physical evils will abound. Well-being, freedom, and industry induce
self-respect, self-respect induces cleanliness and personal attention, so
that slavery is answerable for all the evils that exhibit themselves where
it exists--from lying, thieving, and adultery, to dirty houses, ragged
clothes, and foul smells.

But to return to our Ganymedes. One of them--the eldest son of our
laundrywoman, and Mary's brother, a boy of the name of Aleck
(Alexander)--is uncommonly bright and intelligent; he performs all the
offices of a well-instructed waiter with great efficiency, and anywhere
out of slave land would be able to earn fourteen or fifteen dollars a
month for himself; he is remarkably good tempered and well disposed. The
other poor boy is so stupid that he appears sullen from absolute darkness
of intellect; instead of being a little lower than the angels, he is
scarcely a little higher than the brutes, and to this condition are
reduced the majority of his kind by the institutions under which they
live. I should tell you that Aleck's parents and kindred have always been
about the house of the overseer, and in daily habits of intercourse with
him and his wife; and wherever this is the case the effect of involuntary
education is evident in the improved intelligence of the degraded race.
In a conversation which Mr. ---- had this evening with Mr. O----, the
overseer, the latter mentioned that two of our carpenters had in their
leisure time made a boat, which they had disposed of to some neighbouring
planter for sixty dollars.

Now, E----, I have no intention of telling you a one-sided story, or
concealing from you what are cited as the advantages which these poor
people possess; you, who know that no indulgence is worth simple justice,
either to him who gives or him who receives, will not thence conclude that
their situation thus mitigated is, therefore, what it should be. On this