questionable sport. Then too, they hiss, and spit, and swear at one, and
are altogether devilish in their aspect and demeanour; nor are they good
for food, except, as Jack with much humility said this morning, for
coloured folks--'Good for coloured folks, missis; me 'spect not good
enough for white people.' That 'spect, meaning _ex_pect, has sometimes a
possible meaning of _sus_pect, which would give the sentence in which it
occurs a very humorous turn, and I always take the benefit of that
interpretation. After exhausting the charms of our occupation, finding
that cat-fish were likely to be our principal haul, I left the river and
went my rounds to the hospitals. On my way I encountered two batches of
small black fry, Hannah's children and poor Psyche's children, looking
really as neat and tidy as children of the bettermost class of artisans
among ourselves. These people are so quick and so imitative that it would
be the easiest thing in the world to improve their physical condition by
appealing to their emulative propensities. Their passion for what is
_genteel_ might be used most advantageously in the same direction; and
indeed, I think it would be difficult to find people who offered such a
fair purchase by so many of their characteristics to the hand of the
reformer.

Returning from the hospital I was accosted by poor old Teresa, the
wretched negress who had complained to me so grievously of her back being
broken by hard work and child-bearing. She was in a dreadful state of
excitement, which she partly presently communicated to me, because she
said Mr. O---- had ordered her to be flogged for having complained to me
as she did. It seems to me that I have come down here to be tortured, for
this punishing these wretched creatures for crying out to me for help is
really converting me into a source of increased misery to them. It is
almost more than I can endure to hear these horrid stories of lashings
inflicted because I have been invoked; and though I dare say Mr. ----,