a subject of unique interest....

I say, our last Irish girl went with the last snow, and on one of those
midsummer-like days that sometimes fall in early April to our yet bleak
and desolate zone, our hearts sang of Africa and golden joys. A Libyan
longing took us, and we would have chosen, if we could, to bear a strand
of grotesque beads, or a handful of brazen gauds, and traffic them for
some sable maid with crisp locks, whom, uncoffling from the captive
train beside the desert, we should make to do our general housework
forever, through the right of lawful purchase. But we knew that this
was impossible, and that, if we desired colored help, we must seek it at
the intelligence office, which is in one of those streets chiefly
inhabited by the orphaned children and grandchildren of slavery. To tell
the truth these orphans do not seem to grieve much for their
bereavement, but lead a life of joyous, and rather indolent oblivion in
their quarter of the city. They are often to be seen sauntering up and
down the street by which the Charlesbridge cars arrive,--the young with
a harmless swagger, and the old with the generic limp which our Autocrat
has already noted as attending advanced years in their race.... How
gayly are the young ladies of this race attired, as they trip up and
down the side-walks, and in and out through the pendent garments at the
shop-doors! They are the black pansies and marigolds and dark-blooded
dahlias among womankind. They try to assume something of our colder
race's demeanor, but even the passer on the horse-car can see that it is
not native with them, and is better pleased when they forget us, and
ungenteelly laugh in encountering friends, letting their white teeth
glitter through the generous lips that open to their ears. In the
streets branching upward from this avenue, very little colored men and
maids play with broken or enfeebled toys, or sport on the wooden
pavements of the entrances to the inner courts. Now and then a colored