Soon ascertaining that such places were the best, and, excepting the public prints, the only resort to ascertain the latest intelligence, and to collect information respecting the movements of the black population, and the company, however exceptionable, being termed there respectable, I adopted the plan, on several successive evenings, of quietly smoking a cigar and listening to passing observations and remarks. Some of these were disgusting enough; so much so, that I will not offend my readers by repeating them. Suffice it to say, that any individual possessing the slightest pretensions to the name of gentleman, in any hotel I had visited in England, on indulging in the indecorous language I heard at these places, would, by a very summary process, have met with ejectment, without ceremony. Here, however, a laxity of moral feeling prevails, that stifles all sense of propriety; and scurrility, obscene language, and filthy jests, of which the coloured population are, I suppose, per force of habit, the principal butts, form the chief attractions of such places of resort to their vitiated frequenters.
In the course of these visits I was present at some angry altercations; one of these referred to the recent visit of an individual who was termed by the disputants an "incendiary abolitionist," and who, it appeared, had been detected in the act of distributing tracts, which had been published at Salem, in Massachusetts, exposing the disabilities the African race were labouring under. Extracts from one of these tracts were read, and appeared very much to increase the violence of the contending parties, one of whom insisted that the publication contained nothing but what might be read by every slave in the sacred Scriptures, and that, therefore, it could not be classed as dangerous, although he admitted that it contained notions of "human rights" that were calculated to imbue the mind of the "niggers" with unbecoming ideas. These sentiments did not at all accord with those of the company, and several expressions of doubt as to the soundness of the speaker's own pro-slavery principles, together with the increasing excitement, caused him to withdraw from the contest. His immediate antagonist, who was evidently the leading man on the occasion, enlarged on the danger attending the sufferance of such men at large in the slave states, and proceeded, with great volubility, to quote various passages from the Black Code to show that the Legislature had contemplated the intrusion of such pestilent fellows, and had, in fact, given full power to remedy the evil, if the citizens chose to exercise it; and went on to observe, that the rights of southern people were now-a-days invaded on every hand, and it behoved them to stand in their own defence, his advice, he said, was, if the municipal authorities let the fellow go, to form a committee of justice to adjudicate on the case, and if it was considered conducive to the public weal, to administer salutary punishment. This proposal was uproariously applauded, and four of the citizens present, with the last speaker for chairman, were named on the spot to watch the case. "And now," added this gentleman, "we'll have a gin sling round for success." I heard the day following that the individual who was the subject of the foregoing proceedings, was accused before the mayor, who dismissed the case with a caution, advising him to leave the city with all dispatch, to avoid disagreeable consequences. This the man, by the aid of a constable, managed to do, that functionary, no doubt for a consideration, taking him to the city prison, and locking him up until nightfall, when he was assisted to leave the place, disguised as a soldier. This, I was informed by a friend, to whom I afterwards related it, was one of those commotions that occur almost daily in southern towns and cities.
Such lawless frequenters of hotels, taverns, and cafés, form a kind of social police, and scarcely a stranger visits the place without his motives for the visit being canvassed, and his business often exposed, much to his great annoyance and inconvenience.
So accustomed do American travellers in the south appear, to this system of internal surveillance, that I several times noticed strangers at the hotel or café counters openly explaining the object of their visits, and if there is nothing to conceal, however annoying the alternative appears, I am convinced the policy is not had, a host of suspicions being silenced by such a course.
In my travels on the whole route from New York to Charleston, I discovered a most unjustifiable and impertinent disposition to pry into the business of others. If I was questioned once, I am sure I was at least fifty times, by my fellow—travellers from time to time as to my motive for visiting America, and my intended proceedings. I found, however', that a certain reserve was an efficient remedy. Captain Waterton, of South American celebrity, as an ornithologist, and who visited North America in his travels, mentions that if you confide your affairs and intentions when questioned, the Americans reciprocate that confidence by relating their own. My own experience, however, did not corroborate this view of the case, for, though loquacious in the extreme, and gifted, so that to use a Yankee phrase, they would "talk a dog's hind-leg off," they are in general cautious not to divulge their secrets. To say the least of it, the habit of prying into the business of others, is one totally unbecoming a well-ordered state of society, which the American, speaking generally, is decidedly not. It is extremely annoying, from the unpleasant feeling it excites, that you are suspected if not watched (this applies forcibly to the slave districts); and it is a habit that has arisen purely from the incongruity of society at large on the American continent, and a want of that subdivision of class that exists in Europe.
During my visits to the various hotels while I remained in Charleston, for the purpose of collecting information, I was several times interrogated in a barefaced manner by the visitors who frequent those places, as to my politics, and especially as to my principles in regard to the institution of slavery; now, as I was not unaware that my intimacy with the gentleman of colour, which I have already referred to, had got abroad, I was obliged to be extremely guarded in my replies on such occasions. It was on one of these that I felt myself in great hazard, for two individuals in the company were discussing with much energy, the question of amalgamation (that is, marriage, contracted between black and white men and women), and I was listening intently to their altercation, when suddenly one of them, eyeing me with malicious gaze, no doubt having noticed my attention to the colloquy, said,
"Your opinion, stranger, on this subject; I guess you understand it torrably well, as you seem to be pretty hard on B----'s eldest daughter." This unexpected sally rather alarmed me, for the name he mentioned was that of my coloured friend I have before alluded to, and whose daughter I had only met once, and that at her father's house.
I scarcely knew what to reply, but thought it best to put on a bold face, so facing the man, I thanked him with much irony for the inuendo, and said, it was a piece of impudence I thought very much like him from what I had overheard.
This was said in a resolute tone, and the fellow quailed before it, his reply being, "Now stranger, don't get angry, I saw you the other day at B----'s house, and could not tell what to make of it, but I hope you don't think that I was in arnest."
I replied to this, that I knew best what business I had at B----'s house, and that his plan was to mind his own business. I then left him, apparently highly indignant, but in fact glad to make my escape. Like bullies all the world over, the southern ones are cowards; there is, however, great danger here in embroiling yourself with such characters, the pistol and bowie knife being instantly resorted to if the quarrel becomes serious. I saw this braggart on several occasions afterwards, but he evidently kept aloof, and was disinclined to venture in the part of the room I occupied. I ascertained that he kept a dry goods store in King-street, and was a boisterous fellow, often involved in quarrels.