else to do but to talk about their neighbors; they will find no
difficulty in gathering up material, out of which, they could
manufacture as dark a tale as Uncle Tom's Cabin. The free negroes in
the North could furnish material for a shocking story! But, ah! it is
all a contemptibly low business; we had better quit talking about our
neighbors. There are the best of reasons why we should not give full
credence to village and neighborhood gossip, old women's stories, and
free negroes tales. What we see, feel, taste and smell, we know to be
true: and that is about all we do know. As for the remainder, it is as
the breeze which plays around us, or passes over our heads. It is
here, it is gone, and we know not from "whence it cometh, or whither
it goeth?" nor yet what pestiferous emanations might perchance float
in the current. The sooner we get rid of negro novels and village
gossip, and neighborhood slander, and busy-bodies, and idlers, and
loafers, and liars, and the whole crew, who have nothing else to do,
but to meddle with people's business, the better. God speed the day
when we shall all find better employment. But to return to the evils
of slavery.

Slavery is not an evil to those involved in it, under all
circumstances. There are circumstances, under which it may be a
blessing to the slave--and a blessing it would have proved to the
entire slave population in this country, if both masters and servants
had complied with the requisitions of the Bible. None are so much to
blame for the evils and hardships of slavery as the abolition party.
No! none! Not the slaveholders themselves. They have incited the
slaves to deeds for which they have been cruelly punished. In
consequence of their unwarrantable interference, slaves that were,
previous to such interference, pious, contented and happy, have become
discontented, impertinent and perverse, and have been too often