Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/173

Rh class? no, they do not, for I have seen them in a cotton patch or tobacco field, and if anything went wrong the worst word of contempt they could have is, "too good for poor white people." I do not blame them, as mean masters always try to employ the most degraded men they can get, without either feeling or principle, or some old pet slave who has been badly treated himself, and will do anything to curry favor, as an overseer.

I saw, a few days ago, a notice in the papers, burlesquing the American officers for dancing with the Haytian natives, because they were black. Have I not seen as fine gentlemen as can be found in North, South, East or West, dance with ladies from snow white to jet black, and think nothing of it?

I will now tell you of a colored person who visits this State, whose husband lives in Mississippi, and they figure largely at the North, and when this person enters a store in Natchez or New Orleans, every clerk rushes to wait on her, on account of the influence of the man she lives with. She has two accomplished daughters, whom she occasionally brings to spend the summer in our State, and spends the winter down South. Her cruelty to her slaves was such, although once a slave herself, she was not permitted to stay in Natchez and she had to make her head-quarters in New Orleans. She was so cruel to her servants that they undertook to burn her alive by setting fire to the room below the one she slept in; she had just time to jump on the balcony to save her life, and although she tried to make her escape, she was arrested, and was not so fortunate as one of her head servants, who, during her absence, collected all the rents, and taking all 15