[19] Not something to eat but punishment with an instrument like a ferule.
[20] The Richmond American has a letter from Raleigh, N.C., dated Sept. 18, which says: “On yesterday morning, a beautiful young lady, Miss Virginia Frost, daughter of Austin Frost, an engineer on the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad, and residing in this city, was shot by a negro girl, and killed instantly. Cause—reproving her for insolent language.”
[21] In the city of Columbia, S.C., the police are required to prevent the negroes from running in this way after the military. Any negro neglecting to leave the vicinity of a parade, when ordered by a policeman or any military officer, is required, by the ordinance, to be whipped at the guard-house.
[22] A ship’s officer told me that he had noticed that it took just about three times as long to have the same repairs made in Norfolk that it did in New York.
[23] “Old Man” is a common title of address to any middle-aged negro in Virginia whose name is not known. “Boy” and “Old Man” may be applied to the same person. Of course, in this case, the slave is not to be supposed to be beyond his prime of strength.
[24] I have since seen a pack of negro-dogs, chained in couples, and probably going to the field. They were all of a breed, and in appearance between a Scotch stag-hound and a fox-hound.
[25] A South Carolina View of the Subject. (Correspondence of Willis’s Musical World, New York.)—“Charlestown, Dec. 31.—I take advantage of the season of compliments (being a subscriber to your invaluable sheet), to tender you this scrap, as a reply to a piece in your paper of the 17th ult., with the caption: ‘Intolerance of coloured persons in New York.’ The piece stated that up-town families (in New York) objected to hiring coloured persons as servants, in consequence of ‘conductors and drivers refusing to let them ride in city cars and omnibuses,’ and coloured boys, at most, may ride on the top. And after dwelling on this, you say, ‘Shame on such intolerant and outrageous prejudice and persecution of the coloured race at the North!’ You then say, ‘Even the slaveholder would cry shame upon us.’ You never made a truer assertion in your life. For you first stated that they were even rejected when they had white children in their arms. My dear friend, if this was the only persecution that your coloured people were compelled to yield submission to, then I might say nothing. Are they allowed (if they pay) to sit at the tables of your fashionable hotels? Are they allowed a seat in the ‘dress circle’ at your operas? Are they not subject to all kinds of ill-treatment from the whites? Are they not pointed at, and hooted at, by the whites (natives of the city), when dressed up a little extra, and if they offer a reply, are immediately overpowered by gangs of whites? You appear to be a reasonable writer, which is the reason I put these queries, knowing they can only be answered in the affirmative.
“We at the South feel proud to allow them to occupy seats in our omnibuses (public conveyances), while they, with the affection of mothers, embrace our white children, and take them to ride. And in our most fashionable carriages, you will see the slave sitting alongside of their owner. You will see the slave clothed in the most comfortable of wearing apparel. And more. Touch that slave, if you dare, and you will see the owner’s attachment. And thus, in a very few words, you have the contrast between the situation of the coloured people at the North and South. Do teach the detestable Abolitionist of the North his duty, and open his eyes to the misery and starvation that surround his own home. Teach him to love his brethren of the South, and teach him to let Slavery alone in the South, while starvation and destitution surround him at the North; and oblige,
“Baron.”
[26] The mother of this young man remonstrated with a friend of mine, for permitting his son to join a company of civil engineers, engaged, at the time, in surveying a route for a road—he would be subject to such fatiguing labour, and so much exposure to the elements; and congratulated herself that her own child was engaged in such an easy and gentleman-like employment as that of hotel-clerk and bar keeper.