the nice, pleasant person, who came to measure me for my silk, was
going to take it home and make it herself; it never occurred to me
that she was the head of an establishment.

And now, what am I to do? The Times seems to think that, in order to
be consistent, I ought to take up the conflict immediately; but, for
my part, I think otherwise. What an unreasonable creature! Does he
suppose me so lost to all due sense of humility as to take out of his
hands a cause which he is pleading so well? If the plantation slaves
had such a good friend as the Times, and if every over-worked female
cotton picker could write as clever letters as this dressmaker's
apprentice, and get them published in as influential papers, and
excite as general a sensation by them as this seems to have done, I
think I should feel that there was no need of my interfering in a work
so much better done. Unfortunately, our female cotton pickers do not
know how to read and write, and it is against the law to teach them;
and this instance shows that the law is a sagacious one, since,
doubtless, if they could read and write, most embarrassing
communications might be made.

Nothing shows more plainly, to my mind, than this letter, the
difference between the working class of England and the slave. The
free workman or workwoman of England or America, however poor, is
self-respecting; is, to some extent, clever and intelligent; is
determined to resist wrong, and, as this incident shows, has abundant
means for doing so.

When we shall see the columns of the Charleston Courier adorned with
communications from cotton pickers and slave seamstresses, we shall
then think the comparison a fair one. In fact, apart from the