enervating effect of their warm climate. It is undoubtedly a most
relaxing and unhealthy one, and therefore requires the more imperatively
to be met by energetic and invigorating habits both of body and mind. Of
these, however, the southern ladies appear to have, at present, no very
positive idea. Doctor ---- told us to-day of a comical application which
his negro man had made to him for the coat he was then wearing. I forget
whether the fellow wanted the loan, or the absolute gift of it, but his
argument was (it might have been an Irishman's) that he knew his master
intended to give it to him by and by, and that he thought he might as
well let him have it at once, as keep him waiting any longer for it.
This story the Doctor related with great glee, and it furnishes a very
good sample of what the Southerners are fond of exhibiting, the degree
of licence to which they capriciously permit their favourite slaves
occasionally to carry their familiarity. They seem to consider it as an
undeniable proof of the general kindness with which their dependents are
treated. It is as good a proof of it as the maudlin tenderness of a fine
lady to her lap-dog is of her humane treatment of animals in general.
Servants whose claims to respect are properly understood by themselves
and their employers, are not made pets, playthings, jesters, or
companions of, and it is only the degradation of the many that admits of
this favouritism to the few--a system of favouritism which, as it is
perfectly consistent with the profoundest contempt and injustice,
degrades the object of it quite as much, though it oppresses him less,
than the cruelty practised upon his fellows. I had several of these
favourite slaves presented to me, and one or two little negro children,
who their owners assured me were quite pets. The only real service which
this arbitrary goodwill did to the objects of it was quite involuntary
and unconscious on the part of their kind masters--I mean the inevitable
improvement in intelligence, which resulted to them from being more
constantly admitted to the intercourse of the favoured white race.