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Show • I --......... - 74 NOT BS ON views-concur in describing the gcncraJ condition of the Southern slave as one of comparative happiness and_ comfort, such. as many a free man in the United Kingdom tmght regard wtth envy. One authori£y on this point is too unportant to be overlooked. In the year 18,12 a Scotch weaver, n.med William Thomson, travelled through the Southern States. He supported himself on the wa.y by manual labour; he mixed with the humblest classes, black and whtte, anU on his return home he published an account of his journe!ings. lie had quitted Scotland a sworn ha.tcr of. slave ~ro~nctors, but he confessed that experience had modtfied hts vtews on this subject to a considerable degree. lie bad witnessed slavery in most of the sbvcholding States, he had lived for weeks among negroes in cotton pla.ntn.tions, and he _asserted that he had never beheld one-fifth of the real suffenng that be bad seen among the labouring poor in England. Nay more, he declared- "' 'l1hat the members of the same family of negroes are not so much scattered as arc those of working men in Scotland, whose necessities compel them to separate at an age when the American slave is running about gathering health and strength.' . "~,llen years hn.vc not increased the hardsl11ps of tho Southern slave. During that period colonization has ~orne to his relief-education has, legally or illegally, found tts way to his cabin, and Christianity has added _spiritual .~onsolations to his allowed, admitted physical enJoyments. Such are the admissions of the opponents of slavery. Dut it is said the negroes on the sugar estates arc exceptions, especially in the "sugar season ;" that they arc then worked beyond their strength without regard to consequences. Now so far is this from being the case, that the negro~s themselves look forward to the time with pleasurabl~ anttet· pation; it is to them a harrest-homc, a frolic, hkc our UXCLB TOM'S C.ADIN. 75 Northern "huskings." True the work goes on through the whole twenty-four hours; it must or the sugar could not be made, but the negroes work by relays, and so far are they from being overworked, that they come out from it, at the end of the season, "fat and well-liking." The truth is, this story is of a piece with a good many others invented by the Abolitionists, and which they have told so long that they have at last come to believe them without stopping to consider how incredible they might be: Credo, quia impossibile est, being apparently their motto. Let one example serve for all : "'fhe following amusing scene," s:1ys the llolly Springs, Miss., correspondent of the Memphis Eagle and Inquirer, "actually occurred last summer between a citizen of our town and a Yankee on board one of the Northern steam~ boats:- " Our Southern friend discovered a disposition in a very gentle looking man on board the boat to open a chat with him, and nothing loth to bear what his friend wished to say, indicated by his manner that he was approachable, whereupon the following dialogue ensued: "Yankee.-\Vr11, sir, I wish to ask you a. question; I hope it will be no ofl(mce. "Soutlwrner.-Ccrtainly not; I will hear you with plea· sure. " Yanlcee.-,Vcll, sir, is it true, that they work negroes in the plough at the South? "Southerne1'.-l will answer you in the favourite method of your own countrymen, by asking you a. question or two. " Yankee.-I admit the right, sir. " So,.t/wrncr.-IIow many negro fellows do you suppose it would require to dr"v a good largo one-horse plough? " ·Yankee.-,Vell, I suppose six or seven-say scveu. "Solttlterner.-What are they worth per head? |