to give, many a poor slave was enabled to escape from the clutches of his
pursuers.

The house in which they were employed was the great resort of Southerners,
who occasionally brought with them their slippery property; and it
frequently happened that these disappeared from the premises to parts
unknown, aided in their flight by the very waiters who would afterwards
exhibit the most profound ignorance as to their whereabouts. Such of the
Southerners as brought no servants with them were made to contribute,
unconsciously and most amusingly, to the escape of those of their friends.

When a gentleman presented himself at the bar wearing boots entirely too
small for him, with his hat so far down upon his forehead as almost to
obscure his eyes, and whose mouth was filled with oaths and tobacco, he was
generally looked upon as a favourable specimen to operate upon; and if he
cursed the waiters, addressed any old man amongst them as "boy," and was
continually drinking cock-tails and mint-juleps, they were sure of their
man; and then would tell him the most astonishing and distressing tales of
their destitution, expressing, almost with tears in their eyes, their deep
desire to return to their former masters; whilst perhaps the person from
whose mouth this tale of woe proceeded had been born in a neighbouring
street, and had never been south of Mason and Dixon's[*] line. This
flattering testimony in favour of "the peculiar institution" generally had
the effect of extracting a dollar or two from the purse of the sympathetic
Southerner; which money went immediately into the coffers of the Vigilance
Committee.

[Footnote *: The line dividing the free from the slave states.]

It was this course of conduct they were about to pursue with Mr. Winston;