Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/143

Rh town, and everywhere I could go. While staying at Mr. H.'s, I observed their treatment of their servants was far more kind than that of many ladies in the Eastern States, although they had it in their power to be kind or unkind; while in the East they are compelled to be kind at all times, or their servants will not stay with them. But you might well ask, how long did this kindness last I After a while a change came over Mr. H.; sometimes he would be very good, and at others very severe. I was very sorry to hear it, for he had been so kind to them that I knew they could not nor would not stand bad treatment. He did not treat them as many treat their servants.

Mr. H. had one particular body servant, whom he treated as a companion, except that he did not eat, drink or sleep with him. No matter where he went, up town, down town, or in the country, they were inseparable.

Almost all gentlemen in Louisiana and Mississippi have favorite body servants, and they are always very kind to them, more particularly so than to any other servant. As regarded Mr. H., I can testify to his kindness to his servants that season, and as to myself, I was treated more like a guest than a person who was dependant on the public for a livelihood.

Some years passed over. I frequently visited Natchez, and found Mr. H. and family much the same; his wife as lovely as ever. It happened that, from some cause unknown, Mr. H. fell out with his body servant and chained him to a log of wood, and whipped him severely. He went out the next day to repeat the dose, when the despised slave, enraged at the treatment, broke loose from the log, seized it, and