. Perhaps it is to gossip in the sunshine over his pipe, or, perhaps, if he be thrifty or short of funds, to raise vegetables in his own private garden-patch, or to look after his eggs and poultry and pigs, for all of which his master will pay him the market-price as to any other trader. The tasks are begun at sunrise, and toward eight o'clock the darkeys have a good time for half an hour or so over the breakfast which has been brought for them to the field. At noon those who please dine, riding home for it if they are using horses, or having it brought to them, or waiting until the completion of their tasks.

“Men and women all smoke habitually, whether at work or at rest. Near any squad or gang a fire may always be seen, made for the double use of lighting pipes and as a rendezvous in gossip hours, for your genuine African is never quite warm enough. The appearance of the negroes at work in their plantation rig is not very elegant, and not so picturesque as it might be with a little change from the inflexible regulation hue of hueless gray; though, to be sure, the hankerchiefs worn on the head by the women (they never don bonnets, not even on Sunday or on gala days, [our Northerner is at fault here] ) afford some slight relief. In the cut of coat and skirt there is always variety enough, and so in the fashion of the ever-changing hat. The conversation, though it seldom gets beyond the little current aches and experiences of their own lives, the doing of their family and friends, and pigs, with sometimes a little talk about their master's household, is often gay and jolly enough, judging by the loud and hearty ‘yah! yahs!’ sounding all about, heah and dar.

“We once heard a jovial young scamp—the pet and gallant, the merry-maker and the mischief-maker of his set—a sort of ‘Dandy Jim of Caroline,’ relating to a wondering circle a certain alligator adventure he once had. How he killed an indefinite number, too numerous to mention, of the reptiles, and then tied one obstreperous juvenile by the tail to a branch of a tree; how he left him there and thus suspended some three feet from the ground, and straightway forgot all about him, until returning by that way a matter of a year afterward he found the young prisoner doing well, and grown so much that his head now fairly rested upon the ground!

“ ‘Lor' a massey!’ cried an astonished demoiselle, ‘what you do to him den, Jim?’

“ ‘What I do to him den, Miss Clarissa? Why, I tie up his tail a little higher an' gib him chance to grow down some more. Yah, yah!’

“The authority of the plantation is vested in the overseer, by whom it is re-delegated in parcels to the more enterprising, intelligent, and reliable of the blacks. The subordinate officers are called ‘drivers,’ and their office is to apportion the tasks and direct the labor of the gang placed under their care; to administer reproof and correction when needed; and to be responsible for conduct and work to the superior officer.

“Each family of negroes has a house or cabin of its own, generally with sufficient garden-ground, piggery, hennery, and so forth. These cabins are often made of logs, but sometimes are neat and cozy frame dwellings. They are usually placed, at suitable intervals, in rows, or double rows, with a wide street between. When it pleases the occupants to keep their homes so, they are pleasant enough, surrounded with neat palings and well protected by the beautiful shade trees of the country. Here, as in old Albion, their house is their castle, and rarely does even the master know any thing of their domestic affairs except when bad conduct or sickness makes it necessary for them to be looked after. They are constitutionally joyous and insouciant; and it is often pleasant to witness their glad, thoughtless recreations as the twilight and the evening hours set in.

“They are supplied, even under the requirements of the law, with a reasonable amount of clothing, and ample rations of food are served out every week. These consist chiefly of meal, rice, vegetables, molasses, bacon, fish, and coffee, according to their wants and occupations. Most of them have a surplus of these staple articles of diet, which they exchange at the nearest store for nick-nacks more to their liking. The law forbids the sale of liquor; but they manage, in some way, when so disposed, to get quite enough of it.

“Sunday is the great gala-day of the negroes, always excepting the annual festival at Christmas. At this time they interchange visits with relatives and friends on the neighboring plantations, generally bearing with them some present or other; most often of an edible character, as a turkey, a chicken, a goose, a cake, or a confection. Whether at home or abroad, however, on Sunday they are pretty sure to repair to the church, when an accessible one is open. The whites occupy the front seats, while the blacks fill up the rear, the two classes entering by different doors.

“As a people, they seem to have a genius for piety, and in a pretty close ratio to their need of it, the greatest scamps being usually the most devout worshippers. Strange to add, there is no hypocrisy in this contradiction. The same unreflecting impulsiveness which prompts them to steal any desirable thing within reach, also leading them to mourn, briefly, over their sinfulness in sackcloth and ashes. They are fond of preaching, and the ministerial office among them is seldom wanting in candidates. Every plantation is, more or less, well supplied in this wise. To be sure they make strange work in their confident ignorance, often weighing anchor with but half an idea on board.”

But we will speak of their religious tendencies more at length on a future page.

In nearly all the Southern States the negroes, as a general thing, are much attached to coon and opossum hunting, and on most of the large plantations one will find from six to a dozen coon-dogs, which belong exclusively to the slaves. They also are fond of hunting hares, whenever they can prevail upon their young masters to suffer them to use the fox-hounds for that purpose. They chase the hares until these are forced to betake themselves to a hollow tree, when the negroes either twist them out with a slim stick, or else smoke them out by means of fire. But above all things else Cuffee dotes on fishing, and is a most enthusiastic disciple of the quaint old Izaak Walton. Angling requires little exertion, and your genuine Cuffee most cordially hates exertion; while the hot Southern sun, which soon drives the white man away from his favorite “hole” to the umbrageous shelter of the nearest woods, never “fases the shell” of Cuffee, so to speak: to reverse the words of the poet, the black rascal seems to make a “shady place in the sunshine,” and will lie down any day at noon, when the thermometer stands at 100° in the shade, and sleep as quietly as an infant, with the broiling eye of Phoebus glaring right down upon him, hot enough almost to singe his eye-lashes.

The negroes also set deadfalls for squirrels, snares for rabbits, traps for quail and ducks, and pens for wild turkeys; of all which they destroy large quantities, owing to their great abundance all through the South. We never cared any great deal for any of these pot-hunting schemes of the negroes, save the turkey-pens, which used to vex us amazingly. But, unlike the gentlemen sportsmen of Canada, who are said to wantonly destroy every turkey-pen they find, though built by English freemen—we never could feel that it was exactly honorable to do such a thing, even when the pens belonged to negro slaves. Certainly pot-hunting is a very sorry business, but a true sportsman will not forget, for all that, that he is, or ought to be at least, a gentleman.

Added to the wild game, of which, we presume, the negroes in the South eat more every year than one half of the whites of our large cities, the usual fare of the slaves is bacon and greens, with ash-cake and corn-pone in summer, and in winter bacon and turnips and the same bread, with an addition of wheat flour for the Christmas holidays, except in the wheat-growing States, wherein it is customary to give the negroes about as much flour-bread as of that made from corn-meal. In the summer time, also, they are allowed to eat fruit ad libitum, since on most plantations there are large apple, pear, peach, and plum orchards, the productions whereof the planters rarely think of selling. The negroes are also very fond of roasted or boiled maize, and hominy, as well as of a bread made of corn-meal and persimmons mixed, which is quite palatable. In winter they have, besides, sweet potatoes more or less, and pumpkins all the time, of which latter they are fonder than the Down-Easters. Indeed, we will assert this in behalf of the Southern slaves, however much the assertion may be discredited; they annually throw away food enough to feed during an entire winter the thousands of half-starved white laborers thrown out of employment in all the Free States during the months from December to March. The proof of their well-fed condition is strikingly observable in their sleek skins, full cheeks, and general plumpness of physical development. You rarely see amongst them a haggard, thin-jawed starveling, but their very eyes on the contrary stand out with fatness. In consequence whereof they are nearly always jovial and smiling, indulging at all times in snatches of song, and giving vent to the most stunning peals of laughter, which to hear even produces a pleasurable sensation.

No matter where they may be or what they may be doing, indeed, whether alone or in crowds, at work or at play, ploughing through the steaming maize in the sultry heats of June, or bared to the waist and with deft hand mowing down the yellow grain, or trudging homeward in the dusky twilight after the day's work is done—always and every where they are singing and happy, happy in being free from all mental cares or troubles, and singing heartily and naturally as the birds sing, which toil not nor do spin. Their songs are usually wild and indescribable, seeming to be mere snatches of song rather than any long continuous effort, but with an often recurring chorus, in which all join with a depth and clearness of lungs truly wonderful. No man can listen to them, be his ear ever so cultivated, particularly to their corn-husking songs, when the night is still and the singers some distance off, without being very pleasantly entertained. But the wildest and most striking negro song we think we ever listened to, we heard while on board an Alabama river steamboat. We were steaming up from Mobile on a lovely day in the early winter, and came in sight of Montgomery just as the heavens were all a-glow with the last crimson splendors of the setting sun, and while the still shadows of evening seemed already to be stealing with noiseless tread along the hollows in the steep riverbanks, creeping slowly thence with invisible footsteps over the placid surface of the stream itself. A lovelier day or a more bewitching hour could not well be imagined. As we began to near the wharf, the negro boatmen collected in a squad on the bow of the boat, and one dusky fellow, twirling his wool hat above his head, took the lead in singing, improvising as he sang, all except the chorus, in which the whole crew joined with enthusiasm. And O Madame Jenny Goldschmidt, and Mademoiselle Piccolomini! we defy you both to produce, with the aid of many orchestras, a more soul-stirring strain of melody than did those simple Africans then and there! The scene is all before us now—the purple-tinted clouds overhead—the dim shadows treading noiselessly in the distance—the gleaming dome of the State Capitol and the church-spires of Montgomery —the almost perfect stillness of the hour, broken only by the puff, puff of the engine and the wild music of the dusky boatmen—and above all, the plump, well-defined outlines of some sable Sally, who stood on the highest red cliff near the landing-place, and, with joy in her heart and a tear in her eye no doubt, (we hadn't any opera-glass with us,) waved a flaming bandanna with every demonstration of rejoicing at the return of her dusky lover, whom we took to be our sooty improvisatore, from the glow which mantled his honest countenance, and the fervor with which he twirled his old wool hat in response to the fair one's signal. Ah! we had then but recently left our adopted home in the Free North, but, as we listened to the happy voices of these children of oppression, we could not fail to contrast the same with the mournful wail at that very hour going up from all the streets and parks of our greatest metropolis—the wail of the unemployed clamoring for Work or Bread!

Now, we feel persuaded the anti-slavery reader is longing to ask why, if the slaves are so happy and contented, do they ever seek to run away and go North? We might as well answer this question here as elsewhere. As a general thing no honest, industrious slave ever desires to run away at all, even though solicited to do so by the secret emissaries of the abolitionists; and when such an one is seduced to leave the protecting care of his master, and all the blessing and comforts of the “old plantation,” for the freedom to enjoy a precarious and hard-earned livelihood in the Free States or Canada, he is almost sure to embrace the first opportunity to return back again, a “sadder but a wiser man.” The vicious, however, the dissolute, the lazy—these all are captivated by the glowing promises of ease and plenty held temptingly out to them in the “land of freedom;” nor will any student of human nature wonder that such vagabonds should prefer comforts earned without toil to those earned by the constant sweat of the brow. But when these fugitives come to realize the facts, and learn that white men hardly make a subsistence in the Free States by the most ceaseless labor, in proof of what we have said concerning their characters, they invariably almost (a few praiseworthy exceptions) take to petty stealing for a livelihood, pilfering from hen-roosts, or snatching coats and hats in public halls. Will any Northern man deny this charge? No: on the contrary they always plead in excuse of such conduct on the part of their colored population, that they are fugitives. Now, gentlemen agitators, allow us to tell you, that every freeman who walks your streets could be induced to sacrifice his present all, in the hope of grasping some greater imaginary good— such as a South Sea bubble or a Pike's Peak humbug. Mankind, whether black or white, like the dog in the fable, are ever ready to throw away a substantial good to snatch at the shadowy forms delusive Hope or too eager Desire is ever tempting them with, but which dissolve themselves into thin air the moment they feel the touch of Reality.

This all by way of parenthesis.

The religious and love-songs of the negroes are not so peculiar and striking as those wild choruses and lullaloos, which their fathers must have brought with them from Africa, but the words and meaning of which are no longer remembered. Nevertheless, even their tamest and most civilized efforts are surpassingly good; and the loudest and most fervent camp-meeting singers amongst the whites are constrained to surrender to the darkeys in “The Old Ship of Zion” or “I want to go to Glory.” In singing these and other kindred songs, the negroes usually keep time with the feet, or by clapping the hands or wagging the head, often shedding tears freely in the fervency and rapture of their devotions. And we may as well here remark, for the benefit of those philosophers and divines who pretend to abhor slavery so greatly, that Christian slaves are rarely found on the plantations of infidels, while it is equally rare not to find them in the households of Christian masters. This is a fact worth considering, particularly when we add, that the slaves do not by any means always belong to the same denomination with their “masters according to the flesh.” There is hardly a plantation of any size in the entire South, belonging to an honest professor of Christianity, whereon you will not find some two or three different sects of Christians among the negroes; but these usually fraternize together much more harmoniously than do their white brethren of the same rival creeds. On nearly all such plantations, in fact, the negroes unite together without regard to differences of religious beliefs, and hold a common prayer-meeting two nights in every week, at which the master is sometimes present and expounds to them the Word of God. And it is notable what a change for the better Christianity produces in even the most degraded of them. They readily give up their banjos, their fiddles, their double-shuffles, and break-downs, and are eager to learn what is right and becoming. Of course we speak only of such as are sincere believers of the Gospel; for we have reason to know that they sometimes profess Christianity because it pays, and in particular is this true of just about one half the negro preachers. Believe us, amiable Mrs. Stowe, black people are no better than white people the world over.

It must not be denied, too, that few of the negroes entertain perfectly correct ideas concerning the Gospel of Jesus Christ; but, if we must speak plainly, we don't believe one white man in a hundred entertains ideas perfectly correct and rational in regard thereto. The whites can not got along without their creeds and their innovations, and their preachers with itching ears, (and pockets too;) and, as we think, the poor blacks are far less blameworthy, when they weave into the simple story of the Cross the tangled threads of their own crude fancies and imaginings. Hence we are much more inclined to pity than to censure, when we hear the poor creatures recount their dreams and visions about hell-hounds chasing them many a weary mile, with others equally apocryphal. But there is one thing which they always dwell on with peculiar delight, and in which there may be a grain of truth— that after death they are to be changed into white folks. Their idea of hell is, that the Devil is a black man, with horns and a forked tail, a raw-head-and-bloody-bones old fellow, who literally burns up the wicked with fire and brimstone. Their idea of heaven is, that in the New-Jerusalem they will walk along pavements of gold with silver slippers on, and blessed with straight hair and a fair complexion. And here we may remark, this consciousness of the superiority of the white man over the black seems to be pretty generally entertained by all negro races whatever, and is not by any means confined to our Southern slaves. The negroes in Africa told Dr. Livingstone that God made them first, but hated them because they turned out so ugly and black, and so left them to run about naked; but that He loved the white man, he was so fair to look upon, and in consequence gave him guns, houses, clothes, and books. So too were the poor pagans of Ethiopia much captivated with the Doctor's straight hair, just as our Southern slaves are always carding their own woolly-heads, twisting the wool out by means of cotton strings six days in the week, all for the glory of having it look straight like white folks' hair on Sunday! For verily no Broadway dandy could be more attentive to his own saponaceous curls than are some of the “Dandy Jims of Caroline” to their kinky wool.

But, notwithstanding the negroes are ignorant, and thousands of them use religion for a cloak simply, still multitudes of them are devout and pious, as well as intelligent Christians. In Savannah, Georgia, three colored pastors, with salaries from eight hundred to a thousand dollars, are supported by subscriptions and pew-rents among their own numbers. In 1853, fifteen thousand dollars were contributed by five thousand slaves in Charleston, to benevolent objects. These may serve as examples. A Northern writer was deeply interested in some prayer-meetings of slaves he attended; and furnishes us the following specimens of the prayers he heard: “Bless our dear masters and brothers who come here to read the Bible to us, and pay so much attention to us, though we ain't that sort of people as can interpret thy word in all its colors and forms.” “O my heavenly Father!” said an old man, “I am thy dear child. I know I love thee. Thou art my God, my portion, and nothing else. O my Father, I have no home in this world; my home is very far off. I long to see it. Jesus is there; thou art there; angels, good men are there. I am coming home. I am one day nearer to it.”

As a general rule, however, the old adage of “like master like man,” applies with as much truthfulness to the negroes in the South, as to the hired servants of other places. The slaves of a gentleman of good family, (we mean those who are accustomed to come into daily contact with their master,) are not only more intelligent than the mass of blacks, but are both polite and well-bred, and in a measure refined and aristocratic. They scorn to associate with common darkeys, and are given to all the airs and stately mannerisms of a Yellowplush or a Jenkins. Their chief ambition is to become master's waiting-man, or valet; or, in case of a female, lady's maid; next they would prefer to act as housekeeper, chambermaid, steward, dining-room servant, or groom, or better still, carriage-driver. This last is considered a post of great honor, and the negroes are all capital fellows with the whip, being immoderately fond of horse-flesh, but much fonder of showy trappings—the silk tassels, the silver-plated buckles, the plumes, the costly harness, et cetera, et cetera, which usually constitute a gentleman's equipage. Even to be wagoner, to drive the plantation mules and oxen, often becomes a fruitful source of rivalries and ill-feeling. But the chief ambition of a field hand, or plantation slave, is to become a headman. No king on his throne feels more his own importance, than does a big buck negro feel his, when he finds himself mounted on a sleek mule with close-cropped mane, and holding in his hand a stout New-England cow-skin, and having under his direct supervision a “gang” of from twenty to thirty fellow-slaves.

The slaves of persons of the middle class do not carry their heads quite so high as those who belong to the “raal quality,” but they are, as a general thing, from being brought into closer contact with their owners, more moral and tractable than the slaves of very wealthy gentlemen, when the latter live in “quarters” under the control of an overseer, and, in consequence, seldom enjoy the advantages of daily intercourse with educated white persons. The worst slaves, however, the most degraded, thieving, impudent, and utterly worthless, are those who belong to men in moderate circumstances. This may seem strange to many, but it is true in most cases nevertheless. Such slaves in the main, enjoy greater liberties than other negroes, are over-familiar with their masters, do not begin to work as hard as the latter, and the consequence is that they grow up to be sleek, and saucy, and rascally. They never feel the lash, even in infancy, are permitted to leave home at all times without a “pass,” and to run about at night pilfering from hen-roosts, pig-pens, and dairies; and even when caught by the “paterollers,” and basted as they deserve, ten chances to one but the ministers of the law are sued for damages by the indignant and too indulgent masters. In view of such facts, is it at all strange such spoiled and petted blacks should sometimes deflour a poor and friendless white girl, or even in a moment of uncurbed passion knock out their master's brains? For, singularly enough, nearly all the crimes of this nature are committed by negroes of the above class. And the worst of it is, just among such a class of slaves, in the mountainous districts of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia, the emissaries of Northern fanaticism are casting broadcast their incendiary firebrands; deluding the poor simple-minded blacks into a belief that, by murdering their masters and mistresses, they shall be raised to the condition of ladies and gentlemen themselves, with plenty of lands and money, and nothing to do but to eat and to sleep. And this too, despite the sad spectacle of Hayti, which, since the rule of the blacks began, has changed its form of government ten times, and from exporting, as a French slave colony, 225,687,952 lbs. of produce, has now actually to import sugar for its home consumption! Yet Wendell Phillips, in Beecher's church, Brooklyn, while making a saint of John Brown, for his murders in Kansas and Virginia, cited the bloody example of St. Domingo as the fairest page upon the scroll of time!! How eloquently did the pure Edward Everett reply to the frenzied madman in his great speech in Faneuil Hall; we quote his closing words:

“Sir, I have been admitted to the confidence of the domestic circle in all parts of the South, and I have seen there touching manifestations of the kindest feelings, by which that circle, in all its members, high and low, master and servant, can be bound together; and when I contemplate the horrors that would have ensued had the tragedy on which the curtain rose at Harper's Ferry been acted out, through all its scenes of fire and sword, of lust and murder, of rapine and desolation, to the final catastrophe, I am filled with emotions to which no words can do justice. There could, of course, be but one result, and that well deserving the thoughtful meditation of those, if any such there be, who think that the welfare of the colored race could by any possibility be promoted by the success of such a movement, and who are willing to purchase that result by so costly a sacrifice. The colored population of St. Domingo amounted to but little short of half a million while the whites amounted to only thirty thousand. The white population of the Southern States alone, in the aggregate, outnumbers the colored race in the ratio of two to one; in the Union at large, in the ratio of seven to one, and if (which Heaven avert) they should be brought into conflict, it could end only in the extermination of the latter after scenes of woe, for which language is too faint, and for which the liveliest fancy has no adequate images of horror.”