Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/157

Rh going South; these are always the worst of mistresses. I remember a colored woman who was raised in Cincinnati, and her parents and family now live in the midst of our city; she is now a slave-holder in the city of New Orleans; the most tyranical, overbearing, cruel task-mistress that ever existed; so you can see color makes no difference, the propensities are the same, and those who have been oppressed themselves, are the sorest oppressors. It is a well known fact, those who are as black themselves as the ace of spades will, if they can, get mulatoes for slaves, and then the first word is "my nigger."

In the South, both whites and blacks, if they have but one garment to their back, must have a servant. I was a good deal amused one day to hear a dispute between a white and a colored woman; the colored woman was from New York, but was very wealthy, having accumulated quite a little fortune; the white woman was also from the North, and she had not been so fortunate in worldly matters: their dispute commenced on politics, and the white woman at length got so angry with some remarks of the other, that she started for the house, while in a voice quivering with passion, exclaimed, I dont care, I have the law on my side if you have the money, while the other laughingly replied, excuse me madam, I have both. Notwithstanding there is so much hatred between the two colors, and so much enmity exists, they will associate much more so in the slave States than in the free States. There is a great deal of sociability between the free colored and the rich whites in the slave States, but when you come to the lower orders of both, there is decided enmity. I will give you a little instance