the middle of the stream, out of reach of his tormentors, who, I quite
believe, would have administered more severe lynch-law if they could
have got hold of him, for their passions were wrought up to the highest
pitch of excitement. One feature in the scene I could not help
remarking--the negroes all appeared in high glee, and many of them
actually danced with joy. I did not wonder at this, for the negroes
always seemed to exult if a white man was in disgrace; which, after all,
is no more than might be expected from a class of men tyrannized over as
the coloured people are there, and is one of the results of the
oppressive system that exacts everything that human labour can furnish,
without remuneration, and without (in by far the greater number of
instances) any approach to sympathy or grateful feeling. This alone,
without taking into consideration the outrages inflicted on the race by
their cruel oppressors, supplies a sufficient cause for such a tendency,
if every other were wanting.

Passing through the principal street the day before I left St Louis, an
assembly of men, chiefly overseers and negro dealers, who stood at the
entrance of a large store, attracted my attention. Large placards, with
a description of various lots of negroes to be submitted to public
competition, soon told me I should now be able to gratify my curiosity
by witnessing a Missouri slave-vendue. A man with a bell, which he rang
most energetically at the door, shortly after summoned the company, the
auction being about to commence. On a table inside, a negress, of a
little over middle age, was standing, vacantly gazing with grief-worn
countenance on the crowd that now thronged to the table. On the floor
stood two children, of about the ages of ten and thirteen respectively.
The auctioneer, with the customary volubility of such men in America,
began by stating, that the lots now to be offered were the remnants of a
preceding sale, which he gratuitously observed had been a most